Christianity Explained
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Writings of Wisdom
The Saints
While we are in the body we are absent from the lord but to abide in the flesh is needful for Christ.
Sins demand affliction for redemption and that is Gods goodness.
Life is temporary to prepare us for eternity.
God does not call the perfect, he perfects the called.
- Trent Horn
As love itself God is a relationship of persons who eternally give and receive love among one another.
-Trent Horn
Love everyone as much as God does.
We remove offensive objects from houseguests as we must remove parts of ourselves for Christ.
-St. Augustine
God receives your alms through the poor.
-St. Augustine
Be ruled by divine providence as a dead body. Everything a man cuts off from his own adds to virtue.
-St. Ingatius
A heart that serves for a reward is not pure.
-St. Augustine
Prayer is the most profitable in life. Lifelong devotion is worth it to even overcome 1 sin. Works are accomplished by small degrees. We are to remain on the cross until our sacvrifice is consumated.
-Vincent st. Paul
Christian prudence vs worldly prudence.
-Vincent st. Paul
The world is more dangerous when it flatters and entices us than when it mistreats us.
-St. Ingatius
Two spiritual cities of earth are being built, god and contempt of god and self. The flesh glorifies itself while the spirit glorifies God.
-St. Augustine
Seek not the esteem of men, but of God. The eyes of men rob the treasure of your merit.
-St. Aloysius
The desire of notice and praise is evil and makes us forget god. It poisons our holiest actions, hindering spiritual progress. Purity of intention is more important than the action.
Inconstancy is like continually transplanting a rose, making us weak.
-Vincent st. Paul
Because I am clothed had had to be hung naked. Because I like to be comfortable in every detail he is bored with nails. Because I deserve to be abandoned by God he is forsaken. If I had seen and known his suffering was for me could I have gone away and sinned against him?
The abyss of Christs sacred heart is what we truly long for and what our hearts were made for. We are restless until we rest in him.
-St. Augustine
It is the spirit of God that quickeneth the mind, by the gift of faith; but your carnal minds hinder you from profitting by him.
Seek penance as you seek to remedy dirty clothes or lost money. Do this to prevent sins from going bad to worse and then into habbit.
We have not intellect to grasp natures other than ours.
Unknown
God cannot be around darkness, a room cannot be light and dark at the same time. As in us light has no fellowship with darkness.
Put up your sails and let holy spirit guide.
Love is the only uniform that suits all shapes and sizes.
If you fear God you wont fear anything else.
Truly loving jesus and neighbor makes you share the gospel.
Jesus never offers happiness he offers peace.
Use all situations to acknowledge and worship Christ and he will shine your way. Worship is also denying flesh. Turn from the distractions and pleasures of this world and pick up your cross.
The holy spirit wants to dwell in you, and you must facilitate a temple for that.
The world had to go through stages of external progress and internel degeneracy to learn by sad experience the insuffiency of its natural resources and its need for a redeemer.
Wisdom
2 People make pleasure their purpose because life is fleeting. Life has been made a game for illusory profit even by means of evil. God formed man to be imperishable, the image of his own nature he made us. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are allied with him experience it.
6 Wisdom is found by those who love her. Setting your heart on her is the perfection of prudence. Love for her means keeping her laws. This is the basis for incorruptibility which makes one close with God and leads to his Kingdom.
7 Nothing defiled can enter wisdom. God loves nothing so much as the one who dwells with wisdom, true wealth. Devotion to God is mightier than all else.
8 Immortality lies in kinship with wisdom.
9 None can know Gods counsel and intentions. The deliberations of man is timid. The corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthly tent weighs down the mind with concerns.
Ben Sira
2 When you come to serve the lord prepare yourself for trials. Gold is tested in fire and the chosen the crucible of humiliation. Those who love the lord keep his ways. Fall into the hands of the lord and not mortals, for equal to his majesty is his mercy, and equal to his name are his works.
