“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you…You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.” St. Augustine (354-450CE), [speaking of God ] in Confessions, Book X, ch. xxvii.
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“Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness.” -Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island
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“What is to give light must endure burning” - Viktor Frankl
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“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” - Elizabeth Kubler Ross
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“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded. At best, we will receive a scrambled and partial message, one that will deceive and confuse us. We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love - either with another human person or with God.” - Thomas Merton, Love and Living
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“Preach the Gospel daily; use words if necessary.” - St. Francis of Assisi