Only God satisfies

“In this life no one can fulfill his longing,
nor can any creature satisfy man’s desire.
Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures.
That is why man can rest in nothing but God.”
St. Thomas Aquinas

(a lone pelican cruises the surf / Julie Cook /2021)

“In the spiritual life,
I can promise myself nothing without the special help of God…
From one moment to another, I may fall into mortal sin:
consequently, even though I may have labored many years in acquiring virtues,
I may in one instant lose all the good I have done,
lose all my merit for eternity, and lose even that blessed eternity itself.
How can a king rule with arrogance when he is besieged by his enemies
and from day to day runs the risk of losing his kingdom and ceasing to be a king?
And has not a saint abundant reasons,
from the thought of his own weakness,
to live always in a state of great humility,
when he knows that from one hour to another he may lose the
grace of God and the kingdom of Heaven, which he has merited by years
of laboriously acquired virtues? ‘Unless the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it’ (Ps. 126:1).
However spiritual and holy a man may be,
he cannot regard himself as absolutely secure.
The Angels themselves, enriched with sanctity, were not safe in Paradise.
Man, endowed with innocence, was not safe in his earthly paradise.
What safety,
therefore, can there be for us with our corrupt nature,
amid so many perils and so many enemies who within and without
are ever seeking insidiously to undermine our own eternal salvation?
In order to be eternally damned,
it is enough that I should follow the dictates of nature;
but to be saved, it is necessary that divine grace should prevent
(go before) and accompany me, should follow and help me,
watch over me and never abandon me.
Oh, how right therefore was St. Paul in exhorting us to
‘work out our salvation’—which is for all eternity—
‘with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12).”
Fr. Cajetan da Bergamo, p. 21-22
An Excerpt From
Humility Of Heart

always remember, end well

“See, my children, we must reflect that we have a soul to save,
and an eternity that awaits us.
The world, its riches, pleasures, and honors will pass away;
heaven and hell will never pass away.
Let us take care, then.
The saints did not all begin well; but they all ended well.
We have begun badly; let us end well,
and we shall go one day and meet them in heaven.”
St. John Vianney

(a lone iris / Julie Cook / 2021)

When a person sacrifices his life out of love for God,
by allowing God to send him on a given mission or by enduring martyrdom
or by allowing himself to be completely diverted from his own plans and intentions,
it is love that moves him to do so.
This love cannot be equated with the love that people have
for one another, which moves them to regular acts of love of neighbor.
Rather, this person is so gripped by the God who loves him
that his gift of self—however long or short God intends it to be—
bears in it the mark of eternity.
Adrienne von Speyr
from her book The Boundless God

love lasts for eternity

“In a world gone astray from God there is no peace, but it also lacks charity,
which is true and perfect love…
Nothing is more beautiful than love.
Indeed, faith and hope will end when we die, whereas love, that is, charity,
will last for eternity.”
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

“We might say the whole mystery of our redemption in Christ,
by his incarnation, his death, and his resurrection, consists of this marvelous exchange:
in the heart of Christ, God has loved us humanly,
so as to render our human hearts capable of loving divinely.
God became man so that man might become God—might love as only God is capable of loving,
with the purity, intensity, power, tenderness,
and inexhaustible patience that belongs to the divine love.
It is an extraordinary source of hope and a great consolation to know that,
by virtue of God’s grace working in us
(if we remain open to it by persevering in faith, prayer, and the sacraments),
the Holy Spirit will transform and expand our hearts to the point of one day
making them capable of loving as God loves.”
Fr. Jacques Philippe, p. 67-8