3 Docility: Without the eyes pupil light is missing. Without knowledge wisdom is missing. A stubborn heart will fare badly in the end. When the proud are afflicted here is no cure for they are offshoots of an evil plant.
6 Fierce passion will burn your leaves and consume your strength. From youth choose discipline and in old age find wisdom. Like plowing and sowing drawing closer to harvest.
8 Do not content with the mighty, wealth perverts a princes character. Do nothing that should be kept secret before a stranger. Open your heart to no-one.
10 The beginning of pride is stuborness. God humbles the proud and exalts the lowly in their place. When the free serve a wise enslave the wise will not complain.
11 The day of prosperity makes one forget adversity and vice versa. The same with affliction and delights.
17 Creations of humans and the returning to God
Nothing is brighter than the sun yet it can be eclipsed. How worthless then the thoughts of flesh and blood.
21 Panic and pride wipe out wealth. Those who keep the law control their thoughts. The knowledge of the wise wells up like a flood, but the fools mind a broken jar and cannot hold kowledge. The mind of fools is in their mouth but the mouth of the wise is in their minds.
24 Message of Praise from Wisdom: I will water my flower beds, then this stream will become a river and then a sea. Like dawn and the spread of light.
27 For the sake of profit many sin and the struggle for wealth blinds the eyes. The furnace tests the potters vessels; the test of a person is in conversation. If you strive you will attain it. Wear it like a robe. Birds nest with their own kind, limit the time spent among the stupid.
28 Does anyone who nourishes anger against another expect healing from the lord? Can one refuse mercy to a sinner like oneself yet seek pardon for their own sins? Overlook faults. If you blow on a spark it turns into a flame and if you spit on it it dies out. Both you do with your mouth.
31 Wakefulness over wealth wastes away the flesh. Whoever pursues money will be led astray by it. What has been created more greedy than the eye? Therefore it weeps for any cause. Wine tests the heart. In meditation wine is very life to anyone.
33 Why is one day more important than the other when the same sun lights up every day of the year? Make a slave work and he will look for rest. Idleness teaches mischief.
40 Joys and miseries of life: God aloted a heavy yoke for the children of adam. Troubled thoughts, fear of hearts and anxious foreboding. As he reaches safety he wakes up, realizing there was nothing to fear. True treasure: Wisdom, wife, love of friends, pure tongue, produce of a field, charity, sound judgment, fear of God, in fear of God there is no want or need for support. Its canopy is over all that is glorious.
41 Death is a decree from God for all flesh.
Proverbs
1 The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors. But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and be at ease, without dread of disaster.
3 Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways. For a devious person is an abomination to the lord, but the upright are in his confidence.
6 There are six things the lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
10 Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death. The fear of the lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.
11 Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished. One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.
12 The root of the just will never be disturbed. Whoever is wicked covets the spoilt of evil-doers. The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite. From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good.
13 The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite.
14 Whoever walks in uprightness fears the lord but he who is devious in his ways despises him. There is a way that seems right to man but its end is the way to death. A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.
15 The light of the eyes rejoices the heart.
16 How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty.
22 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches and favour is better than silver or gold.
23:4 Do not destroy yourself by the pursuit of wealth, be sensible and stop it quickly.
28 Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.
17 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.
18 It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice.
19 Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
28 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.
29 The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the lord is safe.
30 There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. Four things on the earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise. Ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer. The rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs. The locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank. The lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in king’s places. Three things are stately in their tread; four are stately in their stride: The lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any; the strutting cock, the he-goat, and a king whose army is with him. If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth. For pressing milk produces curds, and pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife.
The Flesh
Galatians 5
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.13 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Romans 8
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
12 So then, brothers,[a] we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
1 Peter 2:11
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Other
Be intent upon naught, save only upon grounding the will in humble love, working diligently, suffering and imitating the Son of God in His life and mortifications, for it is by this road that a man will come to all spiritual good, rather than by much inward reasoning.
- St. John of the Cross