South Africa Needs Our Lady

South Africa Needs Our Lady

Winning the heart and soul of South Africa for Mary by spreading the Fatima Message

Winning the heart and soul of South Africa for Mary by spreading the Fatima Message

Quotes

Quotes of St John Vianney

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  1. Do not try to please everybody. Try to please God, the angels, and the saints – they are your public.
  2. There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us.
  3. When the heart is pure and simple it cannot help loving, because it has discovered the source of love which is God.
  4. God commands you to pray, but forbids you to worry.
  5. A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.
  6. All that we do without offering it to God is wasted.
  7. The sign of the cross is the most terrible weapon against the devil. Thus the Church wishes not only that we have it continually in front of our minds to recall to us just what our souls are worth and what they cost Jesus Christ, but also that we should make it at every juncture ourselves: when we go to bed, when we awaken during the night, when we get up, when we begin any action, and, above all, when we are tempted.
  8. If you invoke the Blessed Virgin when you are tempted, she will come at once to your help, and Satan will leave you.
  9. The Lord is more anxious to forgive our sins than a woman is to carry her baby out of a burning building.
  10. Our Guardian Angels are our most faithful friends, because they are with us day and night, always and everywhere. We ought often to invoke them.
  11. Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.
  12. On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight – we cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses, and make use of them to take us to heaven?
  13. My little children, your hearts, are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the souls and makes all things sweet. When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun.
  14. We put pride into everything like salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them. The saints were not like that – they were vexed if their virtues were known, and pleased that their imperfections should be seen.
  15. You either belong wholly to the world or wholly to God.
  16. How happy is that guardian angel who accompanies a soul to Holy Mass!
  17. Almighty God sends no trial without consolation.
  18. Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.
  19. If people would do for God what they do for the world, what a great number of Christians would go to Heaven.
  20. The Devil writes down our sins – our Guardian Angel all our merits. Labor that the Guardian Angel’s book may be full, and the Devil’s empty.
  21. 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.
  22. Upon receiving Holy Communion, the Adorable Blood of Jesus Christ really flows in our veins and His Flesh is really blended with ours.
  23. 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.
  24. If you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good Angel and charge him to pray in your stead.
  25. 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!
  26. Humility is like a pair of scales: the lower one side falls, the higher rises the other. Let us humble ourselves like the Blessed Virgin and we shall be exalted.
  27. The virtue of obedience makes the will supple… It inspires the courage with which to fulfill the most difficult tasks.
  28. 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.
  29. Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.
  30. Have you been working on Sunday? Have you been buying or selling without necessity in the course of this holy day? Give to the poor some alms which will exceed the profit you have made.

 

Quotes from Saints about the Holy Souls in Purgatory

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“I come to tell you that they suffer in Purgatory, that they weep, and that they demand with urgent cries the help of your prayers and your good works. I seem to hear them crying from the depths of those fires which devour them: ‘Tell our loved ones, tell our children, tell all our relatives how great the evils are which they are making us suffer. We throw ourselves at their feet to implore the help of their prayers. Ah! Tell them that since we have been separated from them, we have been here burning in the flames!’” – St. John Vianney

“It is definite that only a few chosen ones do not go to Purgatory and the sufferings there that one must endure exceed our imagination.” – St. John Vianney

“I do not think that apart from the felicity of Heaven, there can be a joy comparable to that experienced by the souls in Purgatory. An incessant communication from God renders their joy more vivid from day to day: and this communication becomes more and more intimate, to the extent that it consumes the obstacles still existing in the soul… On the other hand, they endure pain so intense, that no tongue is able to describe it. Nor is any mind capable of comprehending the smallest spark of that consuming fire, unless God should show it to him by a special grace.” – St. Catherine of Siena

“The more one longs for a thing, the more painful does deprivation of it become. And because after this life, the desire for God, the Supreme Good, is intense in the souls of the just (because this impetus toward Him is not hampered by the weight of the body, and that time of enjoyment of the Perfect Good would have come) had there been no obstacle; the soul suffers enormously from the delay.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

“If only you knew with what great longing these holy souls yearn for relief from their suffering. Ingratitude has never entered Heaven.” – St. Margaret Mary

“The fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of Hell; the difference between them is that the fire of Purgatory is not everlasting.” – St. John Vianney

“He who saves a soul saves his own and satisfies for a multitude of sins.” – St. James the Apostle

“If, during life, we have been kind to the suffering souls in purgatory, God will see that help be not denied us after death.” – St. Paul of the Cross

“By assisting them we shall not only give great pleasure to God, but will acquire also great merit for ourselves. And, in return for our suffrages, these blessed souls will not neglect to obtain for us many graces from God, but particularly the grace of eternal life. I hold for certain that a soul delivered from Purgatory by the suffrages of a Christian, when she enters paradise, will not fail to say to God: ‘Lord, do not suffer to be lost that person who has liberated me from the prison of Purgatory, and has brought me to the enjoyment of Thy glory sooner than I have deserved.’” – St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

