"My child, you cannot always continue in the more fervent desire of virtue, or remain in the higher stage of contemplation, but because of humanity's sin you must sometimes descend to lower things and bear the burden of this corruptible life, albeit unwillingly and wearily. As long as you wear a mortal body you will [...]
"If you desire to be more quickly recollected, more immediately united to God, it is far better not to concentrate yourselves in yourselves, and not always to put your miseries between your soul and God. Be more desirous of seeing His goodness, His love, of contemplating Him in Himself and in His divine attributes. You [...]
"How different our lives would become if we would take an hour a day not to think about the attributes of God and the moral law, but to make the love of God and the love of neighbor experientially present in our own heart and soul! Man does not want to be with God as [...]
"If the piety of our days is so languishing, so shallow, it is because people attach themselves too much to its practices, neglecting the principle. They warm the sentiments, they set the imagination boiling. They do not force themselves to reflect sufficiently, to study, to fathom, and so they fall into the piety of routine." [...]
"The first food, then, is humility: bitter but medicinal; the second is charity: sweet and soothing; the third is contemplation: solid and strength giving." Source: St. Bernard of Clairvaux, The Steps of Humility and Pride (Note: This quote was incorrectly attributed to St. Augustine when it was initially posted here.)
"Intelligent silence is the mother of prayer, freedom from bondage, custodian of zeal, a guard on our thoughts, a watch on our enemies, a prison of mourning, a friend of tears, a sure recollection of death, a painter of punishment, a concern with judgment, servant of anguish, foe of license, a companion of stillness, the [...]
"Repose allows us to contemplate the little things we do in their relationship to the vast things which alone can give them worth and meaning. It reminds us that all actions get their worth from God: 'worship' means admitting 'worth.'" Source: Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Way to Happiness, St. Pauls, 1998. [...]
"Repose – true leisure – cannot be enjoyed without recognition of the spiritual world, for the first purpose of repose is the contemplation of the good. Its goal is a true perspective one: the small incidents of everyday life in their relation to the larger goodness that surrounds us." Source: Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, [...]
"So let the person of faith do too. Let him leave childish behavior and grow up to fullness of virtue and persevere in its strength, leaving the pride of desire, which pants after foolish vice; but let him with anxious care meditate what may be useful for him, though before he stooped childishly to childish [...]
"My child, you cannot always continue in the more fervent desire of virtue, or remain in the higher stage of contemplation, but because of humanity’s sin you must sometimes descend to lower things and bear the burden of this corruptible life, albeit unwillingly and wearily. As long as you wear a mortal body you will [...]