Jean-Baptiste Chautard > Quotes

“A jeweler will prefer the smallest fragment of diamond to several sapphires; and so, in the order established by God, our intimacy with Him gives Him more glory than all possible good, procured by us, for a great number of souls, but to the detriment of our own progress. Our Heavenly Father, “who devotes Himself more to the direction of a soul in which He reigns, than to the natural government of the whole universe and to the civil government of all empires,” looks for this harmony in our zeal.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard

“Bossuet has a sentence which is beyond the comprehension of an apostle who does not realize what must be the soul of his apostolate. It runs: “When God desires a work to be wholly from His hand, he reduces all to impotence and nothingness, and then He acts.” Nothing wounds God so much as pride.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“no human artistry, no matter how wonderful, can be compared to the action of Jesus on the soul.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard O.C.S.O., The Soul of the Apostolate

“The Liturgy may be considered a school for acquiring four fruits: the presence of God, sorrow for sin, joy, and prayer.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Spiritual Handbook for Catholic Evangelists

“A zeal that is not charitable,” says St. Francis de Sales, “comes from a charity that is not genuine.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Believe me,” St. Vincent de Paul said to his priests, “we will never be any use in doing God’s work until we become thoroughly convinced that, of ourselves, we are better fitted to ruin everything than to make a success of it.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“A man can suffer like a pagan, like the damned, or like a saint. If he wishes to suffer with Christ, he must try to suffer like a saint. For then, suffering is of benefit to our own souls, and applies the merits of the Passion to those of others: “I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church.”10”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Correct doctrine and good judgment will not be enough to preserve him from these aberrations, because the apostle without interior life, and, therefore without humility, will be at the mercy of his passions.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Christ does all the work; we are only His instruments.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard O.C.S.O., The Soul of The Apostolate

“Without mental prayer a person soon becomes either a brute or a devil. If you do not practice mental prayer, you don’t need any devil to throw you into hell, you throw yourself in there of your own accord.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Let the men eaten up with activity,” he says, “and who imagine they are able to shake the world with their preaching and other outward works, stop and reflect a moment. It will not be difficult for them to understand that they would be much more useful to the Church and more pleasing to the Lord, not to mention the good example they would give to those around them, if they devoted more time to prayer and to the exercises of the interior life.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“With his deep understanding of the needs of the Church, Pius X often saw things with a most remarkable clarity. An interesting conversation of the Holy Pontiff with a group of Cardinals was reported in the French clerical publication, “L’Ami du Clerge.” The Pope asked them: “What is the thing we most need, today, to save society?” “Build Catholic schools,” said one. “No.” “More churches,” said another. “Still no.” “Speed up the recruiting of priests,” said a third. “No, no,” said the Pope, “the MOST necessary thing of all, at this time, is for every parish to possess a group of laymen who will be at the same time virtuous, enlightened, resolute, and truly apostolic.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard O.C.S.O., The Soul of the Apostolate

“When the smith plunges the iron into the fire, he is not just trying to make it hot and glowing; he wants to make it malleable. So too, the only reason why mental prayer is to give light to my mind and warmth to my heart is to make my soul pliant so that it can be hammered into a new shape, so that the faults and form of the old man may be hammered out, and the form and virtues of Jesus Christ imparted to it.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“God does not say: “I will give My priests more zeal and more talent,” but: “I will inebriate their souls.” What does that signify if not: “I will give them very special graces, and for that reason my people will be filled with My blessings.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“The soul that pays attention to what is going on inside itself, and is sensitive to the presence of the Most Holy Trinity within it, acquires an almost instinctive habit of turning to Jesus in every situation,”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“I want to annihilate myself before You. I want to sing my gratitude and my joy to carry out Your Will. I want it to be true, and no longer a lie, when I tell You that I love You, and that I hate what offends You, and so on.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“The efficacy of an apostolate almost invariably corresponds to the degree of Eucharistic life acquired by a soul.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Christ purifies our love and directs and increases it as we go on. He allows us to share in the movements of compassion, devotion, abnegation, and selflessness of His adorable Heart.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Have confidence, dear friend. You have preserved all your priestly integrity, and your thousands of sermons will argue in your behalf before God, to excuse this lack of inner life of which you speak.” “My sermons!” cried the dying man, “Oh what a light I see them in now! My sermons! If Our Lord is not the first in bringing up the subject of them, you can be sure that I won’t mention it!”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“What wealth there is to put into circulation in a child’s soul! The tree is just about to lean one way or another—and stay that way. For lack of spiritual direction to fit their age and dispositions, from childhood on, many of them become adults whom we will no longer be able to number among the fairer flowers of Christ’s garden.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Let the following conviction become deeply impressed upon your mind; namely, that a soul cannot lead an interior life without the schedule we have referred to, and without the firm resolution to keep it all the time, especially where the rigorously fixed hour of rising is concerned.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Fidelity to mental prayer gives life to all our other pious exercises. By it, the soul will gradually acquire vigilance and a spirit of prayer, that is, a habit of ever more frequent recourse to God.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Only the interior life can sustain us in the hidden, backbreaking labor of planting the seed that seems to go so long without fruit.”
― Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Woe to the man who, in his work, wants to run things without really depending on God!”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“simple spirit of faith which was able to see God’s will in all things — a charity”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of The Apostolate

“St. Vincent de Paul tells us: “A man without mental prayer is not good for anything; he cannot even renounce the slightest thing. ‘It is merely the life of an animal.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“St. Bonaventure’s principle, that the secret of a fruitful apostolate is to be found much more at the foot of the Cross than in the display of brilliance.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“the blessings that make a ministry fruitful are reserved for the prayers of a man of interior life.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“Pius X declared that: “If our own spirit does not submit to the control of a truly Christian and holy way of life, it will be difficult to make others lead a good life.” And he adds, “All those called to a life of Catholic Works ought to be men of a life so spotless that they may give everybody else an effective example.”26”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate

“The activity of God in the souls of the perfect is something quite different from His activity in the souls of beginners. In the latter, being less obvious, it consists mostly in inciting and sustaining vigilance and suppliant prayer, thus offering them a means of obtaining grace for new efforts. But, in the perfect God acts in a much more complete fashion, and sometimes all He asks is a simple consent, that will unite the soul to His supreme action.”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate