Quote/s of the Day – 16 September – The Memorial of Sts Cornelius & Cyprian
“Not by words alone but also by deeds, has God taught us to pray. He Himself prayed frequently and demonstrated what we ought to do, by the testimony of His own example. As it is written: “But he himself was in retirement in the desert and in prayer” and again, “He went out into the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.” But if He who was without sin prayed, how much more ought sinners to pray and if He prayed continually, watching through the whole night with uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to lie awake at night in continuing prayer!”
“So, my brothers, let us pray as God our master has taught us.
To ask the Father in words His Son has given us,
to let Him hear the prayer of Christ ringing in His ears,
is to make our prayer one of friendship, a family prayer.
Let the Father recognise the words of His Son.
Let the Son who lives in our hearts, be also on our lips.
We have Him as an Advocate for sinners, before the Father,
when we ask for forgiveness for ours sins,
let us use the words given by our Advocate.
He tells us –
Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.
What more effective prayer could we then make,
in the name of Christ, than in the words of His own prayer?”
An excerpt from his “On the Lord’s Prayer”
“As we do battle and fight, in the contest of faith,
God, His angels and Christ Himself, watch us.
How exalted is the glory,
how great the joy of engaging in a contest
with God presiding,
of receiving a crown, with Christ as judge.”
An excerpt from his Letter 58
“{Lapsed Christians} will often take Communion before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offence of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to His body and blood and they sin now, against their Lord, more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord.”
(The Lapsed 15–16 [written in 251])
“He not only receives and pardons those adversaries,
those blasphemers, those persistent enemies of His name,
provided they do penance for their offence
and acknowledge the crime committed
but He admits them to the reward of the kingdom of heaven.”
“Whatever a man
prefers to God,
that, he makes,
a god to himself.”
AnaStpaul 
One thought on “Quote/s of the Day – 16 September – The wisdom of St Cyprian of Carthage”