Quotes from St. Josemaria Escriva

Forgive me not not posting daily, I have some personal isseuse to deal with.
I am reading a book called THE WAY by St. Josemaria Escriva. Here are some quotes from the book.

1. Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love. With your apostolic life wipe out the slimy and filthy mark left by the impure sowers of hatered. And light up all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you carry in your heart.

2 May youe behaviour and your conversation be such that every one who sees or hears you can say : this man read the life of Jesus Christ

3 Maturity. Stop making faces and acting up like a child! Your bearing ought to reflect the prace and order in your soul.

4. Dont say "That's the way i am - it's my character" It's your lack of character. Esto vir! - Be a man!

5. Get used to saying No.

6. Turn your back on the deceiver when he whispers in your ear, "Why complicate your life?"

7. Dont have a "small town" outlook. Enlarge your heart until it becomes universal - "catholic". Dont fly like a barnyard hen when you can soar like an eagle.

8. Serenity. why lose your temper if by losing it you offend God, you trouble your neighbor, your give yourself a bad time... and in the end you have to set things aright anyway?

9. What you have just said, say it in another tone, without anger, and what you say will have more force.. and above all, you wont offend God.

10. Never reprimand anyone while you feel provoked over a fault that ahs been committed. Wait until the next day, or even longer. Then make your remonstrance calmly and with a purified intention. You'll gain more with an affectionate word that you ever would from three hours of quarreling. Control your temper.

11. Will-power. Energy. Example. What has to be done is done... without wavering... without worrying about what others think...
Otherwise Cisneros would not have been Cisneros; nor Theresa of Ahumada, Saint Theresa; nor Inigo of Loyola St Ignaitus.
God and Daring! Regnare Christum volumus!- "We want Christ to reign1"

12. Let obstacles only make you bigger. the grace of our Lord will not be lacking: Inter medium montium pertransibunt aquae! - "through the very midst of the mountains the waters shall pass" You will pass through mountains!
What does it matter that you have to curtial your activity for the moment, if later, like a spring which has been compressed, you'll advance much farther than you ever dreamed?

13. Get rid of thouse useless thoughts which are at best a waste of time.

14. Don't waste your energy and your time - which belongs to God - throwing stones at the dogs that bark at you on the way - Ignore them.

15. Don't put off your work until tomorrow.

16. Give in? Be just commonplace? You, a sheep-like follower? You were born to be a leader?
Among us there is no place for the lukewarm. Humble yourself and Christ will kindle in you again the fire of love.

17. Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are a general lack of seriousness, unsteadiness in action and speech, foolishness - in a word, frivolty.
And that frivolty, mind you, which makes your plans so void - "so filled with emptiness" - will amke of you a lifeless and useless dummy, unless you ract in time - not tomorrow, but now!

18. You go on being worldly, frivolous, and giddy becasue you are a coward. What is it, if not cowardice, to refuse to face yourself?

19. Will-power. A very important quality. Dont disregard the little things, which are really never futile or trivial. For by the constant practice of repeated self denial in little things, with God's grace you will increase in strenght and manliness of character. In that way you will first become master of yourself, and then a guide and leader: to compel, to urge, to draw others with your example and with your word and with your knowledge and with your pwoer.

20 You clash with the character of one person or another... It has to be that way - you are no a dollar bill to be liked by everyone. Besides with out those clashes which arise in dealing with your neighbors, how could you ever lose those sharp corners, the edges - imperfections and defects of your character - and acquire the order, the smotthness, and the firm mildness of charity, of perfection?
If your character and that of those around you were soft and sweet like marshmallows, you would never become a saint.

21. Excuses. You'll never lack them if you want to avoid your duties. What a lot of rationalizing!
Dont stop to think about excuses. Get rid of them and do what you should.

22 Be Frim! Be Strong! Be a Man! and then...be an angel!

23 You say you can't do more? Couldn't it be... that you can't do less?

24 YOu are ambitious: for knowledge...for leadership. YOu want to be daring. Good. Fine. But let it be for Christ, for Love.

25 Don't argue. Arguments usually bring no light becasue the light is smothered by emotion.

26 Matrimony is a holy sacrament. When the time comes for you to receive it, ask your spiritual directo or your confessor to suggest an appropriate book. Then you will be better prepared to bear worthily the burdens of a home.

27 Do you laugh becasue I tell you that you have a "vocation to marriage"? Well, you have just that - a vocation.
Commend yourself to Saint Raphael that he may keep you pure, as he did Tobias, until the end of the way.

28 Marriage is for the rank and file, not for the officers of Christ's army. For, unlike food, which is necessary for every individual, procreation is necessary only for the species, and individuals can dispense with it.
A Desire to have children? Behind us we shall leave children - many children...and a lasting trail of light, if we sacrifice the selfishness of the flesh. **** What is really important is that each person should follow his vocation, in the same battle a soldier can win a medal while a general flees shamfully.

29 The limited and pitiful happiness of the selfish man, who withdraes into his shell, his ivory tower...is not difficult to attain in this world. But that happiness of the selfish is not lasting.
For the false semblance of Heaven are you going to forsake the Joy of Glory with out end?

30 You're shrewd. Dont don't tell me you are young. Youth gives all it can - it gives itself without reserve.

31 Selfish! You... always looking out for yourself. You seem unable to feel the brotherhook of Christ. In others you don't see brothers; you see steeping-stones.
I can forsee your complete failure. And wehn you are down, you'll expect others to treat you with the charity you're unwilling to show them.

32 You'll never be a leader if you see others only as stepping stones to get ahead. You'll be a leader if you are ambitious for the salvation of all souls.
You can't live iwth you back turned on everyone; you have to be eager to make others happy.

33 You never want" to get to the bottom of things." At times, becasue of politeness. Other times- most times - becasue you fear hurting yourself. Sometimes again, becasue you fear hurting others. But always because of fear!
With that fear of digging for the truth you'll never be a man of good judgement.

34 Don't be afraid of the truth, even though the truth may mean your death.

35 There are many pretty terms I don't like: you call cowardice "prudence". Your "prudence" gives an oppurtunity to those enemies of God, without any ideas in thier heads, to pass themselves off as scholars, and so reach positions that they should never attain.

36 Yes, that abuse can be eradicated. It's lack of character to let it continue as something hopeless- without any possible remedy.
Don't evade your duty. Do it in a forthright way, even though others may not.

37 You have, as they say, "the gift of the gab." But in spite of all of your talk, you can't get me to justify - by calling it "providential" - what has no justification.

38 Can it be true (I just can't believe it!) that on earth there are no men - only bellies?