Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts

Whatever you may do for your brother, being hungry, and a stranger, and naked, not even the devil will be able to despoil, but it will be laid up in an inviolabe treasure.

It may here be observed, that all who are offended by us are exposed to our view. But the rich man sees Lazarus not with any other righteous man, but in Abraham's bosom. For Abraham was full of love, but the man is convicted of cruelty. Abraham sitting before his door followed after those that passed by, and brought them into his house, the other turned away even them that abode within his gate.

Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.

When the Mass is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels, who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar.

It is folly to abstain all day long from food, but fail to abstain from sin and selfishness.