Courage and Optimism

"We must not be afraid of the future. We must not be afraid of man. It is no accident that we are here. Each and every human person has been created in the 'image and likeness' of the One who is the origin of all that is. We have within us the capacities for wisdom and virtue. With these gifts, and with the help of God's grace, we can build in the next century and the next millennium a civilization worthy of the human person, a true culture of freedom... And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of this century have prepared the ground for a new springtime of the human spirit."

(John Paul II, Discourse in the United Nations, October 1995)

Get used to thinking of things and persons, always and in all things, in the best possible light. If a deed has a hundred aspects, said the blessed Bishop of Geneva, always look at it from the best side. (…) I have naturally the vexing habit of judging everything and everyone by my own wretched self, but experience has taught me what a joy it is to approach things differently and how God blesses this way of behaving. [p. 92]

(St Vincent de Paul. From Jacques Delarue, The Holiness of Vincent de Paul, Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, London 1960, 132 pp)

People of good-will are always around

I was a country priest (poor priest!). My people were so good, so obedient in doing what I asked them that, when I told them that they should come to confession on the first Sundays of the month, they did not fail to do so. They came and they confessed, and I saw, from day to day, what progress their souls made. This gave me so much consolation, I was so happy because of it, that I said to myself: 'Oh, how lucky you are to have such a good flock.' And I added: 'I do not think the Pope himself as lucky as a priest whose people are of such good-will.' [p.16]

(St Vincent de Paul. From Jacques Delarue, The Holiness of Vincent de Paul, Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, London 1960, 132 pp)