The Advent mystery is the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.
—Thomas Merton

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.
–-Dorothy Day

You . . . must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
—Luke 12:40

The church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts.
—Saint Charles Borromeo  

See, days are coming . . . when I will raise up a righteous branch for David; as king he shall reign and govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land.
—Jeremiah 23:5

The emperor is within the church, not above it.
—Saint Ambrose

People are instructed in the truths of the faith . . . far more effectively by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any pronouncement, however weighty, of the teaching of the church.
—Pope Pius XI, instituting the Feast of Christ the King

A man who was completely innocent offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
—Mahatma Gandhi

We believe that we have . . . inherited the kingdom of the heavens, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Saint Athanasius

Do not accept anything as truth that lacks love, and do not accept anything as love that lacks truth. One without the other is a destructive lie.
—Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

To bear other people’s afflictions, everyone has courage and enough to spare.
—Benjamin Franklin

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
—T. S. Eliot

No one has ever become poor by giving.
—Anne Frank

The poor widow cast only two pennies into the treasury; yet because she gave all she had it is said of her that she surpassed all the rich in offering gifts to God.
—Saint Jerome

When you knock, ask to see God—none of the servants.
—Henry David Thoreau

To have a Christian love for our neighbors is to love God in them, or them in God; it is to cherish God alone for his own sake, and his creatures for love of him.
—Saint Francis de Sales

It is said Helen Keller was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. She replied, "Having no vision."
—Stephen Kendrick, Holy Clues

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.
—Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-1417)

I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
—Margaret Mead

The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.
—Mohandas Gandhi

All through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in Baptism, but afterwards also, whether we obey his voice or not, he graciously calls us still. If we fall from our Baptism, he calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our calling, he calls us on from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us.
—John Henry Newman

It is asked of Christians that they let go of riches and many other things, but this is only a gesture of welcome, a preliminary condition to a rebirth that makes us over, renders us able to receive the salvation coming from God alone.
—J. Delorme

A sacrifice can change someone’s life today, a country tomorrow, and even change a history forever.
—Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters

That which can be lost cannot be deemed riches.
—Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.
—Confucius

Marriage . . . joins bodies and souls; it mingles two spirits and unites two bodies. . . . Both of you are made from the same Earth, from the same clay.
—Asterius, bishop of Amasea in Asia Minor c. 400

Your Son went down from the heights of his divinity to the depths of our humanity. Can anyone’s heart remain closed and hardened after this?
—Saint Catherine of Siena

There are those who seem outside the sheepfold yet are inside it, and others who seem inside but our actually outside.
—Saint Augustine of Hippo

The cry of the oppressed is God’s voice. . . . The cry of the voiceless and the hopeless is God’s voice. . . . The protest of the poor is God’s voice. . . . And the voice of the countries who are victims of these injustices is God’s voice.
—Dom Hélder Câmara