Be thankful for the smallest blessing and you will deserve to receive greater. Value the least gifts no less than the greatest, and simple graces as especial favors. If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no gift will seem small or mean.
–Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
We must also be firmly convinced from the start that, if we fight courageously and do not allow ourselves to be beaten, we shall get what we want, and there is no doubt that, however small our gains may be, they will make us very rich. Do not be afraid that the Lord Who has called us to drink of this spring will allow you to die of thirst.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Your Lord is Love:
love Him and in Him all men,
as His children in Christ.
Your Lord is a fire:
do not let your heart be cold,
but burn with faith and love.
Your Lord is light:
do not walk in darkness of mind,
without reasoning or understanding, or without faith.
Your Lord is a God of mercy and bountifulness:
be a source of mercy and bountifulness to your neighbors.
If you will be such, you will find salvation yourself with everlasting glory.
–Saint John of Kronstadt (1829-1908)
With God, the more one seems to lose the more one gains. The more He strikes off of what is natural, the more He gives of what is supernatural. He is loved at first for His gifts, but when these are no longer perceptible He is at last loved for Himself. It is by the apparent withdrawal of these sensible gifts that He prepares the way for that great gift which is the most precious and the most extensive of all, since it embraces all others.
–Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751)
Then, by the virtue of love, is the lover transformed in the beloved and the beloved is transformed in the lover, and like unto hard iron which so assumes the color, heat, virtue, and form of the fire that it almost turns into fire, so does the soul, united with God through the perfect grace of divine love, itself almost become divine and transformed in God.
–Blessed Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)
