Martyrdom

Live as though you were going to have to die as a martyr today.

The more we lack in this world, the more surely we discover the best thing the earth has to offer us:  the cross.

The more firmly we embrace the cross, the more closely we are bound to Jesus, our Beloved, who is made fast to it.

-Charles de Foucauld

St. Ambrose on Leadership

The difference between good and bad rulers is that the good love freedom, the bad slavery.

St. Ambrose of Milan

Institutionalism in the Church

"There are real reasons for fearing that the Church might take on too many institutions of human law and then become like Saul's armor which prevented young David from walking.  It is always necessary to study whether institutions that were useful in the past are still useful today.  The only institutional element the Church needs is the one the Lord gave her; the sacramental structure of the people of God, centered on the Eucharist."

Pope Benedict XVI