Kevin

“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

“One morning while he was making ready a mess of beans for his community’s dinner, he happened to be thus ravished in spirit, and stood for a considerable time with his hand in the beans, having his mind absorbed in God, and tears streaming from his eyes, fell into the vessel of beans before him. The duke of Adria, or Atria, in whose estate Conversano was comprised, and who often retired from the court of king Ferdinand I. to pass some months in the country, coming to this convent, passed through the kitchen, and saw the holy brother in this wonderful rapture. He stood some time in great surprise, and said, “Blessed are the religious brethren whose meals are seasoned with such tears.” After”
― Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition

“The Greeks having proposed the question about the procession of the Holy Ghost, whether this was from the Father only, or from the Father and the Son; the disputation being protracted, the pope called aloud for Anselm, saying, “Anselm, our father and our master, where are you?” And causing him to sit next to him, told him that the present occasion required his learning and elocution to defend the church against her enennes, and that he thought God had brought him thither for that purpose. Anselm spoke to the point with so much learning, judgment, and penetration, that he silenced the Greeks, and gave such a general satisfaction, that all presen joined in pronouncing anathema against those that should afterwards deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from both the Father and the Son. This”
― Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition

“The man of faith judges active works by quite a different light from the man who lives in outward things. What he looks at is not so much the outward appearance of things, as their place in the divine plan and their supernatural results. And so, considering himself as a simple instrument, his soul is all the more filled with horror at any self-satisfaction in his own endowments, because he places his sole hope of success in the conviction of his own helplessness and confidence in God alone. Thus he is confirmed in a state of abandonment. And as he passes through his various difficulties, how different is his attitude from that of the apostle who knows nothing of intimacy with Christ! Furthermore,”
― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate