Wyatt North > Quotes

“May God give us the grace of becoming like little children, full of joy and energy with which we can love other people.”
― Wyatt North, Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Model for Our Times

“Love is patient and kind, it is always ready to forgive, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”
― Wyatt North, Lessons in Love: Love like a Saint

“Tolkien believed doggedly in the old-fashioned notion that the purpose of philology was to read literature and that literature couldn’t be properly studied without philology.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Our capitalistic society emphasizes pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps and making one’s own way to the top of the economic ladder, or as high as one can possibly reach. While there is nothing inherently wrong with making a legitimate and honest living, the emphasis on individuality that pervades our society often causes people to overlook the plight of the poor or even to believe that the poor owe their impoverished state to their own purported laziness. While this may be true of some of the poor, it is not fair to make sweeping judgments that allege all of the poor to be slothful parasites who live off taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”
― Wyatt North, Saint Francis of Assisi: A Life Inspired

“people of any faith were accepted, and they were able to receive whatever death rites and comfort were appropriate to their various religions.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Mother Teresa

“It is not enough for us to say: I love God, but I do not love my neighbor. St. John says you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“whatever one had was never so scarce that it could not be divided and shared with another in need.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“Did they have names? A sixth century Alexandrian document was found that references three magi whose names are popularly accepted today: Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar/Gaspar.”
― Wyatt North, The History of Christmas

“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle! Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who roam about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Michael the Archangel

“Mother Teresa always emphasized humility in service. Beginning in 1967, she asked her Sisters to say a morning prayer prior to embarking upon their work in the world. The prayer began, “Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Mother Teresa

“Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus   Recited daily by Padre Pio for those who requested his prayer. The prayer was written by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.   I. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you." Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of...... (here name your request) Our Father....Hail Mary....Glory Be to the Father....Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.     II. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you." Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of.......(here name your request) Our Father...Hail Mary....Glory Be To the Father....Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.   III. O my Jesus, you have said: "Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away." Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of.....(here name your request) Our Father....Hail Mary....Glory Be to the Father...Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.   O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender Mother and ours. Say the Hail, Holy Queen and add: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Padre Pio

“Tolkien preferred the still, small voice of Elijah to the resounding horns of Sinai. Accordingly, his commitment to myth as his medium was dogged. He repeatedly denied that The Lord of the Rings was allegory. The reason is this: allegory intends that this particular thing in the story is meant to be that particular thing known outside the story. In a way, it is coercive, forcing the reader to see things in a certain way. For example, Lewis’s lion in the Narnia books, Aslan, is meant to be understood by the reader as a representation of Christ. Tolkien, in fact, was annoyed with Lewis for engaging in allegory, which he found heavy-handed. (Lewis, for his part, denied that his Narnia books were only allegory.) He believed myth to be a more artistically subtle device. Tolkien did not, for instance, intend his War of the Ring to be a battle of good versus evil. He didn’t see matters in such black-and-white terms and did not believe in absolute evil. During the Great War, he didn’t view the Germans as all bad and the English as all good. In the Lord of the Rings, even Sauron, like Lucifer, did not start as evil. Evil for Tolkien was a personal battle within each and every individual. A battle might be won or lost, but the war was unending.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Here’s where Mathew and Luke concur and differ in the nativity story. Both place Jesus’ birth during the rule of Herod the Great, the king who ruled Jesus’ homeland from 37 to 4 B.C. They agree that Mary’s conception was by the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus was the child of Mary and Joseph, born in Bethlehem, and that the family lived in Nazareth after the birth. Luke identifies the sign in the sky as an angel. For Mathew the sign is a star. Shepherds visited Luke’s Holy Family, and magi visited Mathew’s. They differ on certain points of the story. Matthew: Herod’s massacre of the innocents, and the family’s flight to Egypt, and Luke: the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to Mary, followed by her visit to Elizabeth, the visit of the shepherds, and the presentation of the infant Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem.”
― Wyatt North, The History of Christmas

“Evil for Tolkien was a personal battle within each and every individual. A battle might be won or lost, but the war was unending.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Within our own families, may we serve as a light to each other.”
― Wyatt North, Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Model for Our Times

“What I grasp with truth and clarity is that my heart loves, loves greatly, more than the intellect realizes. No doubt can assail this love, and I am so certain of loving that, except for the truths of faith, I am certain of nothing as much as this”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Padre Pio

“Early in 1959 he ordered the words “unbelieving” and “perfidious,” which were used with reference to Jews and Muslims, to be deleted from the Good Friday liturgy. Additional outreach followed. A pope had not met with the Archbishop of Canterbury for 400 years, ever since Elizabeth I had been excommunicated. Pope John met in the Vatican with the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, for approximately an hour on December 2, 1960. Then, for the first time in history, a Shinto high priest was received by a pope.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“That the original Apostles had been chosen by Jesus during his life and mission mattered little to Paul.   These claims were viewed as terribly disrespectful by many in Paul's time, and dishonest by many others. Throughout his life, Paul would come to deal with the accusations that he was an Apostle only by the grace of Satan.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Paul the Apostle

“Tolkien’s best-known writings were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he also wrote other works, including The Silmarillion, Father Giles of Ham, Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, and the scholarly The Monsters and the Critics.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“On August 16, 1946, tensions boiled over in Calcutta. Known today as the “Great Calcutta Killings,” riots between Muslims and Hindus erupted throughout the city. Three days later, 4,000 people had been killed, and over 100,000 people had been left homeless.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“The people whom she wanted to help were the very people forgotten by the established colonial systems, whether those systems be governmental or religious.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“So the religious soul finds in the heart of Jesus a secure refuge against the attacks of Satan, and a delightful retreat. But one must not stay at the entrance...she must hasten to the very source from which it springs, into the very innermost sanctuary of the heart of Jesus. There she will find light, peace, and ineffable consolations.”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Anthony of Padua

“Just as her mother had taught her that God did not see ethnic divisions such as Albanian or Serbian, Mother Teresa now taught her audience that God did not see divisions such as rich or poor, Western or Eastern, Catholic or Hindu. All of humanity was God’s people, and thus a commitment to God meant a commitment to help the poorest and most destitute of humanity, whoever and wherever they might”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“Your first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things.” – St. Augustine”
― Wyatt North, Daily Inspiration: 365 Quotes from Saints

“The caste system in India has a long and complicated history, made even more complex by the British government’s exploitation of the system in order to maintain peace in the country during colonial times.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“In books we seek God, in prayer we find him”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Padre Pio

“In fact, he exhibited more clarity and kindness during this time than before he had the stroke.”
― Wyatt North, Pope Benedict XVI: Protector of Faith or Opponent of Progress?

“Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give peace and joy. Amen.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“She confronted the same fears and uncertainties as anyone else does, at least at some point in their life.”
― Wyatt North, Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired

“One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are, and to live without belief; that is a fate more terrible than dying. -Saint Joan of Arc”
― Wyatt North, The Life and Prayers of Saint Joan of Arc