"What else can I say to you? May the grace and peace of the Holy Spirit always be at the center of your heart. Place your heart in the open side of the Savior and unite it with the King of our hearts who is within it as on a royal throne, in order that He might receive homage and obedience from all other hearts. Keep its door open so that everybody can approach Him and gain an audience at all times. And when your heart speaks to Him, don't forget, my dearest daughter, to speak in favor of mine again, so that his divine and cordial Majesty may render it good, obedient, faithful and less wretched than it is."  - St. Pio (Letters III, p. 43)

“Afflictions bring blessing to man; self-esteem and sensual pleasure, evil.”   St. Mark the Ascetic (5th c.)

"The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance in the next; the more we sorrow in the present, the greater will be our joy in the future". - St. Isidore of Seville

“God always blesses humble beginnings more than those who make a big stir!”  – St. Vincent de Paul

Let us always direct our thoughts to what is lasting and pay no attention to things here below, for even though our lives are short these perferences do not last for us.  St Teresa of Jesus of Avila. The Way of Perfection - chapter 29 : 1

3. “‘When a woman is in travail, she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world’ (Jn. 16:21). The first part of Christ’s words refer to the “pangs of childbirth” which belong to the heritage of original sin; at the same time these words indicate the link that exists between the woman’s motherhood and the Paschal Mystery. For this mystery also includes the Mother’s sorrow at the foot of the cross – the Mother who through faith shares in her Son’s amazing “self-emptying”: ‘This is perhaps the deepest ‘kenosis’ of faith in human history”. Pope St. John  Paul  II

Jesus has given us the Heart of His Blessed Mother. Therefore, you can and you must make use of that Heart to love God. For Mary’s Heart is truly yours, and you must love God with all your heart. —St. John Eudes