What is “Christian Spirit”
and inspirational quotes from Christians across a wide range of denominations, stressing the universal nature of Christian spirituality.
Christian Spirit is a beautifully illustrated book of inspirational quotes taken from the writings and sayings of many great early Christians. It was published in 2004 by World Wisdom, and was edited and designed by Michael Fitzgerald and Judith Fitzgerald. This slideshow offers some samples of quotes and images from the book in the hope of giving readers a “perfume” of the full book and of the “Christian Spirit” to which the title alludes. The following is excerpted from the introduction of the book:
…The goal of this book is to provide a taste of both the spiritual wisdom and sacred art of Christianity during approximately the first one and a half millennia of its existence, beginning with the period immediately after the twelve Apostles.
One intention is to emphasize the unity that exists within all Christian spirituality.…We hope a deeper understanding of this common spiritual bond will bring Christians closer together. In a similar manner, introducing believers of other faiths to these masterpieces of sacred art and texts of Christian wisdom, we hope they will develop a deeper appreciation of the early Christian spirit.
For Christians, