St. Catherine Of Siena Quotes

And of what should we be afraid? Our captain on this battlefield is Christ Jesus. We have discovered what we have to do. Christ has bound our enemies for us and weakened them that they cannot overcome us unless we so choose to let them. So we must fight courageously and mark ourselves with the sign of the most Holy Cross.

We were enclosed, O eternal Father, within the garden of your breast. You drew us out of your holy mind like a flower petaled with our soul's three powers and into each power you put the whole plant, so that they might bear fruit in your garden, might come back to you with the fruit you gave them. And you would come back to the soul, to fill her with your blessedness. There the soul dwells like the fish in the sea and the sea in the fish.

You, God, made yourself lowly and small to make us great!

The soul, as soon as she comes to know Me, reaches out to love her neighbors.

You will do very well to refuse offices; for a man seldom fails to give offense in them. It ought to weary you simply to hear them mentioned.

When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him.

Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches.

Preach the Truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.

We've been deceived by the thought that we would be more pleasing to God in our own way than in the way God has given us.

Christ Jesus left you this sweet key of obedience; for He left His Vicar, whom you are all obliged to obey until death. And whoever is outside his obedience is in a state of damnation.

You know Me in you, and from this knowledge you will derive all that is necessary.

He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.

Lord, take me from myself and give me to yourself.

Do not presume to choose your own way of serving instead of the one I have made for you.

Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.

O Trinity, eternal Trinity! Fire, abyss of love ... Was it necessary that you should give Even the Holy Trinity as food for souls? ... You gave us not only your Word Through the Redemption and in the Eucharist, But you also gave yourself In the fullness of love for your creature.

It's one of the properties of love to love what is loved by the person we love.

O You who are mad about Your creature! true God and true Man, You have left Yourself wholly to us, as food, so that we will not fall through weariness during our pilgrimage in this life, but will be fortified by You, celestial nourishment

Lose yourself wholly; and the more you lose, the more you will find.

Love transforms one into what one loves.

No one should judge that he has greater perfection because he performs great penances and gives himself in excess to the staying of the body than he who does less, inasmuch as neither virtue nor merit consists therein; for otherwise he would be an evil case, who for some legitimate reason was unable to do actual penance. Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavored with the light of true discretion without which the soul is worth nothing.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

The devil fears hearts on fire with love of God.

It is the nature of love to love as much as we feel we are loved and to love whatever the one we love loves.

It is human to sin, but diabolic to persist in sin.

O my soul, what are you doing? Are you not aware that God sees you always? You can never hide yourself from His sight. O Father, have pity on us because we are blind and in darkness. Drive out the darkness and give me light. Melt the ice of my self-love and kindle in me the fire of Your charity.

The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.

The Devil often places himself upon the tongues of creatures, causing them to chatter nonsensically.

Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God's true nature. God's heart is more gentle than the Virgin's first kiss upon the Christ. And God's forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.

O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have recreated us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone.

Wherefore, as I have said to you, I, God, have become man, and man has become God by the union of My Divine Nature with your human nature. This greatness is given in general to all rational creatures, but, among these I have especially chosen My ministers for the sake of your salvation, so that, through them, the Blood of the humble and immaculate Lamb, My only-begotten Son, may be administered to you.

People become like what they love.

O unfathomable depth! O Deity eternal! O deep ocean! What more could You give me than to give me Yourself?

Heaven is along the way.

Obedient people never trust in themselves.

Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.

And let the truth be your delight ... Proclaim it ... , but with a certain congeniality.

It is impossible to fulfill the law concerning love for Me, God eternal, apart from the law concerning love for your neighbors.

Make two homes for thyself, my daughter. One actual home ... and the other a spiritual home which thou are to carry with thee always.

From self-knowledge flows the stream of humility, which never seizes on mere report, nor takes offense at anything, but bears every insult, every loss of consolation, and every sorry, from whatever direction they may come, patiently, with joy.

There is no perfect virtue-none that bears fruit- unless it is exercised by means of our neighbor.

We are of such value to God that He came to live among us ... and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to Himself. We can only respond by loving God for His love.

You are obliged to love your neighbor as yourself, and loving him, you ought to help him spiritually, with prayer, counseling him with words, and assisting him both spiritually and temporally, according to the need in which he may be, at least with your goodwill if you have nothing else.

Penance to be sure must be used as a tool, in due times and places, as need may be. If the flesh, being too strong, kicks against the spirit, penance takes the rod of discipline, and fast, and the cilice of many buds, and mighty vigils; and places burdens enough on the flesh, that it may be more subdued. But if the body is weak, fallen into illness, the rule of discretion does not approve of such a method.

Obedience shows whether you are grateful.

Don't make it necessary for me to complain about you to Christ crucified. (There is no one else I can complain to, since there is no one greater than you on earth.

O abyss! O eternal Godhead! O deep sea! What more could you have given me than the gift of your very self?

We will be humble as we are obedient, and as obedient as we are humble.

Enrich your soul in the great goodness of God: The Father is your table, the Son is your food, and the Holy Spirit waits on you and then makes His dwelling in you.

The devil never sleeps ...

Father, I am hungry; for the love of God give this soul her food, her Lord in the Eucharist

Let us enter into the house of knowledge of ourselves.

Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!

Consider your possessions loaned to you by God.