"FAMOUS QUOTES"
"Life is about 10% of what happens to us, and 90% of how we respond to the 10%." - unknown
"Coincidence is a minor miracle in which God wishes to remain anonymous" - unknown
"We can believe what we choose. [But] we are answerable for what we choose to believe."
Newman, John Henry, Cardinal (1801-1890),
Letter to Mrs. Froude, 1848
False ideas may be indeed be refuted by argument. But by true ones, alone, are they expelled. - Cardinal John Henry Newman
"A thousand questions don't make a doubt"
John Henry Newman
“He has come too near to the truth, and has forgotten that truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion. . . . The moment men cease to pull against [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair. . . . When he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside.”
G. K. Chesterton
The Catholic Church and Conversion
“I never approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all eternity. . . . That the Roman Church is more honored by God than all others is not to be doubted. St, Peter and St. Paul, forty-six Popes, some hundreds of thousands of martyrs, have laid down their lives in its communion, having overcome Hell and the world; so that the eyes of God rest on the Roman church with special favor. Though nowadays everything is in a wretched state, it is no ground for separating from the Church. On the contrary, the worse things are going, the more should we hold close to her, for it is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better. We must not separate from God on account of any work of the devil, nor cease to have fellowship with the children of God who are still abiding in the pale of Rome on account of the multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, no amount of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity or break the bond of unity of the body. For love can do all things, and nothing is difficult to those who are united.”
Martin Luther to Pope Leo X, January 6, 1519
more than a year after the Ninety-Five Theses
quoted in The Facts about Luther, 356
“There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit Baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams.”
Martin Luther
FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS........
“There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.“
St. Cyprian of Carthage
Letter to his Clergy and to All His People
“The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the churches in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, not do those in Spain, not those in Gaul, not those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions [Palestine] of the world.”
St. Ireneaus (c. 130-200) Against Heresies
“When therefore, we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek among others the truth which is easily obtained from the Church. For the apostles, like a rich man in a bank, deposited with her [the Church] most copiously everything which pertains to the truth; and everyone whosoever wishes draws from her the drink of life. Let us suppose that the apostles had left us no written records. Would we not have been able to follow the precepts of the tradition that they handed down to those to whom they entrusted the Churches? It is this precept of tradition that is followed by many barbarian nations that believe in Christ who know nothing of the use of writing, or ink.”
St. Ireneaus, (c. 130-200) Against Heresies
“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ He says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever things you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed also in heaven.’ And again He says to him after His resurrection: ‘Feed my sheep.’ On him He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet He founded a single chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?”
St. Cyprian, AD 251 The Unity of the Catholic Church
"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition".
St. Irenaeus (disciple of Polycarp, disciple of John) (Against Heresies 3:3:2 [A.D. 189]).
| "Wherever the bishop appears, let the congregation be there also. Just as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 105)
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FROM G.K. CHESTERTON.........
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