We take for granted the slow miracle whereby water in the irrigation of a vineyard becomes wine. It is only when Christ turns water into wine, in a quick motion, as it were, that we stand amazed.

In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

Poltinus the Platonist proves by means of the blossoms and leaves that from the Supreme God, whose beauty is invisible and ineffable, Providence reaches down to the things of earth here below. He points out that these frail and mortal objects could not be endowed with a beauty so immaculate and so exquisitely wrought, did they not issue from the Divinity which endlessly prevades with its invisible and unchanging beauty all things.

Love, and do what you will. If you are silent, be silent for love; or if you cry out, cry out for love. If you chastise, chastise for love; if you spare, spare for love.

Love and do what you want. If you stop talking, you will stop talking with love; if you shout, you will shout with love; if you correct, you will correct with love.

Consequently, heretics and schismatics, separated from the unity of this Body, are able to receive the same Sacrament, but with no benefit to themselves; indeed, more to their own harm, in that they are judged the more severely rather than being liberated.