saints

St. Triduana devoted herself to God in a solitary life at Rescobie in Angus (now Forfarshire). While dwelling there, a prince of the country having conceived an unlawful passion for her is said to have pursued her with his unwelcome attentions. To rid herself of his importunities, as a legend relates, Triduana bravely plucked out her beautiful eyes, her chief attraction, and sent them to her admirer. Her heroism, it is said, procured for her the power of curing diseases of the eyes.

But in the end they were not called saints because of the way they died, or because of their visions or wondrous deeds, but because of their extraordinary capacity for love and goodness, which reminded others of the love of God.

But in the end they were not called saints because of the way they died, or because of their visions or wondrous deeds, but because of their extraordinary capacity for the love and goodness, which reminded others of the love of God.

The pages of history are red with the blood of illuminated "saints" who were murdered by their religions for actually achieving the advertised spiritual rewards.

The lives of the saints are the hermeneutical key to Scripture.

Go back to Socrates: "Know thyself." For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints. Which are you?

...the dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors...

What if the church should be less concerned with creating saints than creating a world where we do not need saints? A world where people like Mother Teresa and MLK would have nothing to do.

What Saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it?

There is no sinner like a young saint.

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.-Revelations 20:9

For if this God exists, I thought, and if even you _ with your lusts and your adulteries and the timid lies you used to tell _ can change like this, we could all be saints by leaping as you leapt, by shutting the eyes and leaping once and for all: if you are a saint, it__ not so difficult to be a saint. It__ something He can demand of any of us, leap.

Politicians and figureheads bank on the amnesia of the ignorant.

All the hungers we have for love, for union, for happiness are given by God to lead us to him. The difference between a saint and the greatest sinner is where they go to satisfy that hunger.

What is a saint supposed to do, if not convert wolves?

The deepest reason why the Church is weak and the world is dying is that there are not enough saints. No, that's not quite honest. The reason is that WE are not saints.