Inordinate love of the flesh is cruelty, because under the appearance of pleasing the body we kill the soul. Take even bread with moderation, lest an overloaded stomach make you weary of prayer.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Weakness of the body also breaks the powers of the soul and makes the talent of the mind to grow feeble; nor can it accomplish anything good by its weakness. Enough of this excess! For whatever is done without moderation is salutary, but whatever is done immoderately is dangerous and turns to the opposite. It is proper, therefore, to be moderate and temperate in every work. For whatever is excessive is dangerous; just as water, if it bestows too much rain, not only has no use, but also brings danger.
–Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)
Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others. Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you.
–Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)
God is in the detached heart, in the silence of prayer, in the voluntary sacrifice to pain, in the emptiness of the world and its creatures. God is in the Cross, and as long as we do not love the Cross, we will not see him, or feel him… With Jesus at my side nothing seems difficult to me, and I see more that the road to sanctity is simple. Better still, it seems to me that it consists in continuing to get rid of things instead of collecting them, in slowly boiling down to simplicity instead of becoming complicated with new things. In the measure that we detach ourselves from so much disordered love for creatures and for ourselves, it seems to me that we are getting closer and closer to the only love, the sole desire, the one longing of this life…to true sanctity, which is God.
–Blessed Rafael Arnaiz Baron (1911-1938)
Your life consists in drawing nearer to God. To do this you must endeavor to detach yourself from visible things and remember that in a short time they will be taken from you.
–Saint John of Avila (1500-1569)
To reach satisfaction in all, desire its possession in nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing.
–Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)
