Quotes about Service

It loves the other, not because of attractiveness, or talents, or sympathy, but because of God. To the Christian, a person is one for whom I must sacrifice myself, not one who must exist for my sake.

Love begins when duty finishes. It is a giving of the cloak when the coat is taken. It is walking the extra mile.

All round about us, in our parishes, in our daily contacts with men, are countless masses of souls that are like gold ingots covered with dross. And we, if we but had the fire of the Spirit, would burnish them into jewels of the Kingdom of God!

The porter who took my bag said to me: "Everybody knows you; it must be wonderful to be a bishop." And I said to him: "Suppose you had four hundred children and ten were very sick and five were dying. Would you not worry and stay awake at night? Well, that is my family. It is not as wonderful as you think.

The depth of a priest's compassion is the measure of his apostolic success.

Thanks to the Spirit, though the priest grows older in years, he becomes younger through ascent to the altar of God where youth is renewed.

Be as generous as possible" is idle talk, if the generosity of the pastor has not preceded the generosity of his flock.

The vision of social amelioration without spiritual regeneration has constituted a temptation to which many important men in history have succumbed completely. But to Him, this would not be adequate service of the Father; there are deeper needs in man than crushed wheat; and there are greater joys than the full stomach.

The lazy priest always has less time than the zealous priest, because the former is thinking in terms of the interruptions to his leisure, while the latter seeks the opportunity to be another Christ. The priest's time is not his own; it is Our Lord's.

We belong to a different union, where love, not hours, is the standard. When we think of all the Lord has done for us, we can never do enough. The word 'enough' does not exist in love's vocabulary.

Our effectiveness at the bottom of the ladder depends on our communication with the top. Popularity is not necessarily influence. 'Woe upon you,' said Our Lord, 'when all men speak well of you.' Greatest is our compassion for others and our ability to elevate them when we have come down from heaven. The bottom of the ladder is best discovered from the top.

But the Sacred Heart wishes great graces to be distributed to souls through the hands of His priests.