How sweet it is to die if one has lived on the Cross!
When our hands have touched spices, they give fragrance to all they handle. Let us make our prayers pass through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. She will make them fragrant.
Upon receiving Holy Communion, the Adorable Blood of Jesus Christ really flows in our veins and His Flesh is really blended with ours.
If only we could see the joy of our guardian angel when he sees us fighting our temptations!
The saints had no hatred, no bitterness; they forgive everything and think they deserve much more for their offenses against God.
Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.
Envy, my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us.
We ought to ask the Blessed Virgin, the angels, and the saints to pray for us that we may receive the good God as worthily as it is possible for us to receive him.
If you are attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely necessary for life.
See, my children, a person who is in a state of sin is always sad. Whatever he does, he is weary and disgusted with every thing; while he who is at peace with God is always happy, always joyous. . . Oh, beautiful life! Oh, beautiful death!
The virtue of obedience makes the will supple... It inspires the courage with which to fulfill the most difficult tasks.
Put a good bunch of grapes under the winepress, and a delicious juice will come out. Under the winepress of the cross, our soul produces a juice that feeds and strengthens us. When we haven't got any crosses, we are dry. If we carry them with resignation, what happiness, what sweetness we feel!
Yes, my dear children, everything is good and precious in God's sight when we act from the motives of religion and of charity because Jesus Christ tells us that a glass of water would not go unrewarded. You see, therefore, my children, that although we may be quite poor, we can still easily give alms.
The man of impure speech is a person whose lips are but an opening and a supply pipe which hell uses to vomit its impurities upon the earth.
When we receive Holy Communion, we experience something extraordinary - a joy, a fragrance, a well-being that thrills the whole body and causes it to exalt.
Sin is the assassin of the soul.
When we have been to Holy Communion, the balm of love envelops the soul as the flower envelops the bee.
A pure soul is like a fine pearl. As long as it is hidden in the shell, at the bottom of the sea, no one thinks of admiring it. But if you bring it into the sunshine, this pearl will shine and attract all eyes. Thus the pure soul, which is hidden from the eyes of the world, will one day shine before the Angels in the sunshine of eternity.
Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater - no, nothing, nothing!
I thought a time would come when people would rout me out of Ars with sticks, when the Bishop would suspend me, and I should end my days in prison. I see, however, that I am not worthy of such a grace.
The pure soul is a beautiful rose, and the Three Divine Persons descend from Heaven to inhale its fragrance.
Shall we all be saved? Shall we go to Heaven? Alas, my children, we do not know at all! But I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter.
Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!
Christian wife! Follow in the footsteps of the ideal of all womanhood, the Blessed Mother of God; in joy and in sorrow, she will be your advocate at the throne of her Son.
There were two saints in the desert, who had sewed thorns into all their clothes; and we seek for nothing but comfort!
