Catherine Doherty Quotes

What you do matters — but not much. What you are matters tremendously.

Faith allows us to enter peacefully into the dark night which faces everyone of us at one time or another.

We cannot give the world anything it doesn't already have except God and God's love. But before we can give God to men, we must be one with him ourselves.

True silence is the speech of lovers. For only love knows its beauty, completeness and utter joy.

Everybody in this pragmatic, cerebral society always wants to put himself first, and this cannot be done. God doesn't want me to do it. God wants me to be third, never first. God comes first, my neighbor second, and I am third!

Loving does not necessarily mean liking. But it still is loving, yes — totally, completely, utterly. Take the key of wisdom and unlock your own heart. Then let people in one by one. Listen to them, with full attention, with all your mind, heart, body and soul, unto exhaustion. And look! — the exhaustion will be lifted, and you will be able to listen still more. Yes, love must be communicated person to person; otherwise it will not be effective.

The Lord said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Which means we must love ourselves first, for we are, in a manner of speaking, our first neighbor.

On the other hand, the Church cannot conform to the world as understood by Christ in his parables. To this world there can be neither conformity nor can we compromise with it. On the contrary, toward this world the Church and every Christian must be prophetic. We must cry out loudly the word of God, ready even to be stoned as were all the prophets sent by the Lord.

Yes, of course, the Christian has dogmas he must believe in order to be a Christian, but all those dogmas concern love which is the essence. God is love. Where love is, God is. Dogmas and tenets of the Christian faith without love are dead letters, not even worth spelling out.

We do not have to wait for the hereafter — it is now that we are one with Christ.

Lord, give me the heart of a child, and the awesome courage to live it out as an adult.

Purity of heart is love for the weak who constantly fall.

Arise, go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.<p>Little, be always little, simple, poor, childlike.<p>Preach the Gospel with your life, without compromise. Listen to the Spirit; He will lead you.<p>Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.<p>Love, love, love, never counting the cost.<p>Go into the market place and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always: fast.<p>Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor's feet. Go without fears into the depth of men's hearts. I shall be with you.<p>Pray always. I will be your rest.

To pass through the door that leads to God's kingdom, we must go down on our knees.

Identification [with the other] is difficult but precious. It involves doing violence to yourself. Yet Scripture says that "heaven is taken by violence" to oneself [Luke 16:16]. To identify oneself with the other is to love him beyond words, a total giving of oneself in truth.