A man without God is not like a cake without raisins; he is like a cake without the flour and milk; he lacks the essential ingredients.
Nature gives man corn but he must grind it; God gives man a will but he must make the right choices.
When you are getting kicked from the rear it means you are in front.
Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.
Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.
Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.
Fulton John Sheen was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Bishop of Rochester, New York and American television's first religious broadcaster of note, hosting Life Is Worth Living in the early 1950s, first on the DuMont Television Network and later on ABC, from 1951 to 1957. He later hosted The Fulton Sheen Program in syndication with a virtually identical format from 1961 to 1968; these later programs, many of which were taped in color, are still frequently rebroadcast today.
Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, the oldest of four sons of a farmer. Though he was known as Fulton, his mother's maiden name, he was baptized as Peter John Sheen. As an infant, Sheen contracted tuberculosis. After the family moved to nearby Peoria, Illinois, Sheen's first role in the Roman Catholic Church was as an altar boy at St. Mary's Cathedral.
God loves each of us as if there were only one of us to be loved.
Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe
If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay sometimes even shed tears, while you say to Me: 'My Father, give me wealth!' If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance, you would fancy that you had gained something very great. Because you asked for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had it, you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it to you, and I proved you; you have found -- and you have found out! Ask of Me better things than these, greater things than these. Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself!".
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
Love is the beauty of the soul.
The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.
No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.
If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.
O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
Punishment is justice for the unjust.
To seek the highest good is to live well.
He enters by the door who enters by Christ, who imitates the suffering of Christ, who is acquainted with the humility of Christ so as to feel and know that, if God became man for us, men should not think themselves God, but men. He who, being man, wishes to appear God, does not imitate Him who, being God, became man. Thou art not bid to think less of thyself than thou art, but to know what thou art.
Whoever has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal things -- not even those that are legitimate and allowed -- are preferred to Him, has Christ as a foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man.
God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.
None can become fit for the future life, who hath not practiced himself for it now.
Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo : What art Thou then, my God? What, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the Proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and over-spreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things.
Having made man in His own image, a rational being, He meant him to be lord only over irrational beings: not man set over man, but man set over beasts. The first cause of servitude is sin, by which man is subjected to man by the bonds of his condition... But by that nature in which God formerly created man, nobody is slave either to man or to sin.
He enters by the door who enters by Christ, who imitates the suffering of Christ, who is acquainted with the humility of Christ so as to feel and know that, if God became man for us, men should not think themselves God, but men. He who, being man, wishes to appear God, does not imitate Him who, being God, became man. Thou art not bid to think less of thyself than thou art, but to know what thou art.
At the resurrection the substance of our bodies, however disintegrated, will be united. We must not fear that the omnipotence of God cannot recall all the particles that have been consumed by fire or by beast, or dissolved into dust and ashes, or decomposed into water, or evaporated into air.
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars.... and they pass by themselves without wondering.
(C.S. Lewis’ "Mere Christianity" was a gift from TC)
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What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’–could set up on their own as if they had created themselves–be their own masters–invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside G0d, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery–the long terrible story of man trying to find something other God that will make him happy. (C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity)
A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
(C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity)
Taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven…To be the other means madness…Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other. (C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity)
“Progress means not just changing but changing for the better.” “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.”(C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity)
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth–only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair”.(C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity)
God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way
The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” - Mere Christianity
“For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” - Mere Christianity
“If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”- Mere Christianity
“He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others - not because He has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.” - Mere Christianity
“Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection.” - Mere Christianity
“Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.” - Mere Christianity
“We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract ‘such awful people’. That is what people still object to and always will.” - Mere Christianity
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
“In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over the pre-war wishful thinking about international politics. It is time we did the same about religion.” - Mere Christianity
“We must go on to recognize the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die. We must be thankful to all the people who have helped us, we must honour them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand: but do not try building a house on it.”- Mere Christianity
“If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastely as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.” - Mere Christianity
“Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we are inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.” - Mere Christianity
“The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invests an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to feed on. There is not other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” - Mere Christianity
“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or- if they think there is not- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.” - Mere Christianity
“An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.” - Mere Christianity
“In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a reason ’in order that he may have something to give to those in need.’” - Mere Christianity
“The reason why I must is that you and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not. They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess.” - Mere Christianity
“If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep. It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another: unchastely is not improved by adding perjury.” - Mere Christianity
“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.” - Mere Christianity
“According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride… it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” - Mere Christianity
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” - Mere Christianity
“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.” - Mere Christianity
“Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world.” - Mere Christianity
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” - Mere Christianity
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.” - Mere Christianity
“There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” - Mere Christianity
“Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones - bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression - like believing the earth is flat.” - Mere Christianity
“All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal: that is, as something less than personal. If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market.” - Mere Christianity
“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.” - Mere Christianity
“When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.” - Mere Christianity
“The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath. And in a sense it is quite right. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all of its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.” - Mere Christianity
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? - Mere Christianity
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.
“That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.” – Mere Christianity,
“The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring a two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” – Mere Christianity,
C.S. Lewis Quotes - God in the Dock
“You will never know how much you believe something until it is a matter of life and death.” “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.” – God in the Dock, page 52.
“One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.” – God in the Dock, page 108.
Psalm 95:7 Oh, that today you would listen to His voice. Harden not your hearts
Matthew 7:7-8 Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock.
Ezekiel 33 If you do not speak to a wicked man to turn away from his evil ways and repent, I will hold you responsible for his death.
Mth 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven
Psalm 46:10 Be Still and know that i am God
Luke 4:35 (When Jesus spoke even the demons obeyed) ... Jesus rebuked him and said, "Be quiet! Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.
Mark 8:34 Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me
John 6 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger
Mark 1:24 Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are - the Holy One of God!
Tim 4-7 I have fought the good fight of the faith I have run the race to the finish I have kept the faith. - St. Paul
2Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the TRUTH, REBUKING ERROR, CORRECTING FAULTS and Giving Instructions for RIGHT LIVING, so that the person who Serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.
Matthew 18:18-19 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
Matthew 7:21Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew. 22:39 Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”
John 15:13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Matthew 7:1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
Luke 10:5 Peace be to this house.
John 10:27 My sheep recognize my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
James 2:17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 5:12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear--not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned.
Matthew 15:11 Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.
John 20:28 My Lord and My God
1 Corinth 15:55 O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?
Matthew 4:10 It is written: 'The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve
1Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
John 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Matthew 6:22 The lamp of your body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light.
Psalm 23:1 The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I lack
Psalm 118:24 This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisonersand recovery of sight for the blind,to set the oppressed free.
James 2Greet adversity with joy
Matthew 3:10 Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Psalm 139:1-2 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down, and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from far away
Mark 9:35 If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.
Isaiah 49:15-16Even if a mother forgetsher child,I will not forget you! I have engraved you on the palms of my hands
Psalm 23:6 Only goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life
Psalm 13:4 Look upon me, answer me, Lord, my God!
Micah 6:8 You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Matthew 16:24-25 If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it
Matthew 25:34-66 Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'
1Cor 12:12 As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.
