Roman Catholic clergy

"En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada, ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada;"

"In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart."

"Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!"

"Upon my flowery breast Kept wholly for Himself alone There He stayed sleeping And I caressed Him And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.The breeze blew from the turret as I parted His locks. With His gentle hand He wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended."

"I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies."

"In search of my Love I will go over mountains and strands; I will gather no flowers, I will fear no wild beasts; And pass by the mighty and the frontiers. ~ 3"

"A thousand graces diffusing He passed through the groves in haste, And merely regarding them As He passed Clothed them with His beauty. ~ 5"

"Reveal Thy presence, And let the vision and Thy beauty kill me, Behold the malady Of love is incurable Except in Thy presence and before Thy face. ~ 11"

"O crystal well! Oh that on Thy silvered surface Thou wouldest mirror forth at once Those eyes desired Which are outlined in my heart! ~ 12"

"My Beloved is the mountains, The solitary wooded valleys, The strange islands, The roaring torrents, The whisper of the amorous gales; The tranquil night At the approaches of the dawn, The silent music, The murmuring solitude, The supper which revives, and enkindles love. ~ 14 & 15"

"O killing north wind, cease! Come, south wind, that awakenest love! Blow through my garden, And let its odours flow, And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers. ~ 17"

"The bride has entered The pleasant and desirable garden, And there reposes to her heart’s content; Her neck reclining On the sweet arms of the Beloved. ~ 22"

"There He taught me the science full of sweetness. And there I gave to Him Myself without reserve; There I promised to be His bride. ~ 27"

"My soul is occupied, And all my substance in His service; Now I guard no flock, Nor have I any other employment: My sole occupation is love. ~ 28"

"If, then, on the common land I am no longer seen or found, You will say that I am lost; That, being enamoured, I lost myself; and yet was found. ~ 29"

"When Thou didst regard me, Thine eyes imprinted in me Thy grace: For this didst Thou love me again, And thereby mine eyes did merit To adore what in Thee they saw. ~ 32"

"Despise me not, For if I was swarthy once Thou canst regard me now; Since Thou hast regarded me, Grace and beauty hast Thou given me. ~ 33"

"The little white dove Has returned to the ark with the bough; And now the turtle-dove Its desired mate On the green banks has found. ~ 34"

"In solitude she lived, And in solitude built her nest; And in solitude, alone Hath the Beloved guided her, In solitude also wounded with love. ~ 35"

"Let us rejoice, O my Beloved! Let us go forth to see ourselves in Thy beauty, To the mountain and the hill, Where the pure water flows: Let us enter into the heart of the thicket. ~ 36"

"We shall go at once To the deep caverns of the rock Which are all secret, There we shall enter in And taste of the new wine of the pomegranate. ~ 37"

"There thou wilt show me That which my soul desired; And there Thou wilt give at once, O Thou, my life! That which Thou gavest me the other day. ~ 38"

"The breathing of the air, The song of the sweet nightingale, The grove and its beauty In the serene night, With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains. ~ 39"

"I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with Him. In this equality and friendship all things are common, as the Bridegroom Himself said to His disciples: I have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you."

"My sole occupation is love. All my occupation now is the practice of the love of God, all the powers of soul and body, memory, understanding, and will, interior and exterior senses, the desires of spirit and of sense, all work in and by love. All I do is done in love; all I suffer, I suffer in the sweetness of love."

"When the soul has arrived at this state all the acts of its spiritual and sensual nature, whether active or passive, and of whatever kind they may be, always occasion an increase of love and delight in God: even the act of prayer and communion with God, which was once carried on by reflections and divers other methods, is now wholly an act of love. So much so is this the case that the soul may always say, whether occupied with temporal or spiritual things, "My sole occupation is love." Happy life! happy state! and happy the soul which has attained to it!"

"There is nothing better or more necessary than love."

"If the soul has not reached the state of unitive love, it is necessary for it to make acts of love, as well in the active as in the contemplative life. But when it has reached it, it is not requisite it should occupy itself in other and exterior duties — unless they be matters of obligation — which might hinder, were it but for a moment, the life of love in God, though they may minister greatly to His service; because an instant of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God and the soul, and more profitable to the Church, than all other good works together, though it may seem as if nothing were done."

"When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it, and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing unto God — setting aside the good example they would give if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love."

"I have said this to explain the stanza that follows, in which the soul replies to those who call in question its holy tranquillity, who will have it wholly occupied with outward duties, that its light may shine before the world: these persons have no conception of the fibres and the unseen root whence the sap is drawn, and which nourish the fruit."

