Consoling Thoughts On Trials of An Interior Life Quotes

“God has the goodness to put some of our Purgatory into each day; let us accept, embrace the cross which is presented to us. Let us take care not to complain, nor to imagine that suffering is a new invention. A person might easily suppose it was, on seeing our astonishment, and hearing our murmurs. The saints, crushed and ground down by trials of all sorts, seized on suffering as gold from the mine.
“See how the gold taken from the earth is cast into a crucible; had the gold thought and speech, it would cry out: I suffer, take me out of this. And yet this gold is purified, and soon it will shine on the brows of kings, and on the altars of the living God. The cross effects the same in our regard; it is our crucible.”—P. De Ravignan.”
― Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life

“God can scarcely lay the impress of His perfections on a soul that is not prepared, and, as it were, softened by infirmities of body; for health and prosperity make it hard against the touches of grace, while sorrows soften it.”
― Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life

“Undoubtedly, because we are too much attached to our comfort, our ease, our convenience. We would wish to say our prayers in a region of eau de cologne, and practice heroic virtue eating sugar cake; but we do not consider the meek Jesus, prostrate on the earth, sweating blood, through the dreadful combat that rages in His interior,”
― Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life

“We must act in this temptation as in that against chastity: neither dispute with it much or little; but do as the children of Israel did with the bones of the Paschal lamb, which they would not attempt to break, but cast whole into the fire. We must not answer or appear to understand what the enemy says. Let him brawl as long as he pleases at the door; we need only say: Who’s there? That is true, you will tell me; but he annoys me, and the noise he makes outside is so great that I cannot understand or arrange anything well within. Patience!”
― Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life

“Answer not a word to the shameful thoughts that come upon you; only say to Our Lord from your heart: O my God! Thou knowest that I honor Thee; I am all Thine. Dispute not with the temptation.”
― Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life