“My love urges Me to release the poor souls. If a beneficent king leaves his guilty friend in prison for justice’s sake, he awaits with longing for one of his nobles to plead for the prisoner and to offer something for his release. Then the king joyfully sets him free. Similarly, I accept with highest pleasure what is offered to Me for the poor souls, for I long inexpressibly to have near Me those for whom I paid so great a price. By the prayers of thy loving soul, I am induced to free a prisoner from purgatory as often as thou dost move thy tongue to utter a word of prayer!” – Our Lord to St. Gertrude

“If it were but known how great is the power of the good souls in Purgatory with the Heart of God, and if we knew all the graces we can obtain through their intercession, they would not be so much forgotten. We must, therefore, pray much for them, that they may pray much for us.” – St. John Vianney

“Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice (Job 1:5), why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.” – St. John Chrysostom

“The practice of recommending to God the souls in Purgatory, that He may mitigate the great pains which they suffer, and that He may soon bring them to His glory, is most pleasing to the Lord and most profitable to us. For these blessed souls are His eternal spouses, and most grateful are they to those who obtain their deliverance from prison, or even a mitigation of their torments. When, therefore, they arrive in Heaven, they will be sure to remember all who have prayed for them.” – St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

“As we enter Heaven, we will see them, so many of them, coming towards us and thanking us. We will ask who they are, and they will say ‘a poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.’” – Ven. Fulton Sheen

“We must empty Purgatory with our prayers.” – St. Pio of Pietrelcina

“No one is barred from heaven. Whoever wants to enter heaven may do so because God is merciful. Our Lord will welcome us into glory with His arms wide open. The Almighty is pure however, and if a person is conscious of the least trace of imperfection and at the same time understands that Purgatory is ordained to do away with such impediments, the soul enters this place of perfection gladly to accept so great a mercy of God. The worst suffering of these suffering souls is to have sinned against Divine Goodness and not to have been purified in this life.” – St. Catherine of Genoa

“With Charity towards the dead we practice all the works of charity. The Church encourages us to aid the souls in purgatory, who in turn will reward us abundantly when they come into their glory.” – St. Francis de Sales

“Each one will be presented to the Judge exactly as he was when he departed this life. Yet there must be a cleansing fire before judgement because of some minor faults that may remain to be purged away.” – Pope St. Gregory the Great

“In our prayers, let us not forget sinners and the poor souls in Purgatory especially our poor relatives.” – St. Bernadette

Quotes of St John Bosco

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Quotes of St John Bosco

 

  1. Whatever you do, think of the Glory of God as your main goal.
  2. Do not try to excuse your faults; try to correct them.
  3. Run, jump, shout, but do not sin.
  4. We do not go to Holy Communion because we are good; we go to become good.
  5. Enjoy yourself as much as you like – if only you keep from sin.
  6. Health is God’s great gift, and we must spend it entirely for Him. Our eyes should see only for God, our feet walk only for Him, our hands labour for Him alone; in short, our entire body should serve God while we still have the time. Then, when He shall take our health and we shall near our last day, our conscience will not reproach us for having misused it.
  7. The principle trap that the devil sets for young people is idleness.
  8. Be good. This will make your angel happy. When sorrows and misfortunes, physical or spiritual, afflict you, turn to your guardian angel with strong trust and he will help you.
  9. The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of the good.
  10. Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous snake.
  11. Only God knows the good that can come from reading one good Catholic book.
  12. Ask your angel to console and assist you in your last moments.
  13. Be ever more convinced that your guardian angel is really present, that he is ever at your side. St. Frances of Rome always saw him standing before her, his arms clasped at his breast, his eyes uplifted to Heaven; but at the slightest failing, he would cover his face as if in shame, and at times, turn his back to her.
  14. Do not do anything today that can embarrass you tomorrow.
  15. Our greatest enemy is laziness; Let us fight it without rest.
  16. Remember, God does not reward results, but effort.
  17. Let yourself be guided by reason and not by passion.
  18. Stay away from laziness and lazy people. Carry out your labours, for when we allow ourselves to be lazy, we are in danger of sinning.
  19. If your parents live in the faith, they will be good counsellors, because they will know you well, and their counsel will be good and reliable.
  20. Experience has shown me that the well-being and happiness of a family are only guaranteed by the practice of religion.
  21. If the youth is well educated, we will have moral order. If not, vice and disorder will prevail.
  22. If we want to have a good society, we must concentrate all our efforts on educating young people in Christianity. Experience has taught me that caring for young people is the only way to achieve a sustainable civil society.
  23. Purify your heart through confession, and free it from anything that might have corrupted it.
  24. When in danger or in need, have recourse to Mary. The Blessed Virgin has always helped me and will always do so!

 

Read also:

» St John Bosco

» Family Tip 1: Saintly Role Models

Louder than words

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Either we must speak as we dress,
or dress as we speak.
Why do we profess one thing and display another?
The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.
St. Jerome

How to avoid fear of death

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I die with joy,
for I desire to be united to my God.
Live so as not to fear death.
For those who live well in the world, death is not frightening,
but sweet and precious.

St. Rose of Viterbo

What the devil does

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We should all realize that,
no matter where or how a man dies,
if he is in the state of mortal sin and does not repent, 
when he could have done so and did not,
the Devil tears his soul from his body with such anguish and distress,
that only a person who has experienced it can appreciate it.

St. Francis of Assisi