J.

“Because your question searches for deep meaning,
I shall explain in simple words”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“There are two classes of people who hide themselves: the criminal who flees punishment, and the saint who through humility wishes to remain unknown.”
― Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life

“St. Thomas Aquinas deeply loved this beautiful chant thus understood. It is told of him that he could not keep back his tears when, during Compline of Lent, he chanted the antiphon: “In the midst of life we are in death: whom do we seek as our helper, but Thou, O Lord, who because of our sins art rightly incensed? Holy God, strong God, holy and merciful Savior, deliver us not up to a bitter death; abandon us not in the time of our old age, when our strength will abandon us.” This beautiful antiphon begs for the grace of final perseverance, the grace of graces, that of the predestined. How it should speak to the heart of the contemplative theologian, who has made a deep study of the tracts on Providence, predestination, and grace!”
― Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life

“A person of your century: Great persons are of their time. Not all were born into a period worthy of them, and many so born failed to benefit by it. Some merited a better century, for all that is good does not always triumph. Fashions have their periods and even the greatest virtues, their styles. But the philosopher, being ageless, has one advantage: Should this not prove the right century, many to follow will.”
― Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle