Quote of the Day (St. Ambrose of Milan, on the Burdens of a Guilty Conscience)

“But nothing causes such exceeding grief as when anyone, lying under the captivity of sin, calls to mind from where he has fallen, because he turned aside to carnal and earthly things, instead of directing his mind in the beautiful ways of the knowledge of God. So you find Adam concealing himself, when he knew that God was present and wishing to be hidden when called by God with that voice which wounded the soul of him yourself? Why are you concealed? Why do you avoid Him Whom you once longed to see? A guilty conscience is so burdensome that it punishes itself without a judge, and wishes for covering, and yet is bare before God.” —St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397 A.D.), Concerning Repentance, Book II (A.D. 384)

Quote of the Day (St. Ambrose of Milan, on How ‘Christ is Everything for Us’)

“Omnia Christus est nobis! (Christ is everything for us!) If you want to heal a wound, he is the physician; is you burn with fever, he is the fountain; if you are oppressed by iniquity, he is justice; if you need help, he is strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you desire heaven, he is the way; if you are in darkness, he is the light. … Taste and see how good the Lord is. Blessed is the man who hopes in him!”—St. Ambrose of Milan (ca. 340-397),  De virginitate (“On Virginity”), in St. Ambrose: Selected Works and Letters, translated by the Rev. H. de Romestin, The Rev. E. de Romestin, and the Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth (1896)

The image accompanying this post is a portrait of St. Ambrose by Dutch Golden Age painter Matthias Stom (ca. 1600-after 1650).