I always like those moments of epiphany, when you have the next destination. 
—Brad Pitt, actor

If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta

One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry. 
—Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

The family is indeed sacred: It is the place in which life—the gift of God—can be properly welcomed and protected.
—Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus

Jesus is the only person in recorded history whose parents thought he was a child of God rather than their own creative project and possession.
—Polly Berrien Berends in Gently Lead

A God who became so small could only be mercy and love.
—Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Mary conceived Christ in her womb, and we bear him in our hearts. 
—Saint Peter Damian

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself. 
—Charles Dickens

Every great movement needs an agitator. Every leader of spiritual ideals needs a John the Baptist.
—William Allen White, 19th-century newspaper editor

If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.
—Michelle Obama, Becoming

John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever.
—Saint Augustine

The true secret of love consists in this: we must forget self like Saint John the Baptist and exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus.
—Saint Peter Julian Eymard 

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were. 
—Sidney Poitier, Measure of a Man

Sin is the wound, repentance is the medicine.
—Saint John Chrysostom

I call something a miracle when an ordinary person achieves something extraordinary. We all have the potential to create miraculous changes. 
—Tina Turner, Happiness Becomes You

Advent increases our hope. A hope which does not disappoint. The Lord never lets us down.
—Pope Francis

Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.
—Henri Nouwen

Advent: the time to listen for footsteps―you can’t hear footsteps when you’re running yourself.
—Bill McKibben

God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres.
―Saint Teresa of Ávila

It is by the works of mercy that we shall be judged.
—Dorothy Day

Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the cross; he experiences hunger, thirst, and privation. Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering the kingdom.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 544)

Love is the final word.
—Dorothy Day

We desire peace but not the things that make for peace.
—Thomas À Kempis

Fear only two: God, and the man who has no fear of God.
—Hasidic proverb

God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.
—Meister Eckhart

The Wisdom of God . . . comes forth, reaching from "end to end mightily." She wills to be also the unseen pivot of all nature, the center and significance of all the light that is in all and for all.
—Thomas Merton, "Hagia Sophia"

Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. In the first, Christ was our redemption; in the last, he will appear as our life; in this middle coming, he is our rest and consolation.
—Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.
—Joni Eareckson Tada

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
—Abraham Lincoln

If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta

God favors the humble. Scripture tells us that he resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. In fact he gives them everything . . . . He cannot refuse it. He gives himself entirely to humility. 
—Cardinal Jean Verdier

Priesthood is not about power, prestige, or privilege. The pedestal has been struck down. The status lost. The Lord cautioned his disciples not to be seeking places of honor.
—Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas

We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently.
—Saint Gregory of Nazianzus