Quotes by Bishops - Page 3

Teach us to pray often that we may pray oftener.
Jeremy Taylor
{President] Kayibanda's government [in Rwanda] continued the persecution against the Tutsis and began to make use of the media it controlled to launch a propaganda campaign against us. In a country where more than half the people cannot read or write and very few have televisions, radio is the dominant media. The fact that some newspapers were still printing the truth didn't matter much to the part of the population that couldn't read.Most of the literate people were already politically aware. While an educated person might question what they read or hear from the media, the uneducated tend to accept it. The uneducated are more easily affected by threats and the emotional trauma that propaganda like this can create.
John Rucyahana
The whole world is not worth one soul.
Francis de Sales
Let us never measure our religion by that of others, and think we are doing enough if we have gone beyond our neighbors.
J.C. Ryle
What is the basic difference between saying 'I know that God exists' and saying 'I know that love exists'?
Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh
What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.
John Shelby Spong
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
Bishop WC. Magee
The greater are our affections the deeper are our afflictions, and the more we love the more we have to weep.
J.C. Ryle
Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of ever heresy. To be allowed to remove a few grains of ignorance, and to throw a few rays of light on God's precious word, is, in my opinion, the greatest honor that can be put on a Christian.
J.C. Ryle
Mine is to chew on the appropriate texts and make them delectable.
Gregory of Nyssa
What is dying?I am standing on the seashore.A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.She is an object and I stand watching herTill at last she fades from the horizon,And someone at my side says, “She is gone!” Gone where?Gone from my sight, that is all;She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “She is gone”,There are others who are watching her coming,And other voices take up a glad shout,“There she comes” – and that is dying.
Charles Henry Brent
Let your door stand open to receive Him, unlock your soul to Him, offer Him a welcome in your mind, and then you will see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the joy of grace. Throw wide the gate of your heart, stand before the sun of the everlasting light...
Ambrose of Milan
God is merciful to those who want to love Him and who have placed their hopes in Him.
Francis de Sales
It is the way one treats his inferiors more than the way he treats his equals which reveals one’s real character.
Charles Bayard Mitchell
If all were gentle and contented as sheep all would be as feeble and helpless.
John Lancaster Spalding
Have patience with all things but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
St. Francis de Sales
Hope is a vigorous principle ... it sets the head and heart to work and animates a man to do his utmost.
Jeremy Collier
A man who can own pearls does not bother about shells, and those who aspire to virtue do not trouble themselves over honors.
Francis de Sales
He does not regard the quantity of faith, but the quality. He does not measure its degree, but its truth. He will not break any bruised reed, nor quench any smoking flax. He will never let it be said that any perished at the foot of the cross.
J.C. Ryle
Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool who holds his tongue.
St. Francis de Sales
To those of us who often procrastinate on the decision we feel intimidated by lack of education or any area of weakness. I relieve you with this statement: It is not how much you know that arms you with the tools of great decision making, but rather how much you ask. Ask questions.
T.D. Jakes
But why would anyone on a joyous occasion rake over past unpleasantness and dwell on painful events horrible to experience and repellent to recall? Silence is mightier than words. It clothes the wreckage that befalls us in the deep folds of forgetfulness unless someone stirs up the painful memories for the sole purpose of edifying us by example and, as with illnesses, of helping us avoid the causes that led us to them.
Gregory of Nazianzus
Progress apart from purpose ends in arrogance.
T.D. Jakes
Silence isn't golden and it surely doesn't mean consent, so start practicing the art of communication.
T.D. Jakes
No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees.
J.C. Ryle
Our vision is often more abstracted by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.
Krister Stendahl
Ought we not to love dearly the neighbor, who truly represents to us the sacred Person of our Master? And is this not one of the most powerful motives we could have for loving each other with an ardently burning love?
Francis de Sales
When we find that we have been aroused to anger we must call for God's help like the apostles when they were tossed about by the wind and storm on the waters. He will command your passions to cease and there will be a great calm.
Francis de Sales
Unforgiveness denies the victim the possibility of parole and leaves them stuck in the prison of what was, incarcerating them in their trauma and relinquishing the chance to escape beyond the pain.
T.D. Jakes
Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.
J.C. Ryle
If after all your efforts you cannot succeed, you could not please our Lord more than by sacrificing to Him your will, and remaining in tranquility, humility, and devotion, entirely conformed and submissive to His divine will and good pleasure.
Francis de Sales
There are two sorts of good wills. The one says, "I would do well, but it gives me trouble, and I will not do it." The other, "I wish to do well, but I have not as much power as I have will; it is this which holds me back." The first fills Hell, the second Paradise.
Francis de Sales
Vessels never give so great a sound as when they are empty.
Bishop John Jewell
If I do not feel a sense of joy in God's creation, if I forget to offer the world back to God with thankfulness, I have advanced very little upon the Way. I have not yet learnt to be truly human. For it is only through thanksgiving that I can become myself.
Kallistos Ware
It is not possible to say too much about Christ. But it is quite possible to say too little about hell.
J.C. Ryle
If you have firm trust in God, the success that comes to you will always be that which is most useful for you whether it appears good or bad in your private judgment.
