Recapturing Great

Painting: Frank Weston Benson, Calm Morning 1904

Childish Concerns

'Soon we shall be in eternity, and then we shall see how very petty are the things of this earth, and how inconsequential it is whether we are involved in them or not....

'When we were small children, how carefully we collected pieces of wood, stone and such to build huts, and if someone knocked them down we cried... but now we understand how unimportant these things were.  We will feel the same one day in Heaven, when we see that all our preoccupations in this world were nothing but childish concerns. Be faithful to your duties, but be convinced that there is nothing more worthy or more important than eternal salvation and the perfection of your soul.'

St Francis de Sales

A Pledge of Immortality

'A child is a pledge of immortality, 

for he bears upon him in figure 

those high and eternal excellences 

in which the joy of heaven consists, 

and which would not thus be shadowed forth 

by the all-gracious Creator,

were they not one day to be realized'  

John Henry Cardinal Newman 


Painting:  Hermann Knopf Gut bewachter Schlaf, in US public domain due to age

Joy Shadowed Forth

"A child is a pledge of immortality, for he bears upon him in figure those high and eternal excellences in which the joy of heaven consists, and which would not thus be shadowed forth by the all-gracious Creator, were they not one day to be realized."     John Henry Cardinal Newman  

Painting: Karl Witkowski, Happy Days, 1909 

As He Creates..

"It is a great honor to you who are married that God, in His design to multiply souls who may praise and bless Him for all eternity, causes you to cooperate with Him in so noble a work. This is by your production of the bodies into which He infuses immortal souls, like heavenly drops, as He creates them." (St. Francis de Sales)

(William Adolphe Bouguereau painting, 1869, in US public domain)