Fr. Chad Ripperger

"...demons are essentially trying to establish an abusive relationship with us as human beings. If one observes the structure of abusive human relationships, one will notice that the similarities are striking. In abusive human relationships, (1) the abuser humiliates or embarrasses the abused, (2) constantly putting the abused down, (3) subjecting the abused to hyper criticism, (4) uses sarcasm and an unpleasant tone of voice at the expense of the abused, (5) the abuser is extremely moody, (6) ridicules the abused, (7) threatens the abused, (8) attempts to dominate and control, (9) withholds affection, (10) subjects the abused to guilt trips, (11) blames the abused for everything (making everything the abused's fault) and (12) isolates the abused from friends and family."

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St. John Chrysostom

"Prayer is the light of the soul, giving us true knowledge of God."

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St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

 "...a person who allows himself to excite his blood and take pleasure in it is unfit to receive divine grace."

"This movement of the blood is all the more dangerous because very few understand it. On the contrary, many take the sinful movement of the blood in themselves as an effect of a good influence, and follow their mistaken impulse as if it were an impulse inspired by holy truth pleasing to God."

"The blood is set into contrary motion by the passions..."

"We go not only by a narrow way; we travel by night. Constant vigilance of mind is indispensable, so as not to be drawn away by our fallen nature, and by our fathers and brothers who are drawn away by it, and so as to escape all the snares and the furious malice and humanly incomprehensible cunning and wickedness of the fallen angels."

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St. Thomas Aquinas

"...intellect and will: these are not acts of any parts of the body."

"...the corporeal creature is governed by the angels."

"...in the brain... animal forces culminate..."

"...four interior powers of the sensitive [soul] - namely, the common sense, the imagination, and the estimative and memorative powers."

"...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation. This corporeal transmutation is found in the act of the sensitive appetite, and is not only spiritual, as in the sensitive apprehension, but also natural. Now there is no need for corporeal transmutation in the act of the intellectual appetite: because this appetite is not exercised by means of a corporeal organ."

"...angels propose the intelligible truth to men under the similitudes of sensible things... the human intellect... is strengthened by the action of the angelic intellect."

"...human knowledge is assisted by the revelation of grace. For the intellect's natural light is strengthened by the infusion of gratuitous light; and sometimes also the images in the human imagination are divinely formed."

"God infuses into man, over and above the natural faculty of reason, the light of grace whereby he is internally perfected for the exercise of virtue... man's mind is elevated by this light to the knowledge of truths surpassing reason... man's affective power is raised by this light above all created things to the love of God..."

"...the soul is the primary principle of our nourishment, sensation, and local movement; and likewise of our understanding."

"...the soul in its essence is the form of the body, and the faculties, too, are all rooted in the essence of the soul."

"...powers that are principles of the soul's operations, are united in the essence of the soul."

"...man's natural light, which is what makes him intellectual, is from God."

"...God is the author of the intellect power, and... he can be seen by the intellect."

"The intellect is above... time..."

"...the soul moves the body..."

"...the soul by its very essence is an act."

"...God alone is pure act..."

"...in God alone His action of understanding is His very Being. Wherefore in God alone is His Intellect His essence: while in other intellectual creatures, the intellect is power."

"All things are said to be seen in God and all things are judged in Him, because by the participation of His light, we know and judge all things; for the light of natural reason itself is a participation of the divine light..."

"The meritorious knowledge and love of God can be in us only by grace."

"...understanding is an intellectual principle higher than our intellect - namely, God..."

"...reason... whereby it apprehends the truth about something. This act is not in our power: because it happens in virtue of a natural or supernatural light."

"...will is a power of the rational soul, which is caused by God..."

"Virtue... establishes the mean between passions."

"...the Word of God is born of God by the knowledge of Himself; and Love proceeds from God according as He loves Himself."

"...the intellect... is the form of the human body."

"Intelligence arises from memory..."

"...the higher part of the reason is the province of wisdom, while the lower part is the domain of knowledge... [St. Augustine] ...directs human acts according to Divine rules."

"...by like acts habits are formed..." [Aristotle]

"...the intellect knows itself not by its essence, but by its act."

"...habits, like the powers, are known by their acts."

"...the first thing understood of the intellect is its own act of understanding."

"...the human intellect, which neither is its own act of understanding, nor is its own essence the first object of its act of understanding, for this object is the nature of a material thing... that which is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind, and that which is known secondarily is the act by which that object is known; and through the act the intellect itself is known, the perfection of which is this act of understanding."

