Catholicism Quotes

“The twentieth-century theologian Karl Rahner commented that “God” is the last sound we should make before falling silent, and Saint Augustine, long ago, said, “si comprehendis, non est Deus” (if you understand, that isn’t God). All of this formal theologizing is but commentary on that elusive and confounding voice from the burning bush: “I am who am.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Essential to the Catholic mind is what I would characterize as a keen sense of the prolongation of the Incarnation throughout space and time, an extension that is made possible through the mystery of the church.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Joseph Ratzinger commented that the opening line of the Nicene Creed, Credo in unum Deum (I believe in one God), is a subversive statement because it automatically rules out any rival claimant to ultimate concern. To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“It has been suggested that the heart of sin is taking oneself too seriously.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“According to the basic narrative of the Old Testament, God’s answer to human dysfunction was the formation of a people after his own heart.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited religious site in the Christian world, surpassing Lourdes, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and St. Peter’s itself. People still go there by the millions every year in order to commune with La Virgen Morena, many journeying to her over many miles on their knees.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Therefore in this more biblical way of looking at things joy (beatitude) is the consequence and not the enemy of law. What Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount, therefore, is that new law that would discipline our desires, our minds, and our bodies so as to make real happiness possible.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Jesus turned upside down many of the social conventions of his time and place precisely because he was so concerned to place the instantiation of the Kingdom of God first in the minds of his followers.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“When at the consecration the priest moves into the mode of first-person quotation, he is not speaking in his own person but in the person of Jesus—and that’s why those words change the elements.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20).”
― Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“It is fascinating to note how often in the history of Christianity the teaching concerning Jesus’s presence in the Eucharist”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”
― Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Aristotle said that the best activities are the most useless. This is because such things are not simply means to a further end but are done entirely for their own sake. Thus watching a baseball game is more important than getting a haircut, and cultivating a friendship is more valuable than making money. The game and the friendship are goods that are excellent in themselves, while getting a haircut and making money are in service of something beyond themselves. This is also why the most important parts of the newspaper are the sports section and the comics, and not, as we would customarily think, the business and political reports. In this sense, the most useless activity of all is the celebration of the Liturgy, which is another way of saying that it is the most important thing we could possibly do. There is no higher good than to rest in God, to honor him for his kindness, to savor his sweetness—in a word, to praise him. As we have seen in chapter three, every good comes from God, reflects God, and leads back to God, and, therefore, all value is summed up in the celebration of the Liturgy, the supreme act by which we commune with God. This is why the great liturgical theologian Romano Guardini said that the liturgy is a consummate form of play. We play football and we play musical instruments because it is simply delightful to do so, and we play in the presence of the Lord for the same reason. In chapter one I spoke of Adam in the garden as being the first priest, which is another way of saying that his life, prior to the fall, was entirely liturgical. At play in the field of the Lord, Adam, with every move and thought, effortlessly gave praise to God. As Dietrich von Hildebrand indicated, this play of liturgy is what rightly orders the personality, since we find interior order in the measure that we surrender everything in us to God. We might say that the Liturgy bookends the entire Scripture, for the priesthood of Adam stands at the beginning of the sacred text and the heavenly Liturgy of the book of Revelation stands at the end. In the closing book of the Bible, John the visionary gives us a glimpse into the heavenly court, and he sees priests, candles, incense, the reading of a sacred text, the gathering of thousands in prayer, prostrations and other gestures of praise, and the appearance of the Lamb of God. He sees,”
― Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Summa theologiae”
― Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“In his first letter Saint John says, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life—for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father” (1 Jn 1:1–2).”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“And this is why he prohibited Adam and Eve from grasping at the uniquely divine prerogative of knowing good and evil: not because he wanted them to be less alive but because he wanted them to be fully alive.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“as he made Job, and though Job has probably never in his life even considered Behemoth and Leviathan, they are as ingredient in the complex weave of God’s providence as is Job. The overall point of God’s speech seems to be this: the suffering of any one person must be seen within the context of the infinitely subtle working out of God’s purposes throughout the whole of space and time.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“In one of the most dramatic scenes in the Bible, God speaks out of the desert whirlwind. “Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers!” (Job 38:2–”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“the principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that in matters political and economic there ought always to be a preferential option for the most local level of authority and operation.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“One of the most fundamental problems in the spiritual order is that we sense within ourselves the hunger for God, but we attempt to satisfy it with some created good that is less than God. Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“But as the last week of his life unfolded, Jesus did not contrive to confront these powers in the conventional manner. Rather he allowed them to spend themselves on him; he permitted the darkness of the world to envelop him. In the densely textured passion narratives of the Gospels we see all forms of human dysfunction on display. Jesus was met by betrayal, denial,”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“The fatherless they defend not, and the widow’s plea does not reach them” (Is 1:21–23); “But my people have changed their glory for useless things…Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water” (Jer 2:11–13); and “[My people] consult their piece of wood, and their [divining rod] makes pronouncements for them…they commit harlotry, forsaking their God” (Hos 4:12).”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth? I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’ ” (Mt 10:34–36).”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“the term diabalein (to throw apart). If God is a great gathering force, then sin is a scattering power.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“The twentieth-century philosopher of religion Rudolf Otto famously characterized the transcendent God as the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the mystery that fascinates us even as it causes us to tremble with fear—”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“The simple fact of the matter is that on account of the mysterious curvature of the will that we call original sin, we deviate from the very actions and attitudes that will make us happy. In”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“Meek—free from the addiction to ordinary power—you can become a conduit of true divine power to the world.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith

“To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas.”
― Robert E. Barron, Catholicism (Enhanced Edition): A Journey to the Heart of the Faith