'Oh, how bitterly shall we regret at the hour of death the time we have given to pleasures,
to useless conversations, to repose, instead of having employed it in mortification, in prayer, in good works, in thinking of our poor misery, in weeping over our poor sins; then we shall see that we have done nothing for Heaven. Oh, my children, how sad it is! Three-quarters of those who are Christians labor for nothing but to satisfy this body, which will soon be buried and corrupted, while they do not give a thought to their poor soul, which must be happy or miserable for all eternity. They have neither sense nor reason: it makes one tremble.'
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
#quote #vianney
to useless conversations, to repose, instead of having employed it in mortification, in prayer, in good works, in thinking of our poor misery, in weeping over our poor sins; then we shall see that we have done nothing for Heaven. Oh, my children, how sad it is! Three-quarters of those who are Christians labor for nothing but to satisfy this body, which will soon be buried and corrupted, while they do not give a thought to their poor soul, which must be happy or miserable for all eternity. They have neither sense nor reason: it makes one tremble.'
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
#quote #vianney
'This is what we do when we commit sin.'
''We shall see going up to heaven, in body and soul, that father, that mother, that sister, that neighbor, who were here with us, with whom we have lived, but whom we have not imitated; while we shall go down body and soul to burn in hell. The devils will rush to overwhelm us. All the devils whose advice we followed will come to torment us. . . My children, if you saw a man prepare a great pile of wood. . . and when you asked him what he was doing, he were to answer you, "I am preparing a fire to burn me," what would you think? And if you saw this same man set fire to the pile, and when it was lighted through himself upon it, what would you say?"
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
#vianney #sin
''We shall see going up to heaven, in body and soul, that father, that mother, that sister, that neighbor, who were here with us, with whom we have lived, but whom we have not imitated; while we shall go down body and soul to burn in hell. The devils will rush to overwhelm us. All the devils whose advice we followed will come to torment us. . . My children, if you saw a man prepare a great pile of wood. . . and when you asked him what he was doing, he were to answer you, "I am preparing a fire to burn me," what would you think? And if you saw this same man set fire to the pile, and when it was lighted through himself upon it, what would you say?"
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
#vianney #sin
Beware if you have no temptations
"Whom does the devil pursue most? Perhaps you are thinking that it's those who are tempted most. No, my dear brethren no, it is not these people. On the contrary, the devil despises them, or else he holds onto them, lest they have not a long enough time in which to do evil, because the longer they live, the more their bad example will drag souls into Hell.
St. Augustine teaches us that the devil does not bother these people very much; on the contrary, he despises them and spits upon them.
So, you will ask me, who then are the people most tempted?
They are these, my friends; note them carefully. The people most tempted are those who are ready, with the grace of God, to sacrifice everything for the salvation of their poor souls, who renounce all those things which most people eagerly seek. It is not one devil only who tempts them, but millions seek to entrap them.
The first temptation, my dear brethren, which the devil tries on anyone who has begun to serve God better is in the matter of human respect. He will no longer dare to be seen around; he will hide himself from those with whom herefore he had been mixing and pleasure seeking. If he should be told that he has changed a lot, he will be ashamed of it. What people are going to say about him is continually in his mind, to the extent that he no longer has enough courage to do good before other people.
If the devil can't get him back through human respect, he will induce an extraordinary fear to possess him that his confessions are no good, that his confessor does not understand him, that whatever he does will be all in vain, that he will be damned just the same, that he will achieve the same result in the end by letting everything slide as by continuing to fight, because the occasions of sin will prove too many for him.
These, my dear brethren, are the struggles to which God permits his great Saints to be exposed. Alas, how we are to be pitied, if we are not fiercely harried by the devil!
According to all appearances, we are the friends of the devil; he lets us live in a false peace, he lulls us to sleep under the pretence that we have said some good prayers, given some alms, that we have done less harm than others.
The greatest of all evils is not to be tempted, because there are then grounds for believing that the devil looks upon us as his property and that he is only awaiting our deaths to drag us into Hell. Nothing could be easier to understand. Just consider the Christian who is trying, even in a small way, to save his soul."
Taken from a sermon by St. Jean Marie Vianney
#vianney #spirituallife #temptation
"Whom does the devil pursue most? Perhaps you are thinking that it's those who are tempted most. No, my dear brethren no, it is not these people. On the contrary, the devil despises them, or else he holds onto them, lest they have not a long enough time in which to do evil, because the longer they live, the more their bad example will drag souls into Hell.
St. Augustine teaches us that the devil does not bother these people very much; on the contrary, he despises them and spits upon them.
So, you will ask me, who then are the people most tempted?
They are these, my friends; note them carefully. The people most tempted are those who are ready, with the grace of God, to sacrifice everything for the salvation of their poor souls, who renounce all those things which most people eagerly seek. It is not one devil only who tempts them, but millions seek to entrap them.
The first temptation, my dear brethren, which the devil tries on anyone who has begun to serve God better is in the matter of human respect. He will no longer dare to be seen around; he will hide himself from those with whom herefore he had been mixing and pleasure seeking. If he should be told that he has changed a lot, he will be ashamed of it. What people are going to say about him is continually in his mind, to the extent that he no longer has enough courage to do good before other people.
If the devil can't get him back through human respect, he will induce an extraordinary fear to possess him that his confessions are no good, that his confessor does not understand him, that whatever he does will be all in vain, that he will be damned just the same, that he will achieve the same result in the end by letting everything slide as by continuing to fight, because the occasions of sin will prove too many for him.
These, my dear brethren, are the struggles to which God permits his great Saints to be exposed. Alas, how we are to be pitied, if we are not fiercely harried by the devil!
According to all appearances, we are the friends of the devil; he lets us live in a false peace, he lulls us to sleep under the pretence that we have said some good prayers, given some alms, that we have done less harm than others.
The greatest of all evils is not to be tempted, because there are then grounds for believing that the devil looks upon us as his property and that he is only awaiting our deaths to drag us into Hell. Nothing could be easier to understand. Just consider the Christian who is trying, even in a small way, to save his soul."
Taken from a sermon by St. Jean Marie Vianney
#vianney #spirituallife #temptation