"Worldly people are in the habit of censuring those who give themselves up in earnest to God, regarding them as extravagant, in their withdrawal from the world, and in their manner of life. They say also of them that they are useless for all matters of importance, and lost to everything the world prizes and respects! This reproach the soul meets in the best way; boldly and courageously despising it with everything else that the world can lay to its charge. Having attained to a living love of God, it makes little account of all this; and that is not all: it confesses it itself in this stanza, and boasts that it has committed that folly, and that it is lost to the world and to itself for the Beloved."

"He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it."

"When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self."

"Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them."

"Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?"

"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it."

"The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence."

"If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving but by denying."

"Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act."

"Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress."

"If you desire to discover peace and consolation for your soul and to serve God truly, do not find your satisfaction in what you have left behind, because in that which now concerns you you may be as impeded as you were before, or even more. But leave as well all these other things and attend to one thing alone that brings all these with it (namely, holy solitude, together with prayer and spiritual and divine reading), and persevere there in forgetfulness of all things."

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."

"Not all the faculties and senses have to be employed in things, but only those that are required; as for the others, leave them unoccupied for God."

"The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself."

"Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end."

"Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good."

"Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be detained by anything human."

"It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that the verse and prose works combined of St. John of the Cross form at once the most grandiose and the most melodious spiritual canticle to which any one man has ever given utterance. The most sublime of all the Spanish mystics, he soars aloft on the wings of Divine love to heights known to hardly any of them. . . . True to the character of his thought, his style is always forceful and energetic, even to a fault. When we study his treatises — principally that great composite work known as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night — we have the impression of a mastermind that has scaled the heights of mystical science; and from their summit looks down upon and dominates the plain below and the paths leading upward.… Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, his intermingling of philosophy with mystical theology; makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful illustration of the theological truth that grace far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the supernatural — between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest manifestations of Divine grace."

"May, 1993 — Stratford... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time … His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. Am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views."

"St John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christianity: you can squeeze it all out and the full mystical theory remains. Consequently, for fifteen years or so I hated St. John of the Cross and called him a Buddhist. I loved St. Theresa and read her again and again. She is first a Christian, only secondarily a mystic. Then I found that I had wasted fifteen years so far as prayer was concerned."

"Agnes Martin often speaks of joy; she sees it as the desired condition of all life. Who would disagree with her?... No-one who has seriously spent time before an Agnes Martin, letting its peace communicate itself, receiving its inexplicable and ineffable happiness, has ever been disappointed. The work awes, not just with its delicacy, but with its vigor, and this power and visual interest is something that has to be experienced."

"I believe in loyalty. We should respect our church, but never believe that the church has the last word. The church is saying 'this', but I believe that sooner or later 'this' will change. 'This' is not the mind of our Lord. God is all love. It's a delicate balancing thing. The Church has changed its position over the years, and because the spirit is with the Church, in the end the Church will always get it right. But in the end. The spirit of the Church is the meaning of love, which hasn't yet, perhaps, been fully understood."

"Love is a practical desire for the good of another. It is much easier to talk about than to carry into action because it requires such sensitivity and unselfishness."

"Perhaps we forget too often that the Church is fundamentally divine, despite the fact that she is incarnated in men and in the history of men. One day, a pope, against all expectations and against all human calculations, will take things in hand and all that needs to be corrected, will be corrected, because the Church is divine and Our Blessed Lord will never abandon her."

"[Did you imagine you would become Superior General of the FSSPX?] A few months before the 2018 General Chapter, I had obviously heard some rumours. Before that, I must say, I had never thought about it. I particularly remember the joy of working for three years in Asia, in Singapore. Travelling a lot in Asia, I remember wanting to stay in those countries for the rest of my life. I remember very well once visiting a cemetery with all the graves of missionaries. It was a Christian cemetery in a Muslim country. When I saw those missionaries' graves, I remember very well the desire to spend my life in those countries until the end. To one day be buried there too, far from my homeland. Then the Lord changed the cards on the table."

"First of all, it seems clear to me that with the beatifications and canonisations of all recent popes since Pope John XXIII, there has been an attempt to ‘canonise’ the Council, the new conception of the Church and Christian life that the Council established and that all recent popes have promoted. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of the Church. Thus, the post-Tridentine Church never thought of canonising without distinction all the popes from Pope Paul III to Pope Sixtus V. It canonised St. Pope Pius V not only because of his links with the Council of Trent or with its implementation, but because of his personal holiness, proposed as a model for the whole Church and placed at the service of the Church as Pope. The phenomenon we are currently witnessing is more reminiscent of the renaming of main squares and avenues following a revolution or a change of regime."

"Do not capitulate before this world, but recapitulate everything in Christ [instaurare omnia in Christo]."

