The past has passed; the time for grace is now! Let's respond to the grace of this moment with the gifts of the Spirit active in our lives.
For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.
What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. . . we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.
There comes a time in every relationship when it's damaging to seek justice, when settling the score only stirs the fire. There comes a time when the best thing you can do is accept your brother and offer him the same grace you've been given.
It is false that the will, left to itself, can do good as well as evil, for it is not free, but in bondage. . . On the side of man there is nothing that goes before grace, unless it be impotency and even rebellion.
The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as 'Soho' poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.
Give me great sinners to make great saints! They are glorious raw material for Grace to work upon and when you do get them saved, they will shake the very gates of Hell!
I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize that He is able to carry out His will for me. It does not matter where He places me, or how. That is for Him to consider, not me, for in the easiest positions He will give me grace, and in the most difficult ones His grace is sufficient.
Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.
My saving grace was that I always knew when to leave the party.
Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity, and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health.
Or more precisely, is there anything I can do for you, ma’am? (Waiter) ‘How about a bag for my head, or a stick to beat Lanie with?’ (Grace)
If you come to a really religious man you will feel a grace around him, effortless. He has not done anything to himself, he has simply relaxed into the ultimate, and you feel the effortlessness around him.
To Grace, these were the things that mattered: my hands on her cheeks, my lips on her mouth. The fleeting touches that meant I loved her.
since we must eat to live, we might as well do it with both grace and gusto.
That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late.
Property exists by grace of the law. It is not a fact, but a legal fiction.
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
We can be certain that God will give us the strength and resources we need to live through any situation in life that he ordains. The will of God will never take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.
Jesus is the mediator of justice; Mary obtains for us grace; for, as St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Germanus, St. Antoninus, and others say, it is the will of God to dispense through the hands of Mary whatever graces he is pleased to bestow upon us. With God, the prayers of the saints are the prayers of His friends, but the prayers of Mary are the prayers of His mother.