Daily Inspiration- 365 Quotes From Saints

by Wyatt North

  P

  “I bind to myself today the power in the love of the Seraphim, in the obedience of the Angels, in the ministration of the Archangels, in the hope of Resurrection unto reward, in the prayers of the Patriarchs, in the predictions of the Prophets, in the preaching of the Apostles, in the faith of the Confessors, in the purity of the holy Virgins, in the deeds of Righteous men.”

  – St. Patrick of Ireland

  St. Patrick of Ireland was not a native of Ireland. He was born in Roman Britannia and was captured, enslaved, and taken to Ireland at age 14 by Irish pirates. Patrick, a Christian, spent the next seven years among the Druids and pagans of Ireland until he escaped and made his way back to his family. He credited his escape to his guardian angel, Victor, who manifested in human form and told him to go the coast, where he found sympathetic sailors to take him back to Britannia. It was another vision of Victor that prompted him to enter the priesthood. After his ordination as a bishop, he was given the mission of converting the nonbelievers in Ireland. Legend has it that his success in converting the Irish was due to God’s intervention with a Druid chieftain. Instead of killing Patrick as he had intended, the chieftain became a convert and supporter of Patrick’s work. Patrick spent the next 40 years preaching all over Ireland, bringing people into the faith and building churches.

  “The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart so that I should recall my sins.”

  – St. Patrick of Ireland

  It is said that St. Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to illustrate and explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish Druids and pagans he was converting to Christianity. He used the shamrock with its one stem and three leaves as an analogy for God as one spirit expressed in three ways. St. Patrick is also credited with ridding Ireland of all its snakes, though there is no evidence of there ever having been snakes in Ireland. Many other miracles are attributed to St. Patrick, who acknowledged in his writings some of the wonders God performed through him. Most notably, he is said to have resurrected 33 people, some of them long dead. He acknowledged these resurrections in a letter, stating “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have raised from the dead bodies that have been buried many years.” Patrick died on March 17, 461, in the town where he had established his first Irish church.

  “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.”

  – St. Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, or Saul of Tarsus (Romans 12:9-13)

  Paul is the Roman name of Saul of Tarsus who was born a Jew but inherited Roman citizenship from his father. He was educated in Jerusalem, but little else is known of his early life. His conversion on the road to Damascus is recounted in the Acts of the Apostles. A devout Jew in the Pharisaic tradition, he had a vision of the resurrected Jesus, who asked Saul why he had persecuted Him. When Saul asked, “Who art thou Lord,” He answered, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.” After his vision, Saul was blinded for three days and had to be led into Damascus. During those three days he neither ate nor drank, praying the entire time. Ananias of Damascus came to Saul, laid his hands on him, and told him that the Lord had sent him so that Saul might see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and able to see again, he rose from his bed and was baptized.

  “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”

  – St. Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, or Saul of Tarsus

  (1 Corinthians 11:27)

  Following his conversion, Saul of Tarsus went into the synagogues and proclaimed Jesus the Son of God. Those present were astonished to hear these words from the man who had previously berated Jews for saying the very same thing and even had them dragged in front of the chief priests. Now known by his Roman name, Paul would himself be persecuted for spreading the Gospel, which he claimed to have received directly from Jesus. He made missionary journeys to convert Gentiles and found himself in opposition to Peter over the fact that the Gentile Christians in Antioch did not strictly adhere to Jewish customs. He later wrote of saying to Peter, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” Another point of contention was whether Gentile converts needed to be circumcised. Ultimately, as the early Church grew, it became accepted that one did not need to embrace Judaism to be a follower of Jesus.

  “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

  – St. Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, or Saul of Tarsus (Philippians 2:5-9)

  Paul the Apostle was criticized by Jewish authorities for ostensibly telling Jews among the Gentiles he was converting to abandon Jewish law and customs. He experienced the same kind of persecution that before his conversion he had exercised against those who said that Jesus was the Son of God. He and his companions were imprisoned in Jerusalem and then sent to Rome for trial, where he spent another two years under house arrest, apparently preaching from his rented home. It is not known exactly how or when Paul died, though his death is believed to have occurred sometime between the Great Fire of Rome in the year 64 and the end of Nero’s reign in 68. There are several historical accounts, most of which agree that Paul was martyred by beheading, but they differ in the details.

  “Keep interior peace at every cost; pay no attention to fears or scruples. Experience will teach you that those vain fears of sin, etc., which I call veritable follies, ought to disappear in the fire of love.”