"Pope Francis has a very precise overall vision of contemporary society, of the Church today and, ultimately, of all history. He seems to me to be affected by a kind of hyperrealism that claims to be “pastoral”. According to him, the Church must surrender to the evidence: it is impossible for her to continue preaching a moral doctrine such as the one she has preached until now. It must decide to capitulate to the demands of modern man and, as a result, rethink its motherhood. Of course, the Church must always be a mother, but instead of being so by transmitting life and educating its children, it will be so to the extent that it knows how to accept them as they are, listen to them, understand them and accompany them...These concerns, which are not bad in themselves, must be understood here in a new and very particular sense: the Church can no longer impose itself, and consequently must no longer do so. It is passive and adapts. Ecclesial life, as it can be lived today, conditions and determines the very mission of the Church, even its raison d'être. For example, since it can no longer demand the same conditions as in the past for access to the Holy Eucharist, given that modern man sees this as intolerable intolerance, the only realistic and authentically Christian reaction, in this logic, is to adapt to this situation and redefine its own requirements. Thus, inevitably, morality changes: eternal laws are subjected to an evolution made necessary by historical circumstances and by the imperatives of a false and misunderstood charity."

"(After death of bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais) But obviously, Providence is speaking to us through this event. It is very clear that his death raises the question of the continuance of the work of the Society, which now has only two bishops, and whose mission for souls appears ever more necessary, in the time of terrible confusion that the Church is living through today. [...] When the time comes, we will know how to take up our responsibilities, in conscience."

"Tradition is a whole, because Faith is a whole. And in the current situation more than ever, the need for an absolutely free profession of Faith is evident. The true freedom of the children of God is first and foremost the freedom to profess their Faith."

"The act of Monsignor Lefebvre in 1988 – like the entire history of the Society of Saint Pius X – is an act of fidelity to the Church; it is an act of fidelity to the Pope, to the hierarchy, to souls. Regardless of what the Roman authorities may say or not say, think or not think."

"Note here a problem: unity is achieved in the Faith. And unity cannot be achieved with an indult, a privilege that has one thing in view for some and its opposite for others. For some, the priests and faithful who want to keep the Tridentine Mass, it is a means of preserving Tradition, but for the Roman authorities – they now admit it openly – it is a means of gradually and completely bringing them over to the “conciliar Church”, to the way of thinking proper to the Church of today. All this has been established and promised in the light of the protocol signed on 5 May 1988 by Cardinal Ratzinger and Mgr. Lefebvre. Let us return to the wisdom of Monsignor Lefebvre."

"The life of the Church and of redeemed souls is one, of the very unity of the cross, of redemption. There is only one Christ, one cross through which we can worship God and be sanctified. And it is therefore this same unity that we find in the Mass, in this application of redemption to the life of the Church, to the life of souls. Since there is only one redemption, and since it is perfect, there is only one way to perpetuate this redemption, to actualise it in time in order to apply it to souls: there is only one Catholic Mass. There are not two."

"So what do we want? What does the Society of Saint Pius X want? We want the cross. We want the cross of Our Lord. We want to celebrate this cross, and we want to enter into the mystery of this cross. We want to make this cross our own. There are not two possible crosses, and there are not two possible redemptions or two possible Masses. [...] In this sense, the Mass is truly our flag, our banner. And in a battle, the banner is the last thing to be abandoned. There is one last thing that the Society must obtain. And it is crucial. We do not want this Mass solely for ourselves, but we want it for the universal Church. We do not want a side altar. We do not want the right to enter with our banner into an amphitheatre where everything is permitted. No! We want this Mass for ourselves and for everyone. We do not want a privilege. It is a right for us and for all souls, without distinction. It is through this that the Society of Saint Pius X continues and will continue to be a work of the Church. Because it has in view the good of the Church; it does not seek any particular privilege. God will choose the moment, the manner, the gradualness, the circumstances. But as far as it depends on us, we want this Mass now, without conditions and for everyone."

"(On the publication Mater Populi Fidelis) To deny the title of Co-Redemptrix is tantamount to dethroning the Most Blessed Virgin. Such a thing wounds the Catholic soul in what is dearest to it."

"We Christians believe in a sensitive God: He hears the groaning of the oppressed and listens to the widow’s plea; He suffers with and for humanity, we want to believe that consecrated life, with its many charisms, is the very expression of this sensitivity."

"Con el honor le vencí, porque siempre los villanos tienen su honor en las manos, y siempre miran por sí; que por tantas variedades, es bien que se entienda y crea, que el honor se fue al aldea huyendo de las ciudades."

"The Pope is barely Catholic enough for some converts."

"The White Disguise God wears among us, littling Himself to us, that the soul may not lack that which the body needs — food: that no one may be alone, in life, or in the narrow pass between life-partial and life-complete."

"Contrary to Voltaire's sarcasm, the Creator does not resemble his creature."

