As Catholics, our temptation is to admire saints from such a distance that we forget they were still human beings who cooperated with God’s grace as best they could each day. Our temptation is to admire bits and pieces of a saint’s life but to affirm that, considered as a whole, this person’s life is simply too extreme and God simply could not expect that much conversion and dedication from anyone. But God only asks that we do the best we can—in our own space, our own time, our own way.
“In His will is our peace,” sing the saints in Dante’s Divine Comedy. We cannot, however, truly be at peace unless we allow our conversion to God’s ways to be open-ended. —Pat McCloskey, OFM
Enjoy these quotes from some of our greatest saints!
“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”
Padre Pio
“The important thing is to do charity, not to talk about charity. We must understand the work with very poor people as a God’s chosen mission.”
Irmã Dulce Lopes Pontes
“The reason for our existence is to quench the thirst of Jesus. When he asked for water, the soldier gave him vinegar to drink—but his thirst was for love, for souls, for you and me.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“God will give eternal life to those who convert sinners and bring them to the right path.”
Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan
“Jesus loves hidden souls. A hidden flower is the most fragrant. I must strive to make the interior of my soul a resting place for the Heart of Jesus.”
Maria Faustina Kowalska
“This morning my soul is greater than the world since it possesses you, you whom heaven and earth do not contain.”
Margaret of Cortona
“Take heart! First of all it is God who sends things forward and not me. And then from paradise I can do more than I do in this world. When I will no longer be, believe also that it will be better than it is done now.” (Her deathbed words)
Giuseppina Vannini
“He loves, he hopes, he waits. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep us waiting an instant.”
Maria Goretti
“Our Lady…told us she would come and take Francisco to heaven, and she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I said I did.”
Jacinta Marto
“Receive every trial, every annoyance, every lack of courtesy in the light that springs from the Cross; that is how we please God, how we advance in the ways of love.”
Elizabeth of the Trinity
“I pray God may preserve your health and life many years.”
Junipero Serra
“How could I bear a crown of gold when the Lord bears a crown of thorns? And bears it for me!”
Elizabeth of Hungary
“Charity enters heaven when humility opens the door.”
María Natividad Venegas de la Torre
“The Lord has called us from different nations, but we must be united with one heart and one soul.”
Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad
“My joy is in leading a hidden life unknown to others.”
Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart
“This is a serious warning cry: Surrender without reservation to the Lord who has called us.
This is required of us so that the face of the earth may be renewed.”
Edith Stein
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
John Paul II
“I can have no other spouse, but Jesus Christ. I have considered myself content to live in poverty and misery for his love.”
Kateri Tekakwitha
“Let us make best use of the fleeting moments. They will not return.”
Marianne Cope
“As I hope in thee, O Lord, inspire me with that confidence, which brings me to thy holy mountain.”
Agnes of Assisi
“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
Maximilian Kolbe
“Whatever troubles may be before you, accept them cheerfully, remembering whom you are trying to follow.
Do not be afraid.”
Mary MacKillop
“Born poor, but of honored and humble people, I am particularly proud to die poor.”
Pope John XXIII
“I am prepared to suffer more. I know the Lord is with me. He has some plan for me.
How can I requite his kindness?”
Alphonsa Muttathupadathu
“He needed bold, brave, inflamed women in the love of God, who could assimilate his life to that of the poor inhabitants of the jungle, to raise them to God.”
Laura Montoya Upegui
“We should ever be grateful for and love the vocation to which God has called us. This applies to every vocation because, after all, what a privilege it is to serve God, even in the least capacity!”
Solanus Casey
“Since happiness is nothing else than the enjoyment of the supreme good, and the supreme good is above us, no one can enjoy happiness unless he rises above himself.”
Bonaventure
“All blessings come to us through our Lord.
He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.”
Teresa of Avila
“Actions speak louder than words. Let your words teach and your actions speak.”
Anthony of Padua
“‘With my mouth,’ God says, ‘I kiss my own chosen creation. I uniquely, lovingly, embrace every image I have made out of the earth’s clay. With a fiery spirit I transform it into a body to serve all the world.’”
Hildegard of Bingen
“Our earthly and eternal happiness depend on following our vocation without faltering.”
Gianna Beretta Molla
“In losing all, the soul has risen
To the pinnacle of the measureless;
Because it has renounced all
That is not divine,
It now holds in its grasp
The unimaginable Good
In all its abundance,
A loss and a gain impossible to describe.”
Jacopone of Todi
“Even if I must suffer greatly, thanks be to God’s mercy, I will not lack courage.”
Genoveva Torres Morales
“Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks and serve him with great humility.”
Francis of Assisi
“Faith lifts the soul. Hope supports it. Experience says it must. And Love says let it be!”
Elizabeth Ann Seton
“If we wish to serve God and love our neighbor well, we must manifest our joy in the service we render to Him and them. Let us open wide our hearts. It is joy which invites us. Press forward and fear nothing.”
Katharine Drexel
“Whatever God wants, as God wills, when God wills.”
Maria de las Maravillas de Jesús
“How easy it is to die with Jesus on the cross—if one has lived with Jesus on the cross!”
Anna Schäffer
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.”
Clare of Assisi
“Even if I must suffer greatly, thanks be to God’s mercy, I will not lack courage.”
Genoveva Torres Morales
“In God’s will, there is great peace.”
Josephine Bakhita
“Our goal must be infinite, not the finite.
The infinite is our homeland.
Heaven has been waiting for us forever.”
Blessed Carlo Acutis
