Zitat des Tages von Saint Bernard:
You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.
There are people who go clad in tunics and have nothing to do with furs, who nevertheless are lacking in humility. Surely humility in furs is better than pride in tunics.
I myself, however wretched I may be, have been occasionally privileged to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus, and to the extent that his merciful love allowed, have embraced with all my heart, now one, now the other, of these feet.
I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of Christ and not by Christ's 'words and example.'
In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so? Surely because opinion may be deceived; understanding cannot be. If it could, it would not be understanding but opinion. For true understanding has not only certain truth, but the knowledge of truth.
Even the holy men who lived before the coming of Christ understood that God had in mind plans of peace for the human race.
Charity never lacks what is her own, all that she needs for her own security. Not alone does she have it, she abounds with it. She wants this abundance for herself that she may share it with all; and she reserves enough for herself so that she disappoints nobody. For charity is perfect only when full.
Who is there that can adequately gauge the greatness of the humility, gentleness, self-surrender, revealed by the Lord of majesty in assuming human nature, in accepting the punishment of death, the shame of the cross?
The impudence of the sinner displeases God as much as the modesty of the penitent gives him pleasure.
That heart alone is hard which does not shudder at itself for not feeling its hardness.
Knowledge is sometimes superfluous: when we need it, we have it not.