"Knowledge of God without charity is lifeless; love is its centre."

"Theological research is carried out in the light of reason enlightened by faith."

"The notion of article of faith is closely linked to that of beatitude."

"(Nam) corporea pulchritudo in pelle solummodo constat. Nam si viderent homines hoc quod subtus pellem est, sicut lynces in Boetia cernere interiora feruntur, mulieres videre nausearent. Iste decor in flegmate, et sanguine, et humore, ac felle, consistit. Si quis enim considerat quae intra nares, et quae intra fauces, et quae intra ventrem lateant, sordes utique reperiet. Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus?"

"The new ordinary of the Mass, beyond its relative imperfections, due to the weight of collegiality and universality, is an example of that fruitful search for open unity and dynamic fidelity, for true catholicity: one of its fruits will be that perhaps non-Catholic communities will be able to celebrate the Holy Supper with the same prayers used by the Catholic Church. Theologically, it is possible."

"(Referring to Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi) This is the latest example of those infiltrators who, during every revolution – English, French, Bolshevik and now globalist – attempt to subvert the Church from within. Do not believe that Tettamanzi represents the left wing of a Church that is still led by the conservative Ratzinger, because it is the entire conciliar Church that is in fact allied with those powerful forces which, through the Islamisation of Europe, aim to dominate the world according to an Antichristian plan."

"(About Erik Priebke) You could say he's my friend. [...] I consider him a German citizen, a Catholic Christian, a loyal soldier. [...] And then he's the only person over 70 behind bars who is innocent. It's scandalous, scandalous how Priebke has been treated. That's the scandal in Italy, not the dignified way in which refugees are being taken in at Lampedusa. Shame on you."

"The Second Vatican Council was worse than a heresy... Saint Pius X explains that modernism is the cloaca maxima of heresies and that nothing can be understood in this modernism: one page tells the truth, turn the page and there is error. In this sense, I say that the Second Vatican Council is a cloaca maxima."

"Those who today ‘revoke’ the pseudo-excommunication have already been excommunicated for a long time. Why? Because they are modernists! With a modernist spirit, they have made a church conform to the spirit of the world. In fact, the instigator of the insulting decree of ‘revocation’ is Joseph Ratzinger, who continues undeterred in the modernist ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, which he defined as an ‘irreplaceable beacon,’ incurring the excommunication of St. Pius X reserved for modernists. An excommunicated person revokes a non-existent censure!"

"(Referring to the Hebrews) initially the people of God, ... they then became the people of deicide, and ... at the end of time they will convert back to Jesus Christ."

"If they wanted to expel me for my opinions on the Council, they should have done so 10 years ago."

"I know for a fact that the gas chambers existed [...] There is a huge difference between denying the gas chambers and refraining from judgement: I do not consider myself a denier."

"(On the case of Eluana Englaro) I consider it a murder, aggravated by the fact that it is being done in a suit and tie. The logic is the same as that of Nazism when it carried out experiments on disabled people."

"I do not recognise the Second Vatican Council, which destroyed the Church... The Second Vatican Council was a cloaca maxima."

"I have no sympathy for fascism, I regret the Papal States, the temporal power of the Church, the era of Pope Pius IX."

"We know from Blessed Anna Maria Taigi that Napoleon did not go to Hell, but will remain in Purgatory until the end of time. A very heavy punishment, but not eternal damnation. And Sister Elena Aiello, whom I hold in very high esteem, informs us that even Mussolini will remain in Purgatory until the end of the world. As you can see, it is not only Farinacci who needs our prayers."

"The Church is Jesus Christ communicated. This communication has two organically linked aspects, whose phenomenology is divinely revealed. On the one hand, the MISSIO: ‘Go, teach, baptise, educate...’ (Matthew XXVIII, 18-20). This is what we find in the Church militant, ‘until the end of the age’: catechesis, the sacraments, and the government (of souls). On the other hand, there is the SESSIO: ‘You who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging...’ (Matthew 19:28). Thus, even in the Church militant, the hierarchy that manifests and realises catholicity is established. The distinction and unity between Missio and Sessio are so inherent in the Church that they are recognised by Canon Law, both universally and in particular."

"Of divine institution, the sacred hierarchy comprises, with regard to order [ratione ordinis]: bishops, priests, ministers; with regard to jurisdiction [ratione juridisdictionis]: the supreme pontificate and the subordinate episcopate..." (canon 108.3). Thus, the sacred hierarchy, one and unique, nevertheless comprises TWO rationes: the ratio ordinis pertains to the Missio, the ratio jurisdictionis to the Sessio."

"To select well among old things is almost equal to inventing new ones."

"In love, if inconstancy gives some pleasure, constancy alone gives happiness."