"For all of the vices are born of selfishness because it is from selfishness that the principal vice, pride, is born. Those who are proud are bereft of any loving charity, and their pride is the source of impurity and avarice." Source: St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, Paulist Press, 1980 [...]
"God gives us the strength to fight and to suffer for love of the common good, because he is our All, our greatest hope." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"Have you ever noticed how eagerly an infant sucks at his mother’s breast? Let us come with the same eagerness to this Holy Table to this breast whence we draw a spiritual drink. Let us draw with greater strength still than the little ones, the grace of the Holy Spirit. Let us only have one [...]
"No one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality." Source: Pope St. John Paul II, Papal Encyclical: Ecclesia De Eucharista, 4/17/2003
"And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For 'pride is the beginning of sin.' (Eccl. 10.13) And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation?" Source: St. Augustine, City of God
"He has mixed up Himself with us; He has kneaded up His body with ours, that we might be a certain One Thing, like a body joined to a head." Source: St. John Chrysostom, Homily 46
"The reason why we are not better than we are is that we do not will to better: the sinner and the saint are set apart by a series of tiny decisions within our hearts." Source: Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Way to Happiness, St. Pauls, 1998.
"At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of [...]
"That the whole substance of religion was faith, hope and charity; by the practice of which we become united to the will of God: that all besides is indifferent, and to be used as a means that we may arrive at our end, and be swallowed up therein, by faith and charity. That all things [...]
"The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of 'nuclear fission,' to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process [...]