Spiritual Quote of the Day (Annie F. Downs, on ‘What Jesus Models for Us’)

“What Jesus models for us is you can love anybody, you can be friends with anybody, you can serve anybody. Heaven's going to be a confusing place for some people when they see people who didn't agree with them.”—Christian author and podcaster Annie F. Downs quoted by Emily Borrow, “Weekend Confidential: Annie F. Downs,” The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 1-2, 2023

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Thomas Aquinas, on Heaven's ‘Happy Society of All the Blessed’)

“In heaven there will be the happy society of all the blessed, and this society will be especially delightful. Since each one will possess all good together with the blessed, and they will love one another as themselves, they will rejoice in the others’ good as their own. It will also happen that, as the pleasure and enjoyment of one increases, so will it be for all: ‘The dwelling in you is as it were of all rejoicing.’” [Ps 86:7 Vulgate].— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) [Angelic] Doctor of the Church, “Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum [The Apostles’ Creed”], translated by Joseph B. Collins (1939)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Alexander Pope, on ‘Virtue’s Prize’)

“What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy,
Is Virtue's prize. A better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown,
Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?”—English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), “An Essay on Man” (1733)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on the Reward of the Saints)

“Here below [the saints] endure obloquy for the City of God, which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That City is eternal; no one is born there, because no one dies. There is the true felicity, which is no goddess, but the gift of God. From there we have received the pledge of our faith, in that we sigh for her beauty while on our pilgrimage. In that City the sun does not rise ‘on the good and on the evil’; the ‘sun of righteousness’ spreads its light only on the good; there the public treasury needs no great efforts for its enrichment at the cost of private property; for there the common stock is the treasury of truth.”— Theologian, philosopher, and bishop St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (1984)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (George Eliot, on ‘That Purest Heaven’)

“May I reach 
That purest heaven, be to other souls 
The cup of strength in some great agony, 
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, 
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffus'd, 
And in diffusion ever more intense! 
So shall I join the choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world.”—English novelist, poet, journalist and translator Mary Ann Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot (1819-1880), “O May I Join the Choir Invisible!” from O May I Join the Choir Invisible and Other Favorite Poems (1884)

I came across this poem through the “Scherzo” episode in Endeavour, the PBS mystery series filled with such literary allusions.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Poet Christina Rossetti, on the Summer Songs of the Skylark and Nightingale)

 

“When a mounting skylark sings
  In the sunlit summer morn,
I know that heaven is up on high,
  And on earth are fields of corn.
 
“But when a nightingale sings
  In the moonlit summer even,
I know not if earth is merely earth,
  Only that heaven is heaven.”— English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Sing-Song”—“mounting skylark,” in The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (2001)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Francis de Sales, on Why the World is Populated)

“The world is only peopled to people heaven." — St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church, Thy Will Be Done: Letters to Persons in the World (1995), translated by Rev. Henry Benedict Mackey (1995)

Quote of the Day (Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, on ‘Love of Heaven’)

“Let us understand, as a first truth in religion, that love of heaven is the only way to heaven. Sight will not move us; else why did Judas persist in covetousness in the very presence of Christ? why did Balaam, whose eyes were opened, remain with a closed heart? why did Satan fall, when he was a bright Archangel? Nor will reason subdue us; else why was the Gospel, in the beginning, ‘to the Greeks foolishness’? Nor will excited feelings convert us; for there is one who ‘heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;’ yet ‘hath no root in himself,’ and ‘dureth’ only ‘for a while.’ Nor will self-interest prevail with us; or the rich man would have been more prudent, whose ‘ground brought forth plentifully,’ and would have recollected that ‘that night his soul’ might be ‘required of him.’ Let us understand that nothing but the love of God can make us believe in Him or obey Him; and let us pray Him, who has ‘prepared for them that love Him, such good things as pass man's understanding, to pour into our hearts such love towards Him, that we, loving Him above all things, may obtain His promises, which exceed all that we can desire.’"— English theologian, poet, educator, and memoirist Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Newman Reader, Parochial and Plain Sermons 8, “Sermon 6, Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief,” first preached on May 2, 1830

Quote of the Day (C.S. Lewis, on Where Heaven Enters)

“Heaven enters wherever Christ enters, even in this life.” —English novelist, academic, and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Feb. 22, 1944 letter, quoted in The Quotable Lewis, edited by Jerry Root and Wayne Martindale (2012)

Today would have been the 120^th birthday of C.S. Lewis—who, in addition to creating the beloved set of fantasy classics The Chronicles of Narnia, also wrote some of the most persuasive defenses of Christianity published in the last century. (Incidentally, his death would have attracted far more media attention, except that it occurred on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.)

(This post is written for my college friend Greg—who may be an even bigger fan of Lewis than I am.)

Quote of the Day (Jack Kerouac, on How ‘Heaven is Nigh’)

“All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.” —American “Beat” novelist—and Catholic--Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Visions of Gerard (1963)

Quote of the Day (Jack Kerouac, on Kindness and Heaven)

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"Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.” —“Beat” novelist Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), in Selected Letters, 1957-1969: Vol. 2, edited by Ann Charters (1999)

(The photograph of Kerouac is by Tom Palumbo, from New York, circa 1956.)

Quote of the Day (St. Francis de Sales, on ‘The Excellence of God's Paradise’)

"Consider a calm, beautiful night and think how good it is to see the sky with its countless varied stars. Next add its beauty to that of a fine day in such a way that the brilliant sun does not prevent a clear view of the stars or moon. Then say boldly that all this beauty put together is of no value when compared to the excellence of God's paradise."— St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church, Philothea (God loving Soul), or The Introduction to the Devout Life (1609)