catholics-from-the-netherlands

"Unequalled as a teacher he commanded the highest admiration by the masterly way in which he exposed and discussed the most intricate problems, and many scientists of recognized authority were known to take their places on the benches among his pupils. His treatises and calculations recommended themselves by an extreme simplicity, at the same time being classic for their completeness and elegance. In his social intercourse he was amiable and engaging, and in return was universally esteemed and honoured. His energy was remarkable, and the unflinching resolution with which he executed a task, which failing health continually menaced with frustration, cannot be contemplated without admiration. Naturally of a reserved disposition, his habits were simple and his manners unassuming, nor was he ever known to show the slightest vanity or self-esteem on account of the numerous distinctions which were showered upon him; love of truth was his only passion. Three things he always cherished and treasured in the midst of his restless activity: the love of his country, his family, and his religion."

"The opinions and hesitations of some do not stop us from now believing in the bodily Assumption of Mary more resolutely, from affirming it more plainly and from professing it more openly-together with the Church than was done in the first centuries of Christianity. For the Church acquires wisdom through the ages, and she receives and manifests ever increasingly the light of truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Who rules and teaches her."

"You know, O Lord, how intensely you entrusted Germany to me that day. Since then, Germany has increasingly occupied my thoughts, and I have ardently desired to offer my life and my death for the eternal salvation of Germany."

"I wish to awaken in others and in myself a greater fervour so that the Catholic deposit of faith, which the Apostle entrusted to us for good reason and which is preferable to all the treasures of this world, may be preserved intact and authentic, since Christian wisdom, general peace and the holiness of man depend on it."

"Others may use their work as an excuse, aiming for the highest positions, which render the greatest service to the Church. (. . .) They may also justify themselves by saying that they do not want to become children among children themselves. Christ, the Wisdom of God Himself, did not hold back and treated children with confidence."

"When his career was ended in 1864 he had the mortification of witnessing the ruin of a teaching to which he had devoted forty years of his life."

"I choose to live hidden all the days of my pilgrimage, behaving like a true pilgrim and empty-handed traveller, in order that I may in safety await the day of the Lord, being most rich, and at the same time very poor; most rich in seeking nothing, very poor in having nothing."

"At the last day God will not ask me whether my church was a wigwam or a log church. He asks not for churches but for souls, and the soul of the poorest Indian living in the most miserable wigwam is as dear to him as the soul of the greatest sovereign."

"He was both priest and physician to the Indians."

"Dutch immigrants, whose descendants now form the population of north-eastern Wisconsin are distinguished by their zealous faith, industry, thrift, and good order."

"Because there are cardinals who plead for the blessing of homosexual relationships, I referred to this paragraph of the Catechism [number 675] as a warning. It states that shortly before Apocalypse, voices will rise within the Church itself, and even among the highest authorities of the Church who will express divergent opinions in relation to Catholic doctrine. I did this as a warning: let us be careful not to find in this situation. I must say that, to my surprise, Cardinal Müller took up this idea: on February 9 of this year, he published a statement of the fundamental elements of the Catholic faith, in which he also referred to number 675 (2). It is also remarkable that my interview and the full quotations were also taken up by bishop Gänswein during the presentation of a book by Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option."

"Secularization began with increasing prosperity. Prosperity leads to individualization, and individualization to secularization. In the Netherlands, this happened when prosperity increased at an unprecedented rate, [starting in 1965]."

"The State is making more and more decisions about fundamental rights. It is now the State that replaces God, e.g. in the legalization and widespread use of abortion."

"(About the Council of Trent) Roman Catholic Church’s ability to purify itself [with the] guidance of the Holy Spirit. When all the decrees (of the Council) were implemented, order was restored to the Church."

"Radical feminists in the ’60s said: “Well, you know, now we have contraception and we can use it in order to redeem, so to say, women of the tyranny of maternity, of having children, of bearing children.” But you know, they did not limit it to motherhood and female biology, they extended it to all biological sexes. So they say, well, “We have now the means to liberate people from their biological sex and to give them the gender they like. They can choose whatever they like, because there is no, or only a pretty remote connection, between gender, your social role and your biological sex.”"

"Today, the Church is a minority. Only few know who Christ is and how to find Him. Even the Church is influenced by the dominating mentality at the risk of reducing the Gospel to a repetition of words or a moral appeal, which, however, don't give the necessary answers to a world, living in confusion. Christian faith is essentially an encounter with the living Christ. The Church is invited to meet Him with the joy of the beginning."

"Christians should be concerned about unification in Europe, since this could help them to overcome their divisions which partly derive from political factors. However, the way Europe is uniting rather urges the Churches towards peaceful coexistence, which is indispensable for their credibility."

"Bij de man is het mannelijk, bij de vrouw is het vrouwelijk, maar bij de Heer is het heerlijk!"

"Iedereen z'n tijd gaat voorbij. Niemand overleeft het sterfelijke. Er is niets na het leven omdat het leven nooit ophoudt."

"Oud worden is leuk als je jong bent. Maar oud worden is niet meer zo leuk als je oud bent."

"Nadat je gestorven bent, dan kun je niet meer sterven. En als je niet meer kan sterven, dan ben je onsterfelijk."

"De aarde is Gods dienst aan alle mensen."

"Geloven in de waarheid is veel beter als geloven in de leugen."

"Het licht heb ik niet gezien, maar ik heb wel gezien dat ik dankzij het licht kan zien."

"The floral gift from the Netherlands and the province of the Dutch Church to the pope in Rome is too special not to give it continuity."

"They were very sensitive and keen in looking to the future of the Irian Jaya Church with its specific local context. They deserve tributes and honors for the fruits produced by the school. In the era of globalization and information. Church personnel -- priests, lay and Religious -- have to have academic skills as well as piety."

"As young Deacons, you have to push yourself as hard as possible to get as far as possible and to be of service as much as possible even to the point that you fall asleep while standing so to say."

"Yes, Johannes Vermeer paints in thin layers – there is no waste effort – and those small dots – no, they are not like Seurat’s, though they contain all the light the pointillist may have wished for, concentrated, hovering before the object, but not obliterating it.. ..Vermeer is not a sun painter, but rather a moon-painter – like Uccello – that’s good, it is the pure, final stage of art, the moment when it becomes more real than reality."

"Let us look at a Dutch interior and at an interior painted by an artist of the present day. The latter no longer touches us, because it does not possess the qualities of depth and volume, the science of distances. The artist who paints it does not know how to reproduce a cube. An interior by Van der Meer is a cubic painting. The atmosphere is in it and the exact volume of the objects ; the place of these objects has been respected, the modem painter places them, arranges them as models. The Dutchmen did not touch them, but set themselves to render the distances that separated them, that is, the depth. And then, if I go so far as to say that cubic truth, not appearance, is the mistress of things, if I add that the sight of the plains and woods and country views gives me the principle of the plans that I employ on my statues, that I feel cubic truth everywhere, and that plan and volume appear to me as laws of all life and ail beauty, will it be said that I am a symbolist, that I generalise, that I am a metaphysician ? It seems to me that I have remained a sculptor and a realist. Unity oppresses and haunts me."

"By art alone we are able to get outside ourselves, to know what another sees of this universe which for him is not ours, the landscapes of which would remain as unknown to us as those of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world, our own, we see it multiplied and as many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal, differing more widely from each other than those which roll round the infinite and which, whether their name be Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us their unique rays many centuries after the hearth from which they emanate is extinguished.This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life."

"Great art, for those who insist upon this rather philistine concept (as if un-great art were unworthy of even their most casual and ill-informed attention), makes us stand back and admire. It rushes upon us pell-mell like the work of Rubens or Tintoretto or Delacroix, or towers above us. There is of course another aesthetic: the art of a Vermeer or a Braque seeks not to amaze and appal but to invite the observer to come closer, to close with the painting, peer into it, become intimate with it. Such art reinforces human dignity."

"Delacroix spoke of the Greek coin being built from the center out. Vermeer has painted in this way, according to the principles of mass.. ..How beautifully they are drawn – Vermeer does not just make a leaf and place it in the design, he relates space and leaf. [on the painting of Vermeer ‘Allegory on the New Testament]. That drapery – it is abstract – observe how this shape [a space between a shepherd and the tree] curves around the center space while the tree counter-curves opposite it, cutting an egg shape.. ..the spaces on the carpet that carry no figuration are, in fact, shapes of vital importance in building the whole…"