"A Literature, when it is formed, is a national and historical fact; it is a matter of the past and the present, and can be as little ignored as the present, as little undone as the past. We can deny, supersede, or change it, then only, when we can do the same towards the race … Continue reading Words of the Saints – St. John Henry Newman on Literature
Quote of the Day
Words of the Saints: Saint Francis de Sales on Anxiety
Book IV, Chapter II of Introduction to the Devout Life (emph. mine): "Anxiety of mind is not so much an abstract temptation, as the source whence various temptations arise. Sadness, when defined, is the mental grief we feel because of our involuntary ailments;—whether the evil be exterior, such as poverty, sickness or contempt; or interior, … Continue reading Words of the Saints: Saint Francis de Sales on Anxiety
Words of the Saints: St. Patrick
From his Confessio: "So be amazed, all you people great and small who fear God! You well-educated people in authority, listen and examine this carefully. Who was it who called one as foolish as I am from the middle of those who are seen to be wise and experienced in law and powerful in speech … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. Patrick
Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Modernism
From one of future-Cardinal Newman's Tracts for the Times (written while he was still an Anglican) “Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshaling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Modernism
Words of the Saints – St. Alphonsus Liguori on Death
All confess that they must die, and die but once; and that there is nothing of greater consequence than this; for our eternal happiness or our eternal unhappiness depends upon the moment of death. We all know a happy or an unhappy death depends upon the life we have led. And yet, how is it … Continue reading Words of the Saints – St. Alphonsus Liguori on Death
Words of the Saints: St. Francis Meets the Sultan
The same sultan submitted this problem to [Francis]: “Your Lord taught in his gospels that evil must not be repaid with evil, that you should not refuse your cloak to anyone who wants to take your tunic, etc. (Mt 5,40): All the more Christians should not invade our land!”. And Blessed Francis answered: “It seems to … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. Francis Meets the Sultan
Words of the Saints: St. Augustine on Beauty
"Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. Augustine on Beauty
Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Miracles
The below comes (now, try to stay with me) from one of the appendices of Cardinal Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, in which, to respond to the criticisms of Charles Kingsley, he quotes at length a passage in an earlier work of his discussing miracles. The words below are from that passage: "There is in … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Miracles
Quote of the Day: Dorothy Sayers
"For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armour was never so necessary."-Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning
Quotation of the Day
"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him … Continue reading Quotation of the Day
Serpent's Den 