Your Hour Quotes

“That is the purpose of this book - to make you happy. Its plan is to have you base that happiness on God's own truth as given us in the Gospels. Any other base would be unworthy of God and too weak for you. For yours is a tumultuous and a tottering world; made so by men, who love the darkness rather than the light. Stability is to be found only in the unmoved Mover of this restless universe and in His Christ who is "the same, yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8).

Fear stalks your land. Crippling anxieties and neurotic unrests warm round about you. But that is only because the highly publicized gospels of Expediency and Efficiency have had too many followers who have been altogether too faithful, while the only true Gospel, and the only Gospel of Truth, has been too hesitantly trusted and too listlessly tried.”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour

“Faith alone allows us to see the power and the wisdom of God in a Man fastened to a tree. But if you will cultivate that faith, if you will go on looking with love, you will one day get deep insight into this mystery of God which is a mystery of merciful justice, of almighty and eternal love. You will also come to share in the life of this mystery. Then you will live, for then you will really love. Study this crucifix, Kitty. It is the book of all books. It will give you more than knowledge. It will give you real wisdom.”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour

“As the days mounted he grew convinced that Kitty's basic difficulty was her lack of a full and proper concept of God. It was nothing new in his experience, and it was this that made it all the sadder for him to see. Many people fail to recognize God's sovereign rights over them; fail dismally to see themselves as creatures - with all the raptures that word connotes. Failing to recognize God as Creator; they can never come to a full realization of their own very nature; for they have already missed the discovery of the origin and the end of their being. Consequently, no matter how active they may be, nor how orderly in their activities, they are like a mariner on an horizonless sea minus a compass. They go on and on; but they really have no ultimate destination.

He had discussed with his fellow priests, telling how he had found souls more naked to his sight in sickness than even in the sacrament of penance. He claimed that, for many, God was too "distant"; for others, merely "hypothetical" and even "purely imaginary". He saw how these good and earnest people had conceived the notion that their true greatness lay in serving their fellowman, in loving them, helping them, and even forgetting themselves in the process. This was putting man in the place of God; substituting social service for the service of God. "It is extremely attractive to many noble souls," he said, "truly seductive." Then he would add with a sad shake of his head, "But it is truly destructive, also. What is more, these people not only run the danger of losing eternal life, they are missing out in true temporal living; for there is no real living that is not worship of God. And these people are not worshipping Him." He admitted that such people found some satisfaction in their dedication, but insisted it was not full satisfaction, nor could it ever be; for it was a distortion of the way God wants us to serve our fellowman. "They are serving man as man, and not as images of God and members of Christ," was his conclusion.”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour

“When a lull came in the conversation he sat up in bed with vigor and said: "Does not all this explain that mysterious passage in the Gospel which tells how Mary placed her 'firstborn' in the manger? So many have mistakenly believed that that word implies that she was to have other children. We know she was to have millions on millions but not according to the flesh; only in the spirit. Jesus was her only Son in one sense, but all men are her children in the other."

"Exactly," said the young scholar. "In one of his encyclicals, Pius X told how Mary, carrying Jesus in her womb, was carrying each of us spiritually; for in carrying the Head of the Mystical Body physically, she was carrying the whole Mystical Body spiritually." (Chapter 2)”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour

“That is the purpose of this book - to make you happy. Its plan is to have you base that happiness on God's own truth as given us in the Gospels. Any other base would be unworthy of God and too weak for you. For yours is a tumultuous and a tottering world; made so by men who love the darkness rather than the light. Stability is to be found only in the unmoved Mover of this restless universe and in His Christ who is "the same, yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8).

Fear stalks your land. Crippling anxieties and neurotic unrests swarm about you. But that is only because the highly publicized gospels of Expediency and Efficiency have had too many followers who have been altogether too faithful, while the only true Gospel, and the only Gospel of Truth, has been too hesitantly trusted and too listlessly tried.”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour

“But I do, Matt. I'm often worried about my ability to take it. Will I be able to measure up when real pain comes?"

Father Matt snuffed out the cigarette he had bee smoking and casually said: "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

"Meaning?" questioned Father Lehmann.

"Meaning that we are not supposed to borrow trouble. You've answered your own question, Jim, before you asked it."

"How so?"

"By the past six and a half years. You've taken it as it came along, Jim. You'll do the same in the future - if you have the future."

"What do you mean: if I have a future?"

"Jim, God gives us one moment at a time - only one. Not days; not hours; just moments. And He gives us grace for the moment at the moment; not the grace for the next moment. He gave you the grace you needed for yesterday, yesterday; what you need for today, today; and if you are to have a tomorrow, God will be faithful." (chapter 6)”
― M. Raymond, Your Hour