Quote/s of the Day – 13 August – The Memorial of St Maximus the Confessor (c 580-662) Father of the Church
“Food is not evil – but gluttony is.
Childbearing is not evil – but fornication is.
Money is not evil – but avarice is.
Glory is not evil – but vainglory is.
Indeed, there is no evil in existing things – but only in their misuse!”
“To harbour no envy, no anger,
no resentment against an offender,
is still not to have charity for him.
It is possible, without any charity,
to avoid rendering evil for evil.
But, to render, spontaneously, good for evil –
such belongs to a perfect spiritual love.”
“In conformity with
the philosophy of Christ,
let us make of our life,
a training for death.”
“For indeed, what is more dire
than the evils
which today afflict the world? …
What is more terrible for the discerning
than the unfolding events?
What is more pitiable and frightening
for those who endure them?
To see a barbarous people of the desert
overrunning another’s lands
as though they were their own,
to see civilisation itself, being ravaged
by wild and untamed beasts
whose form alone is human.”
“All the ends of the inhabited world …
look directly to the most holy Church
of the Romans and her confession
and faith as to a sun of eternal light,
receiving from her,
the radiant beam of the patristic and holy doctrines.”
“Since He causes the darkness of ignorance
and the evil of men to vanish,
my Saviour and my God is called a lamp in Scripture.
And since He is the only one able to obliterate
the darkness of ignorance and disperse the shadows of sin,
He has become the way of salvation for all
… The lampstand is holy Church
because the Word of God shines out through her preaching.
This is how the beams of its truth
can enlighten the whole world…”
AnaStpaul 