Catholic Saint Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes people ask me how I can be both a Catholic and a scientist, particularly a scientist who, at least for some research, studies evolution. I tell them that they are confusing us with Evangelicals. Catholics don't have anything against evolution. A literal interpretation of the Bible, the kind that says that the earth is six thousand years old, has never been a part of our religion, at least not since the Saint Augustine warned against preaching idiocy to Pagans in 415 AD. He said that if you tell people that they have to believe in things that they know are not true and that do not matter then they will never believe you when you tell them things that are true and that do matter, things about Christ and the resurrection. The Church's friendliness towards science is not to protect science. It is to protect Christianity. — Gina DeMarco

Saint Paul asks his disciple Timothy to "aim at faith" (2 Tim 2:22) with the same constancy as when he was a boy (cf. 2 Tim 3:15). This invitation is directed to each of us, that none of us grow lazy in the faith. It is the lifelong companion that makes it possible to perceive, ever anew, the marvels that God works for us. — Pope Benedict XVI

Are you kidding I was raised Catholic, my mom just came back from a Saint Francis Pilgrimage in Italy and bought a huge statue to prove it, big as you. Big as you. Catholics aren't like that, they can be a little slutty at times, sure and there's the pedophilia, but they aren't allowed to be strippers! It's not allowed! — Laurie Notaro

But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Sometimes I regret not being Catholic. I think I'd make a pretty good saint. — Zach Braff

That year I had signed up for a course in French Medieval Literature. My mind was turning back, in a way, to the things I remembered from the old days in Saint Antonin. The deep, naive, rich simplicity of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was beginning to speak to me again. I had written a paper on a legend of a 'Jongleur de Notre Dame,' compared with a story from the Fathers of the Desert, in Migne's Latin Patrology. I was being drawn back into the Catholic atmosphere, and I could feel the health of it, even in the merely natural order, working already within me. — Thomas Merton

Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven. — Rose Of Lima

Why persist in walking difficult and toilsome paths? There is no repose where you are seeking it. Search as you like, it is not where you are looking. You are seeking a happy life in the realm of death, and it will not be found there. How could life be happy where there is no life at all? — Saint Augustine

And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets militant below. — Abraham Cowley

I come from an Irish Catholic family, and hell-raising is part of the DNA. — Brian Dennehy

Let us return from that Table like lions breathing out fire, terrifying to the devil! — Saint John Chrysostom

Where I found truth, there found I my God, who is the truth itself. — Saint Augustine

We should not accept in silence the benefactions of God, but return thanks for them. — Saint Basil

Believers are supposed to hold that the pope is the vicar of Christ on earth, and the keeper of the keys of Saint Peter. They are of course free to believe this, and to believe that god decides when to end the tenure of one pope or (more important) to inaugurate the tenure of another. This would involve believing in the death of an anti-Nazi pope, and the accession of a pro-Nazi one, as a matter of divine will, a few months before Hitler's invasion of Poland and the opening of the Second World War. Studying that war, one can perhaps accept that 25 percent of the SS were practicing Catholics and that no Catholic was ever even threatened with excommunication for participating in war crimes. (Joseph Goebbels was excommunicated, but that was earlier on, and he had after all brought it on himself for the offense of marrying a Protestant.) Human beings and institutions are imperfect, to be sure. But there could be no clearer or more vivid proof that holy institutions are man-made. — Christopher Hitchens

Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should ... With you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me ... No one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion ... For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. — Saint Augustine

Souls do not wish to be bullied, but gently brought back; such is the nature of man. — Saint Francis De Sales

It is a great advantage for us to be able to consult someone who knows us, so that we may learn to know ourselves. — Teresa Of Avila

It is because of faith that we exchange the present for the future. — Fidelis Of Sigmaringen

We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection. — Saint Francis De Sales

What do you want to want to be, anyway?"
"I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic."
"What you should say"
he told me
"what you should say is that you want to be a saint. — Thomas Merton

well-meaning Christians almost killed the faith eight hundred years ago — Jon M. Sweeney

A saint is not someone who never sins, but one who sins less and less frequently and gets up more and more quickly. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

God bestows more consideration on the purity of the intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves. — Saint Augustine

The great thing is to become Saints. — Philip Neri

In many chapels, reddened by the setting sun, the saints rest silently, waiting for someone to love them." These words, penned by an unknown priest, long dead,were the inspiration for my new series on the lives of saints who have fallen deep into the shadows of obscurity. My hope is that, in reading their heroic stories, you will make the acquaintance of some of God's Forgotten Friends. (From the Preface of "Saint Magnus The Last Viking") — Susan Peek

Lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity. — Saint Augustine

Death, Andre, the prior thought, as he now buckled up his saddlebags for a long journey, and not the sort of death unleashed here, either. Death in the very oldest Catholic sense, as in Saint John's Gospel and the Didache: death of the soul as opposed to the road of life. For there are only two ways, dear Father Andre . . . but did anyone ever actually teach you that? It is only these simplest and plainest things we find so hard, anymore. — Michael Morow

You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all. — Therese Of Lisieux

It is better that the truth be known than that scandal be covered up. — Saint Augustine

But in this life on earth we have not only the fear but the certainty that we shall lose it. For one day we must die. Therefore true happiness... lasting, everlasting happiness cannot be our lot on earth. Nor could it be otherwise. For everlasting happiness is only another name for God. — Louis De Wohl

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

The true religion has always been one from the beginning, and will always be the same. — Saint Augustine

[Francis of Assisi was one of the] signal figures who are catalysts for rapid change — Jon M. Sweeney

Do grant, oh my God, that when my lips approach Yours to kiss You, I may taste the gall that was given to You; when my shoulders lean against Yours, make me feel Your scourging; when my flesh is united with Yours, in the Holy Eucharist, make me feel Your passion; when my head comes near Yours, make me feel Your thorns; when my heart is close to Yours, make me feel Your spear. — Gemma Galgani

From the ages of five to twelve, I attended the Saint Laurence O'Toole elementary school in Lawrence, a city next to Methuen, and was taught by sisters of the Catholic order of Notre Dame de Namour. I enjoyed all my subjects there. I do not remember ever learning any science, except for mathematics. — Elias James Corey

To sing is to pray twice. — Saint Augustine

Martyrs - those killed because of their Catholic faith - can be beatified even if they don't perform a miracle. However, all beatified individuals must stage a certifiable miracle before being made a saint. — Charles Duhigg

Over two hundred women, apparently at their own request, were sealed as wives to Joseph Smith after his death in special temple ceremonies. Moreover, a great many distinguished women in history, including several Catholic saints, were also sealed to Joseph Smith in Utah. I saw these astonishing lists in the Latter-day Saint Genealogical Archives in Salt Lake City in 1944. — Fawn M. Brodie

Only He who made man makes man happy. — Saint Augustine

I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so. — Saint Augustine

One might just as well trust in the "good luck" of a rabbit's foot as to hope for spiritual benefit from a Catholic scapular, medal, crucifix, or relic of an alleged "saint." — Dave Hunt

Maximilian Kolbe : (1894-1941), what an amazing life! A role model to me and to millions of people around the world. He wanted to be one of the greatest saints in the world. I want to be "A gift from God to Mankind", the meaning of my first name : Teddy. — Teddy Crispin

We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence. — Saint John Chrysostom

No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. — Cyprian

And that's when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: "When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them. — Shane Claiborne

Many who confess their venial sins out of custom and concern for order but without thought of amendment remain burdened with them for their whole life and thus lose many spiritual benefits and advantages. — Saint Francis De Sales

And so, lastly, does the very name of "Catholic", which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. — Saint Augustine

Every morning prepare your soul for a tranquil day. — Saint Francis De Sales

What does it take to become a saint? Will it. — Thomas Aquinas

We drive until the sun sets. There are more back roads into and out of these woods than anyone can count, than are probably on any map. You can drive and drive and drive and just see forest and fields, the occasional cow, the occasional elk, the even more occasional moose (the animal Patron Saint of Perpetual Embarrassment; I can relate, though not to being Catholic, which I've apparently decided mooses are). The Mountain glows in and out of view, turning pink, then blue, then shadow, as it watches us wander. — Patrick Ness

Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors to Christ. — Pope John Paul II

December 6 is noted on Catholic calendars as the Feast of Saint Nicholas and it usually falls within the first week of Advent. In many European countries, the Feast is an even greater celebration than Christmas. It is a day to remember the saint's dedication to giving to those who really needed it, and doing it in a way that drew as little attention to himself as possible. — Katie Savage

The Christian saints did not merely resemble the old polytheistic gods. Often they were these very same gods in disguise. For example, the chief goddess of Celtic Ireland prior to the coming of Christianity was Brigid. When Ireland was Christianised, Brigid too was baptised. She became St Brigit, who to this day is the most revered saint in Catholic Ireland. The — Yuval Noah Harari

It seems to her [Saint Catherine of Siena] that the devil has this world in his power, not by his own will, for he is powerless, but through our help because we obey him. The evil aroma rising from the ... wars which are waged by Christians against Christians, are the same as war against God ... Peace, peace, for the sake of the love of the crucified Christ, and not war; that is the only solution. — Sigrid Undset

Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service. — Saint Augustine

Baptism does not profit a man outside unity with the Church ... For many heretics also possess this Sacrament but not the fruits of salvation ... The benefits which flow from Baptism are necessarily fruits which belong to the true Church alone. Children Baptized in other communions cease to be members of the Church when, after reaching the age of reason, they make formal profession of heresy, as, for example, by receiving communion in a non-Catholic Church. — Saint Augustine

In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (Jn 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate. — Saint Augustine

To become a saint in the Catholic Church, the normal procedure is, beatification, requiring one miracle in your name, then canonization, roughly in five years or longer, to become a saint, a second miracle. — Chris Matthews

You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment. — Saint John Chrysostom

I cannot tolerate this age. And I will not. I might have tolerated you and your Catholic Church, and even joined it, if you had remained true to yourself. Now you're part of the age. You've the same fleas as the dogs you've lain down with. I would have felt at home at Mont-Saint-Michel, the Mount of the Archangel with the flaming sword, or with Richard Coeur de Lion at Acre. They believed in a god who said he came not to bring peace but the sword. Make love not war? I'll take war rather than what this age calls love. — Walker Percy

Whether, therefore, we receive what we ask for, or do not receive it, let us still continue steadfast in prayer. For to fail in obtaining the desires of our heart, when God so wills it, is not worse than to receive it; for we know not as He does, what is profitable to us. — Saint John Chrysostom

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us. — St. Anthony The Great

I lit a candle in a Catholic church for the first time that afternoon. Me, a Presbyterian. I lit a candle in the warm, dark, waxy-smelling air of Saint Adelbert's. I put it beside the one that Mrs. Baker lit. I don't know what she prayed for, but I prayed that no atomic bomb would ever drop on Camillo Junior High or the Quaker meetinghouse or the old jail or Temple Emmanuel or Hicks Park or Saint Paul's Episcopal School or Saint Adelbert's. I prayed for Lieutenant Baker, missing in action somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam near Khesanh. I prayed for Danny Hupfer, sweating it out in Hebrew school right then. I prayed for my sister, driving in a yellow bug toward California - or maybe she was there already, trying to find herself. And I hoped that it was okay to pray for a bunch of things with one candle. — Gary D. Schmidt

We must sow the seed, not hoard it. — Saint Dominic

A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students to become saints. — Pope Benedict XVI

It must be said that charity can, in no way, exist along with mortal sin. — Thomas Aquinas

Each deity has a corresponding Catholic syncretism. Eleggua: Saint Anthony of Padua, the Holy Guardian Angel, or the Christ Child; Obatalla: Our Lady of Las Mercedes, the Holy Eucharist, Christ Resurrected; Chango: Saint Barbara; Oshun: Our Lady of Charity; Yemaya: Our Lady of Regla; Babalu Aye: Saint Lazarus; Oggun: Saint Peter. — Kathy Reichs

When Mary has struck her roots in a soul, she produces there marvels of grace, which she alone can produce, because she alone is the fruitful Virgin who never has had, and never will have, her equal in purity and in fruitfulness. — St. Louis De Montfort

A leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. In 1935, four hundred years after his death, More was canonized in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI, and was later declared the patron saint of lawyers and statesmen — Thomas More

Charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved. — Robert Bellarmine

Happy is the soul that knows how to find Jesus in the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in all things! — Peter Julian Eymard

I am not capable of doing big things, but I want to do everything, even the smallest things, for the greater glory of God. — Dominic Savio

Beware of bad Catholics. — Saint Augustine

I do not doubt that all those who have received Baptism anywhere and from whomever do have Baptism, as long as it was consecrated with the words of the Gospel and they received it without pretence on their part and with some degree of faith. However, it would not avail them for their spiritual salvation if they were lacking in that charity by which they might be implanted in the Catholic Church. — Saint Augustine

True humility scarcely ever utters words of humility. — Saint Francis De Sales

Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint, but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a light-house.
[Letter to his wife, 17 July 1757, after narrowly avoiding a shipwreck; often misquoted as "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."] — Benjamin Franklin

If I should say anything that is not in conformity with what is held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, it will be through ignorance and not through malice. This may be taken as certain, and also that, through God's goodness, I am, and shall always be, as I always have been, subject to her. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

Wicked sons do not have the Holy Ghost in the same way as do beloved sons, and yet they do have Baptism. So, too, heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have, even though they have Baptism. — Saint Augustine

The declared enemies of God and His Church, heretics and schismatics, must be criticized as much as possible, as long as truth is not denied. It is a work of charity to shout: 'Here is the wolf!' when it enters the flock or anywhere else. — Saint Francis De Sales

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive. — Saint Augustine