For if anyone thinks himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Gal 5:25-26; 6:1-10
God alone can satisfy a soul, calm its anxieties, its suspicions, its fears, and every trouble that stirs within our hearts. Whenever I tried to fill up the aching void in my heart, said St Augustine, I found that nothing equalled the happiness I felt, in trying to do my duty in serving God.
Pere Croiset S.J
The world, it is that raging sea, on which are tossed to and fro vessels containing a crowd of sinners, whose cares and projects depend on the fortunes or misfortunes of life, whose aim seems to be to build palaces on sand, whose hopes are fixed on the fleeting enjoyments of this life, who seek for joys and pleasures which are a thousand times more fatiguing than they are worth.
Massillon
Ah! who can walk with a firm unshaken step in the midst of the passions of the world, amidst its seductive charms? Let us then think and meditate on the words of Job, ‘The life of man on earth is a continual warfare,’.
St Ambrose
The world is a monstrous assemblage of party spirits who revile each other, and regard each other with contempt, envy, and jealousy, void of honour and fair dealing.
Massillon
The world is more dangerous when it flatters us, than when it ill-treats us, we should be more careful of trusting it, when it invites us to love it, than when it admonishes us and compels us to despise it. They who follow the maxims of the world, experience nothing but misery, and the flattering expectation of happiness is delusive and vain. Would you wish not to be an enemy of God? Do not be a friend of the world.
St Augustine
AnaStpaul 