SO GOOD QUOTES

“To stand firm in certain painful circumstances can demand much courage: the long night of waiting, the loneliness of not being understood, unjust treatment, poor health, personal defects, etc. We have to know how to stand firm in pure faith when we seem to be only weakness, seem to be only sin. We have to consent in advance to all that, to the desert of the desert. We have to desire the purity which suffering alone can teach.

It seems to me perseverance is a great school of humility: a gradual coming to know this self which persist in time, whose features become defined, whose character traits recur, whose limits take shape. Through trial one discovers one’s own heart, and becomes an authentic person situated in the real.

We are at times reduced to a material or animal perseverance, or even simply to being there, like a rock, without really knowing why, nor to what purpose. It is like a narrow room without light or air. Still, one goes on by a sort of gravitational law. Later, one realizes that perseverance is a pure grace, independent of personal merit. Then, the Spirit once again breathes life into our dried bones; we get up and go on.”

(A Carthusian)