  – St. Paul of the Cross

  At the age of 26, St. Paul of the Cross was divinely inspired to found a congregation in honor of the Passion of Jesus Christ. In a vision he saw the habit members of the congregation would wear, and he was vested with that habit by Bishop Gastinara of Alexandria in 1720. Today’s Passionists wear the same habit. The first member to join Paul in his new community was his own brother, John Baptist. Neither of them had yet studied theology or been ordained. A few years after establishing the Congregation of Discalced Clerks of the Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord for priests, Paul established one for nuns. He also built the first Passionist Retreat (the Passionist term for a monastery) near Obitello. For decades, Paul traveled all over Italy preaching on the Passion of Christ. On his travels, he always carried a large wooden crucifix, which is how he became known as Paul of the Cross.

  “Know that one grain of pride suffices to overthrow a mountain of holiness. Be humble, then, and endeavor to know yourself.”

  – St. Paul of the Cross

  St. Paul of the Cross lived an austere and penitent life, displaying his love of God and devotion to the Passion of Christ in everything he said and did. In more than half a century as an itinerant preacher, he went barefoot, no matter how harsh the weather or how rough the terrain. He never considered himself to be anything more than a humble servant and lowly sinner. The appeal of his message and the example of holiness he provided drew enormous crowds of people who followed him from town to town on his preaching missions throughout Italy. His own sacrifices and penances, along with numerous signs from heaven, caused
countless others to repent and convert.

  “Prayer, good reading, the frequentation of the sacraments, with the proper dispositions, and particularly the flight of idleness - these are, believe me, the means of sanctifying yourself.”

  – St. Paul of the Cross

  St. Paul of the Cross credited his guardian angel for several miraculous events, including saving his life on more than one occasion. For example, one time he slipped while climbing a large rock and was supported safely by unseen hands while he regained his footing. On another occasion, he was unable to walk another step, half-frozen in extremely cold weather, when he was lifted into the air and carried a great distance by an angel, his feet only touching ground when he was within a few steps of his destination. Paul also confided in a friend that on several occasions, when he was standing in front of crowds to preach, ill health prevented him from saying a word, and his guardian angel took his shape and preached in his place. One story that’s often recounted is that of a man who finally went to confession after 50 years of living in sacrilege because he said Father Paul waved a sword at him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t repent. Father Paul was nowhere in the vicinity at the time, and when asked by a fellow priest about his new way of getting people to go to confession, he told him that it was his guardian angel who had taken Father Paul’s shape and acted on his behalf, as he had done on other occasions.

  “When you feel the assaults of passion and anger, then is the time to be silent as Jesus was silent in the midst of His ignominies and sufferings.”

  – St. Paul of the Cross

  Paul of the Cross was born Paolo Francesco Danei in 1694, in the town of Ovada in northern Italy. He received his early education at a boarding school for boys operated by a priest and returned home at age 15. At 19, while helping his father in the family business, he developed a lifelong devotion to the Passion of Christ. At 21 he left to join a crusade to defend the Venetian Republic against the Turks, but he quickly decided he was being called to another kind of life. It was not until 1727, several years after founding the Passionists, that Paul and his brother, John Baptist, were ordained as priests and devoted themselves to preaching missions in parishes. When they established their first Retreat a decade later, there were nine members of the Passionist community. The Passionist life was an austere one that emphasized solitude and contemplation, with at least three hours devoted to contemplative prayer every day. This is what Paul believed was necessary for those preaching about the Passion of Christ. After nearly fifty years of preaching all over Italy, Paul of the Cross died in Rome at the age of 81. Nearly a century later he was canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1867.

  “Live in the joy and the peace of the divine Majesty. Live lost in divine love. Live for divine love and of divine love.”

  – St. Paul of the Cross

  Several miracles that occurred after his death were attributed to St. Paul of the Cross. Even as his body lay in the church before burial, a girl was cured of a painful ulcer in her cheek by kissing his hand and touching her cheek to it. The cure was instantaneous and witnessed by the crowd that was present. In December of 1776, the year following Paul’s death, holding a picture of him to an infant with serious deformities produced a miraculous cure. One of the miracles for beatification was the 1816 cure of a surgeon’s seven-year old son who was believed by several physicians to be close to death. The father suddenly remembered that he had a scrap Father Paul’s habit in the house. He ran to get it, moistened it with water, and placed in the senseless, unmoving boy’s mouth, and within moments he sat up and asked for food, completely well. The other miracle for beatification was the 1844 cure of a woman suffering from breast cancer who wore a scrap of Father Paul’s habit on her breast, beneath her clothing, prayed for several days, and was completely cured. These are but a few examples of the many healing miracles experienced by people who touched bits of Father Paul’s habit or artifacts he had used in life or who simply prayed for his intercession.

