Brethren: If I should speak with tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
1 Cor 13:1-8
Young children, susceptible as they ever are, listen attentively, soon share in their parent’s dislikes, they enter into the passionate feelings of their fathers, they suck in with their milk, so to speak, their corrupt inclinations, and scarcely have they arrived to man’s estate, than they have imbibed through those bad discourses, dispositions which will lead them to perdition.
Pere Jean Lejeune
Those who insult us and treat us contumeliously are anxious for a spiteful sarcastic reply, the silence we then affect, disheartens them, and they cannot avoid showing their vexation, they do all they can to provoke us and to elicit a reply, but the best way to baffle them is to say nothing, refuse to argue with them and to leave them to chew the cud of their hasty anger, This method of bringing down their pride disarms them, and shows them plainly that we slight and despise them.
St Ambrose
St Augustine compares the blindness of a soul to a man who is asleep. When our eyes are shut during sleep, we are blind, nevertheless we see something, for though our eyes are shut, our imagination is at work. We dream that we are very rich, we fancy that we are living in the lap of luxury, in a word, we picture to our mind strange events. This is our case. We do not see things in the right light, we do not hear the mute language that ought to lead us up to God. We thought to have found true happiness in the wealth and riches of this world, and they have vanished. We sought for earthly joys, and these pleasures have become insipid. When our soul is preparing to leave the body, then our eyes will be opened, and we shall then feel and know our terrible darkness.
Jules Mascaron
Hardness of heart leads to sad results. Light blinds or dazzles a hardened heart, it does not enlighten it. The just punishments of God, which weigh heavily on it, only make it rebellious, and do not subdue it. The scourge which God inflicts on it overwhelms, but does not humble it, miracles astonish, but do not convert it.
La Pere Nepveu
It is the characteristic of sin to over-shadow every action, whether it be the banishment of grace, which is the light of the soul, or whether it blinds the understanding, thus rendering it incapable of receiving the light of the Holy Spirit, who abandons the sinner, and leaves him exposed to all kinds of dangers and misfortunes.
Pere Nouet
Would you wish to know the sure marks of hardness of heart? St Bernard will give them to us. A hardened heart, he says, is a heart unbroken by remorse, unsoftened by devotion, and unmoved by prayer. It yields to no threats, which only harden it the more, it is unmindful of all the blessings of God, and unfaithful to grace. It blushes not at things most shameful, heeds no danger, has no love for brethren, no fear of God.
La Pere Nepveu
AnaStpaul 