My father was a very religious person. And he prayed five times a day. And he did that throughout his relationship with Ataturk - at a time when it was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.
Father monks, why do you fast! Why do you expect reward in heaven for that?...No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that a bit harder.
Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order for us to be tested, we must face challenges and difficulties. These can break us, and the surface of our souls may crack and crumble-that is, if our foundations of faith, our testimonies of truth are not deeply embedded within us.
Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone.
It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicæan that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this eloquent procedure has not survived.
There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him "Was your mother never at Rome?" He answered "No Sir; but my father was."
Let us make of our homes sanctuaries of righteousness, places of prayer, and abodes of love, that we might merit the blessings that can come only from our Heavenly Father.
Her [Mary's] motherhood extends beyond view. In the will of the Son, she becomes at once mother and maid: sheltering him, but sheltered in him, forming him, but formed by him ... When she pronounces the words: 'Be it done to me according to thy word', the Mother conceives the mystery from the Trinity, in order to give it to the Son. The Son gives the word back to the Trinity by giving everything he has back to the Father in the Spirit. Then, after the Father has received it again, it is distributed to mankind by means of that extravagant expansioning-the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit.
There are many out there who plead and pray for help. There are those who are discouraged, those who are beset by poor health and challenges of life which leave them in despair. I’ve always believed in the truth of the words, ‘God’s sweetest blessings always go by hands that serve him here below.’ Let us have ready hands, clean hands, and willing hands, that we may participate in providing what our Heavenly Father would have others receive from Him.
To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
When he tells us about his Father, we distrust him. When he shows us his Home, we turn away, but when he confides to us that he is acquainted with grief, we listen, for that also is an acquaintance of our own.