Day: August 5, 2026

Quote/s of the Day – 5 August – “Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Readings: Sedulius, Ps 44:2, Ecclus 24:14-16, Luke 11:27-28

I have struck root among the glorious people, in the portion of my God, His heritage, and my abode is in the full assembly of Saints.

Ecclus 24:14-16

Whoever has no desire to be praised is unable to be altered. The one on whom flattery does not have a hold, constancy does. The one on whom pompous ostentation has no hold, virtue does not forsake.  

St Peter Chrysologus

They deem themselves favored because I wish to punish them in this life, and in this finite time; they drive away sin with contrition of heart, and with perfect patience do they merit, and their labors are rewarded with infinite good. Hereafter they learn that all suffering in this life is small, on account of the shortness of time. Time is no more than the point of a needle; and, when time is over, so is suffering – so you see how small it is. Therefore they endure it patiently, and the thorns they pass through do not touch their heart, because their heart is drawn out of them and united to Me by the affection of love. It is indeed the truth that these souls have a foretaste and guarantee of eternal life, even in this life and that, though they walk on thorns, they are not pricked.

God to St Catherine of Siena

As, therefore, we speak justly when we say concerning any teacher of literature who is alone in a city, He teaches literature here to everybody — not that all men learn, but that there is none who learns literature there who does not learn from him — so we justly say, God teaches all men to come to Christ, not because all come, but because none comes in any other way. 

St Augustine (On the Predestination of the Saints)

Hades and the devil have been despoiled, and stripped of their ancient armour, and cast out of their peculiar power. And even as Goliath had his head cut off with his own sword, so also is the devil, who has been the father of death, put to rout through death; and he finds that the selfsame thing which he was wont to use as the ready weapon of his deceit, has become the mighty instrument of his own destruction. Yea, if we may so speak, casting his hook at the Godhead, and seizing the wonted enjoyment of the baited pleasure, he is himself manifestly caught while he deems himself the captor, and discovers that in place of the man he has touched the God. By reason thereof do the martyrs leap upon the head of the dragon, and despise every species of torment.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (On All the Saints)

There are things which, in your extreme ignorance, you had never read, and therefore you neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin, like the man in the story who being unknown to everybody and finding that he could devise no good deed by which to gain renown, burned the temple of Diana: and when no one revealed the sacrilegious act, it is said that he himself went up and down proclaiming that he was the man who had applied the fire. The rulers of Ephesus were curious to know what made him do this thing, whereupon he replied that if he could not have fame for good deeds, all men should give him credit for bad ones. Grecian history relates the incident. But you do worse. You have set on fire the temple of the Lord’s body, you have defiled the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth.

St Jerome (The Perpetual Virginity of Mary)