Leo J. Trese > Quotes

“The glory that is given to God by the works of his creation is what we call an “external glory.” It is something outside of God. It doesn’t actually add anything to God. It is very much like an artist who has a great talent for painting and a mind full of beautiful images. If the artist puts some of those images on canvas for people to look at and admire, it still hasn’t added anything to the artist himself. It hasn’t made him any better or more wonderful than he was before (p. 5).”
― Leo J. Trese

“Incluso en el amor humano, el sentimentalismo no es una buena medida del amor. Un hombre puede derramar lágrimas leyendo una carta de su esposa y, a renglón seguido, serle infiel con una desconocida. Lo que de verdad prueba el amor que tenemos a una persona es lo que somos capaces de hacer por ella, no nuestro sentimentalismo.”
― Leo J. Trese, Dios necesita de ti (Cuadernos Palabra nº 88)

“No matter what heroic acts I might perform, without God’s grace I never could save myself.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“Every Mass a Communion Mass” should be the aim of all of us, provided, of course, that anyone conscious of a mortal sin must be forgiven in the sacrament of Confession before receiving our Lord.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“Someone has said that even the worst sinner spends more time doing things that are good and harmless than in doing things that are bad. In other words, there is some good even in the worst of us.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“Otherwise we run the risk of failing God in the one thing that so greatly determined His choice of us; and in failing God, we shall fail ourselves.
Find your personal worth in your special calling from God
Our Christian vocation carries responsibility, but it has its compensations, too. One such compensation is the wholesome feeling of personal worth that should be mine. If I am important to God, I am indeed an important person. Other people may not rate me very highly. My talents may be quite limited, and to those who know me, I may be just an average sort of person. My job may be a relatively humble one, and I may be tempted to feel inferior as I see others around me making their mark in the world. Then I remember that money, position, and popularity - all the yardsticks by which the world measures success - are to God nothing more than a child's playthings. Eventually they must be cast aside and left behind.
In the meantime, if I am in a state of grace and am following God's will as my road map through life, then every least action of mine has an everlasting value. However lowly the world may esteem me, every breath I draw is precious to God. Speaking again in human terms, God made me because He needs me. There is something that has to be done that only I can do. What greater personal worth could there be than to be needed by God? It matters little that I do not know the nature of my essential role in God's plan. It is enough to know that I am as valuable to God as the most distinguished person the world has ever acclaimed.
This sense of personal worth is not pride. It is not even vanity. Pride consists in declaring my independence of God,
as though I alone were responsible for whatever merit I possess. Vanity is simply a silly preoccupation with God's lesser natural gifts, such as looks or talents.
It would not be humility - it would be a belittling of God's wisdom and goodness - to pretend that I do not amount to much, that my life is meaningless, that I would never have been missed if I had not been born. It is quite true that apart from God I am nothing. It is just as true that God's love has made me great. To admit this is to do simple justice to God. I must never surrender to the temptation to think, "I am no good. I am a failure."
Neither must I surrender - ever - to self-pity; to the feeling that nobody loves me, nobody cares about me. How awful it would be, after all the love God has expended and is expending on me, to brood and sorrow because I do not receive as much human love as I might wish. That would be about as silly as the complaint of a millionaire at not winning on the penny slot machine. A self-pitying person can only be one who is weak in faith or ignorant in religion. God's love for me is such a tremendous thing!
From my sense of Christian vocation there follows another effect: freedom from serious worry. If I really believe that God loves me with an infinite love (as He does) and that He wants what is best for me (as He does), I cannot worry very long or very intensely. God is infinitely wise; He always knows what is best. God is infinitely powerful; He can accomplish anything”
― Leo J. Trese, Seventeen Steps to Heaven

“God, who is infinitely good, would not place in human hearts this desire for perfect happiness if there were no way in which that desire could be satisfied.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“There just is no higher motive for doing anything than to do it for God.”
― Leo J. Trese, The Faith Explained

“We must learn all that we can about God, so that we may love him, and keep our love alive, and grow in love for him.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“It is by conquering temptation that we acquire merit before God. It is through temptation, met and defeated, that we grow in holiness. There would be little credit in being good if it were easy to be good. The great saints were not men and women who had no temptations; in most cases, they were men and women who had tremendous temptations—and became saints by their victories. We shall not,”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“Until Jesus died upon the cross and paid the price of man’s sin, no human soul could enter heaven,”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained

“Temptations can come also from the deep-seated forces within us which we call passions, passions that often are rebellious and imperfectly controlled as a result of original sin. But from whatever source the temptation may come, we know that we can conquer it if we have the will to do so.”
― Leo John Trese, The Faith Explained