Category Archives: quotes

St. Gregory Dialogus

poetry, quotes, saints, , ,

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory the Great (590-604) is usually called Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, which he compiled, is a service that we use on weekdays during Lent. You can read about his other writings and inspiring life, including several quotes from the saint, on this site. Here is one of the quotes, fitting for Lent:

“Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren’t to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.”

I only recently began to learn about St. Gregory, after reading this poem by him:

DIVINE CREATOR OF THE LIGHT

Divine creator of the light,
Who, bringing forth the golden ray,
Didst join the morning with the night
And call the blessed union day;

We bow to thee, whose mighty word
Made time begin and heaven move;
Hear thou our tearful prayer, O Lord,

And warm us with the light of love.

Lord, let no crime our souls oppress,
Or keep us from thy law divine;
Oh guard us by thy saving grace

And make our wills accord with thine.

Still may we seek thy heavenly seat,
And strive eternal life to gain;
Oh, keep us in thy mercy sweet,

And cleanse our souls from earthly stain.

-Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604) Italy

       Translated by Daniel Joseph Donahoe

Shy little bird in the rib cage.

books, poetry, quotes, , , , , ,

“Three forces carved the landscape of my life. Two of them crushed half the world. The third was very small and weak and, actually, invisible. It was a shy little bird hidden in my rib cage an inch or two above my stomach. Sometimes in the most unexpected moments the bird would wake up, lift its head, and flutter its wings in rapture. Then I too would lift my head because, for that short moment, I would know for certain that love and hope are infinitely more powerful than hate and fury, and that somewhere beyond the line of my horizon there was life indestructible, always triumphant.

“The first force was Adolf Hitler; the second, Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. They made my life a microcosm in which the history of a small country in the heart of Europe was condensed. The little bird, the third force, kept me alive to tell the story.”

Those are the first two paragraphs of the book Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968 by Heda Margolius Kovály, which I read last year. What a survivor that “little bird” helped the author and heroine to be, again and again; her story is gripping and intriguing in every way, and I highly recommend it. She survived Auschwitz, and near the end of the war managed to escape. She ran to her friends in Prague, but none of them dared take her in. The remainder of her story is very suspenseful, and demonstrates the strength of will and hope that continued to uphold her through the suffering and loss under Communist rule.

An interview with Heda was recorded in 1980 for “Voices from the Holocaust,” which you can listen to here: Heda Kovály. The outline of her life is laid out in a transcript and episode notes. They are a good supplement to her book, but I’m very glad I learned her story first from her earlier, very personal telling of it.

Not long after reading Under a Cruel Star, I came across the poem below, which speaks of a place such as Heda’s little bird occupied — this hidden place from which help comes in the form of a song.

LACK OF FAITH

Yes,
even when I don’t believe—
there is a place in me
inaccessible to unbelief,
a patch of wild grace,
a stubborn preserve,
impenetrable,
pain untouched by the sleeping body,
music that builds its nest in silence.”

― Anna Kamieńska, Astonishments: Selected Poems

Man recovers his true nature.

humanity, Lent, quotes,

“Fasting is the only means by which man recovers his true spiritual nature. It is not a theoretical but truly a practical challenge to the great Liar who managed to convince us that we depend on bread alone and built all human knowledge, science, and existence on that lie. Fasting is a denunciation of that lie and also proof that it is a lie.”
….
“Let us understand …that what the Church wants us to do during Lent is to seek the enrichment of our spiritual and intellectual inner world, to read and to meditate upon those things which are most likely to help us recover that inner world and its joy. Of that joy, of the true vocation of man, the one that is fulfilled inside and not outside, the ‘modern world’ gives us no taste today; yet without it, without the understanding of Lent as a journey into the depth of our humanity, Lent loses its meaning.”

-Father Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent

Have You Got a Brook?

Lent, nature, poetry, quotes, ,

This poem seems fitting for the season of Lent, when we make a special effort to lay aside distractions and turn inward — to make a spiritual journey, drawing near to the place where, as Christ told us, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” May we find our brook to be the River of Life, of which He also speaks: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'”

HAVE YOU GOT A BROOK IN YOUR LITTLE HEART?

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry!

-Emily Dickinson