"Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it. The Church is ever ailing, and lingers on in weakness. Religion seems ever expiring, schisms dominant, the light of Truth dim, its adherents scattered. The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony, as though it were but a question of time whether it fails finally this day or another."
John Henry Newman
"Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost. It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we so this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations.
As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no expects us to be 'as gods'. We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives.
It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another."
Thomas Merton
“I think that the depth of Satan's pride is difficult for humans to understand, and therefore it is easy to fall into this error and partake of it, thinking, all the while, that we are instead doing something great and beautiful.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"Sometimes God must first break a heart to enter it. And it is what remains afterwards, when the crisis is passed, that offers us the way to becoming fully human. And we are then called to stand up and witness to the fully human life, in grace that is given, not cheaply by ourselves, but by our resolve and determination to follow Him in our calling. Where there is sickness bring healing, where there is despair bring hope. Little acts of goodness spread like ripples in a pond. A candle in the darkness allows others to find and ignite their own— and then there is light."
Jesse,
Resist the Temptation to Despair, 26 October 2016
"The most powerful weapon to stand against the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, so he does not know how to defeat it."
Vincent de Paul
"The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger."
Thomas à Kempis
As one of the pigmen in corporate management group once said, 'old people are easy to manage. You just scare them.'
It's one of the devil's best tricks, and it works for people of all ages.
It helps turn men into monsters.
Stocks were up sharply today, after having fallen sharply the previous two days.
Must be a stock option expiration day.
Wash - rinse - repeat.
Gold and silver were higher.
The Dollar chopped sideways.
VIX wallowed.
We have a Comex metals option expiration coming up next week, and an FOMC rate decision the week after that.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
Have a pleasant weekend.
