Frederic Dan Huntington Quotes

Indolence is the worst enemy that the church has to encounter. Men sleep around her altar, stretching themselves on beds of ease, or sit idly with folded hands looking lazily out on fields white for the harvest, but where no sickle rings against the wheat.

Consciously, distinctly, resolutely, habitually, we need to give ourselves, our business, our interests, our families, our affections, into the Spirit’s hands, to lead and fashion us as He will. When we work with the current of that Divine will, all is vital, efficient, fruitful.

While reason is puzzling itself about mystery, faith is turning it to daily bread, and feeding on it thankfully in her heart of hearts.

True grace is natural, not artificial, because, however strenuously you strive to gain it, when it is gained it never gives the impression of effort or straining for effect.

If we do not know what the sorrow of penitence is, we have been living only on the surface of life–unmindful of its deep realities, unconscious of its grander glories.

If the Church would have her face shine, she must go up into the mount, and be alone with God. If she would have her courts of worship resound with eucharistic praises, she must open her eyes, and see humanity lying lame at the temple gates, and heal it in the miraculous name of Jesus.

Christendom, as an effect, must be accounted for. It is too large for a mortal cause.

Behavior is the perpetual revealing of us. What a man does, tells us what he is.