"...the intellect in act is the object actually understood." (Matter, potency; Form, act)

"The necessity of prayer is based on the necessity of actual grace." [Adolphe Tanquerey]

"The will is the name of the rational appetite; and consequently it cannot be in things devoid of reason."

"...the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of  the uncreated light in which are contained the eternal types."

"The knowledge which we have by natural reason contains two things: images derived from the sensible objects; and the natural intelligible light, enabling us to abstract from them intelligible conceptions."

"Our intellect both abstracts the intelligible species from the phantasms, inasmuch as it considers the natures of things in universal, and, nevertheless, understands these natures in the phantasms since it cannot understand even the things of which it abstracts the species, without turning to the phantasms..."

"...the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the knowledge which we possess, by actual thought we form an internal word; and thence break forth into love. But, since the principles of acts are the habits and powers, and everything exists virtually in its principle, therefore, secondarily and consequently, the image of the Trinity may be considered as existing in the powers, and still more in the habits, forasmuch as the acts virtually exist therein."

"...the love of God is better than the knowledge of God; but, on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof."

"...the intellect understands that the will wills, and the will wills the intellect to understand."

"...the end of the spiritual life is that man be united to God, and this union is effected by charity..."

"Charity is not any kind of love of God, but that love of God, by which He is loved as the object of bliss, to which object we are directed by faith and hope."

"...charity, unlike faith and hope, is inseparable from the state of grace and from the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in us..." [Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange]

"...the primal union of man with God is by faith, hope and charity..."

"...whoever has charity has all the gifts of the Holy Ghost..."

"...God's act of understanding, which is His being, is measured by eternity..."

"Just as God's understanding is His existence, so likewise is His love."

"...when we pray we ought principally to ask to be united to God..."

"We need to pray to God, not in order to make known to Him our needs or desires but that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God's help in these matters."

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St. John of the Cross

"Oh, miserable is the fortune of our life, which is lived in such great peril and wherein it is so difficult to find the truth! For that which is most clear and true is to us most dark and doubtful; wherefore, though it is the thing that is most needful for us, we flee from it. And that which gives the greatest light and satisfaction to our eyes we embrace and pursue, though it be the worst thing for us, and makes us fall at every step. In what peril and fear does man live, since the very natural light of his eyes by which he has to guide himself is the first light that dazzles him and leads him astray on his road to God! And if he is to know with certainty by what road he travels, he must perforce keep his eyes closed and walk in darkness, that he may be secure from the enemies who inhabit his own house - that is, his senses and faculties."

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Catechism Of The Catholic Church

"1722 Such beatitude surpasses the understanding and powers of man. It comes from an entirely free gift of God: whence it is called supernatural, as is the grace that disposes man to enter into the divine joy.

'"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." It is true, because of the greatness and inexpressible glory of God, that "man shall not see me and live," for the Father cannot be grasped. But because of God's love and goodness toward us, and because he can do all things, he goes so far as to grant those who love him the privilege of seeing him... For "what is impossible for men is possible for God." - St. Irenaeus

1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes:

'He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.' - St. Gregory of Nyssa"

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St. Symeon The New Theologian

"Apart from love nothing whatever has existed, nor ever will. Its names and actions are many. More numerous still are its distinctive marks; divine and innumerable are its properties. Yet it is one in nature, wholly beyond utterance whether on the part of angels or men or any other creatures, even such as are unknown to us. Reason cannot comprehend it; its glory is inaccessible, its counsels unsearchable. It is eternal because it is beyond time, invisible because thought cannot comprehend it, though it may perceive it."

"Truly, unless one is slaughtered like a sheep for any single virtue and pours out his own blood for it, he will never possess it."

"He who pleads in his defense should not add any [mental reservation] in his heart to what he speaks; he who seeks justice for himself must be dead to the world in the disposition of his heart."

"The Father is light, light the Son, light the Holy Spirit, one light, timeless, invisible, unmingled, eternal, uncreated, without quantity, without lack, invisible, outside and beyond all things, yet which both is and is perceived by the intellect, which no one among men has ever seen before having been purified, nor ever received before having seen it."

"...fasting is the beginning and foundation of every spiritual activity."

"Man is united to God spiritually and physically, since the soul is not separated from the mind, neither the body from the soul. By being united in essence man also has three hypostases by grace. He is a single god by adoption with body and soul and the divine Spirit, of whom he has become a partaker."

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