Francis de Sales
I have often thought, during these conferences, about the comment that Maurice Maignan, one of the first companions of Ozanam, made after a retreat: "One thought strikes me. All the means of sanctification which the preacher proposes and develops require a strong soul...I will not profit from exercises designed for strong souls. O my God, show me the exercises designed for feeble souls. Would the saints have forgotten or disdained them? Yet even if the saints did not think of these poor souls, who are nevertheless most numerous, You, Lord, my mercy, have not abandoned them. You Yourself, Good Master, have burdened Yourself with them. I know that better than anyone. I am one of those souls, and I bless You for having revealed to the weak and the little ones what You do not always accord to the valiant and the strong.
Jean C.J. d'Elbée
A man needs self-acceptance or he can't live with himself he needs self-criticism or others can't live with him.
James A. Pike
Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there.
Francis de Sales
Fits of anger, vexation,and bitterness against ourselves tend to pride and they spring from no other source than self-love, which is disturbed and upset at seeing that it is imperfect.
Francis de Sales
If, when stung by slander or ill-nature, we wax proud and swell with anger, it is a proof that our gentleness and humility are unreal, and mere artificial show.
Francis de Sales
The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying not What a lovely sermon but I will do something!
St. Francis de Sales
Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.
Irenaeus of Lyons
Our possessions are not ours- God has given them to us to cultivate, that we may make them fruitful and profitable in His Service, and so doing we shall please Him.
Francis de Sales
Indeed taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no single historic incident better or more variously supported than the Resurrection of Christ. Nothing but the antecedent assumption that it must be false could have suggested the idea of deficiency in the proof of it.
Brooke Foss Westcott
He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over.
Beilby Porteous
Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.
John Lancaster Spalding
Culture cannot be a monolithically universal phenomenon without some kind of demonic imposition of one culture over the rest of cultures. Nor is it possible to dream of a universal "Christian culture" without denying the dialectic between history and eschatology which is so central, among other things, to the eucharist itself. Thus, if there is a transcendence of cultural divisions on a universal level - which indeed must be constantly aimed at by the Church - it can only take place via the local situations expressed in and through the particular local Churches and not through universalistic structures which imply a universal Church.
John D. Zizioulas
Jesus didn't die as a frustrated failed revolutionary. His death was the revolution.
William H. Willimon
How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination?
Jeremy Collier
HE who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
George Berkeley
[The Holy Spirit] is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is portioned out impassably and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to the one who enjoys him as if he were present to such a one alone, and still he illuminates land and sea and is mixed with the air. Just so, indeed, the Spirit is present to each one who is fit to receive him, as if he were present to him alone, and still he sends out his grace that is complete and sufficient for all. The things that participate in him enjoy him to the extent that their nature allows, not to the extent that his power allows.
Basil the Great
That sin will never stand firm which is heartily prayed against....We must spread out all our case before our heavenly Physician, if He is to give us daily relief.
J.C. Ryle
Be wise in time. What youth sows, old age must reap....Sow to yourself rather in righteousness: break up your fallow ground, sow not among thorns.
J.C. Ryle
Little deeds that proceed from charity please God and have their place among meritorious acts.
Francis de Sales
God's favor floats as it were over all this and finds joy in turning all those miseries to the greater profit of those who love Him. From toil He makes patience spring forth.
Francis de Sales
Now Christianity proposes a completely different account of how history comes to a climax and what precisely constitutes the new order of the ages—which helps to explain why so many of modernity’s avatars, from Diderot to Christopher Hitchens, have specially targeted Christianity. On the Christian reading, history reached its highpoint when a young first-century Jewish rabbi, having been put to death on a brutal Roman instrument of torture, was raised from the dead through the power of the God of Israel. The state-sponsored murder of Jesus, who had dared to speak and act in the name of Israel’s God, represented the world’s resistance to the Creator. It was the moment when cruelty, hatred, violence, and corruption—symbolized in the Bible as the watery chaos—spent itself on Jesus. The resurrection, therefore, showed forth the victory of the divine love over those dark powers. St. Paul can say, “I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God,” precisely because he lived on the far side of the resurrection.
Robert E. Barron
I knew that to really minister to Rwanda's needs meant working toward reconciliation in the prisons, in the churches, and in the cities and villages throughout the country. It meant feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the young, but it also meant healing the wounded and forgiving the unforgivable.I knew I had to be committed to preaching a transforming message to the people of Rwanda. Jesus did not die for people to be religious. He died so that we might believe in Him and be transformed. I'm engaged in a purpose and strategy that Jesus came to Earth for. My life is set for that divine purpose in Jesus Christ. I was called to that--proclaiming the message of transformation through Jesus Christ.
John Rucyahana
The least known among the virtues and also the most misunderstood is the virtue of humility. Yet, it is the very groundwork of Christianity. Humility is a grace of the soul that cannot be expressed in words and is only known by experience. It is an unspeakable treasure of God, and only can be called the gift of God. "Learn," He said, not from angels, not from men, not from books; but learn from My presence, light, and action within you, "that I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls".
William Bernard Ullathorne
Teach me to live that I may dread The grave as little as my bed.
Bishop Ken