Statue of St Columban, Bobbio, Italy
Understand the creation, if you wish to know the Creator; if you will not know the former either, be silent concerning the Creator, and believe in the Creator.
– St Columban, Sermon 1:5 Sermons of Columbanus (559–615)
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
– St Mother Teresa (1910–1997)
Let's try not to be exacting with other people, but rather to pass over in silence those thousand little annoyances that tend to irritate us. For we know that no one is perfect in this life, and we must put up with the defects of others as they put up with ours.
– St Rose Philippine Duchesne, virgin, religious sister and educator (1769–1852)
Blaise Pascal, painting by François II Quesnel [Wikipedia]
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
– Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher (1623–1662) From his Pensées (‘Thoughts’)
The original Image of the Divine Mercy by Eugeniusz Marcin Kazimirowski, painted under the guidance of Saint Faustina [Wikipedia]
A talkative soul lacks both the essential virtues and intimacy with God. A deeper interior life, one of gentle peace and of that silence where the Lord dwells, is quite out of the question. A soul that has never tasted the sweetness of inner silence is a restless spirit which disturbs the silence of others.
– St Mary Faustina Kowalska, nun and mystic (1905–1938)
The Deer's Cry (The Breastplate of St Patrick)
I arise today
Strengthened by Christ’s own baptism
made strong by his crucifixion and his burial
made strong by his resurrection and his ascension
made strong by his descent to meet me on the day of doom.
St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on 17 March.
St Patrick’s Cathedral, Banmaw (Bhamo), Myanmar [Source]
The Columbans have been involved in the Church in the Kachin State in northern Myanmar (Burma), in what are now the Dioceses of Banmaw and Myitkyina, since 1936.