  “Having arrived at this moment of my existence, I believe that no one of you thinks I want to hide the truth. That is why I declare to you that there is no other way of salvation than the one followed by Christians. Since this way teaches me to forgive my enemies and all who have offended me, I willingly forgive the king and all those who have desired my death. And I pray that they will obtain the desire of Christian baptism.”

  – St. Paul Miki (one of the Martyrs of Nagasaki)

  On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Catholics were rounded up in Kyoto and Osaka during a persecution of Christians and forced to walk 800 km to Nagasaki to be crucified. Before they were crucified, the martyrs were mutilated by having their left ears cut off as a sign of disrespect. The twenty-six martyrs included six Spanish Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits, 17 Japanese and Korean catechists, and three Japanese Jesuits. One of the Japanese Jesuits was Paul Miki, born into a wealthy, noble family as the son of a Japanese military leader. His family converted to Catholicism when Paul was a small boy, and he was baptized at the age of five. He was educated by the Jesuits and joined the Society of Jesus in 1580 when he was 22 years old. At the time of his martyrdom he was a novice, yet he led his fellow martyrs in prayer and encouraged them as they awaited the spear that would soon be thrust into the side of each. From his cross, he forgave the king and thanked God for allowing him to die for his faith. All the men and boys who were crucified that day were canonized in 1862 as the Martyrs of Japan, also known as the Martyrs of Nagasaki.

  “The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. Thank God it is for this reason that I die.”

  – St. Paul Miki (one of the Martyrs of Nagasaki)

  The persecution that resulted in the death by crucifixion of Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit novice and 25 other Catholic men and boys in Nagasaki in 1597 was part of a larger war on Christianity that took the lives of thousands of Catholics in Japan between 1597 and 1873. St. Francis Xavier brought the faith to Japan in 1549, and it flourished for nearly half a century. However, many in the government feared that missionaries would eventually be followed by soldiers intent on conquering Japan. In 1587, Christianity was banned, and all Christians were ordered to leave the country within 20 days. The ban was never actually enforced, and for the next ten years, both Jesuit and the more recently arrived Franciscans continued their work. Tensions grew between the Jesuits, who exercised discretion, and the Franciscans who preached and baptized converts in public. The trigger event for the martyrdom of Paul Miki and his companions was a Spanish ship captain’s attempt to save his cargo from being confiscated. He pointed out on a map the vastness of the Spanish empire, which the Japanese interpreted as a threat of invasion. A second group martyrdom took place a few years later, taking the lives of 36 Jesuits, 26 Franciscans, 21 Dominicans, 5 Augustinians, and 107 lay people—men, women, and children. Collectively, these two groups, are referred to as the Martyrs of Japan, with St. Paul Miki’s group known separately as the Martyrs of Nagasaki.

  “Our Lord wills that you cling to Him alone! If your faith were greater how much more peaceful you would be even when great trials surround and oppress you.”

  – St. Paula Frassinetti

  Paula (Paola in Italian) was born in Genoa in 1809, was baptized the same day, and had a happy life until her mother died nine years later. Her death left Paula to manage the household and care for her four brothers, all of whom went on to become priests. She was particularly close to her older brother, Giuseppi, who had long conversations with her about faith. Paula thought she, too, might be called to religious life, but her father would not hear of it. She was needed at home, and there she remained until she was 19, when she needed a break and went to stay with her brother, Father Giuseppe, who was a parish priest in Genoa. Helping him in his work with the poor children of the parish, she realized she had a talent for teaching. She also began thinking about living in community with other like-minded women, and in 1934, she started to do so with six other young women. Th
ey worked for pay to earn money to use in educating children from very poor families, believing that the way to bring them to God was to educate them. This was the beginning of the Sisters of St. Dorothy, which grew and expanded to other countries. Her legacy continues today as Sisters of St. Dorothy are teaching on five continents. St. Paula Frassinetti was canonized nearly a century later in 1984.