In order to experience our humanity in the full sense, it may be necessary to undergo the temptation of believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves. Once we have undergone this temptation, we will better understand that cleaving closely and inseparably to God represents progress in freedom.
YVES DE MONTCHEUIL
Read often and learn as much as possible. Let sleep creep upon you as you hold a book, and let the Scriptures catch your head as you nod.
SAINT JEROME
The deformity of Christ forms you. For, if he had not wished to be deformed, you would not have received back the form that you lost. Therefore he hung deformed upon the cross, but his deformity was our beauty. So let us in this life hold onto the deformed Christ. What is this deformed Christ? “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” [Galatians 6:14]. This is the deformity of Christ.
SAINT AUGUSTINE Sermons 27.6.6
Indeed, this participation in the body and blood of the Lord, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, teaches us that we should die to the world and have our life hidden with Christ in God [see Colossians 3:3], that we should crucify our flesh with its vices and wicked desires [see Galatians 5:24]. Thus it happens that all the faithful, who love God and their neighbor, drink of the cup of the Lord's love even if they do not drink the cup of his bodily suffering. And when they have become inebriated with it they have put to death their members that are upon the earth [see Colossians 3:5] and, having clothed themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ [see Galatians 3:27], they pay no heed to the desires of the flesh [see Galatians 5:16]. The gift of love confers this upon us—that we should in fact be what we celebrate mystically in the sacrifice.
FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE Against Fabian 28.18-19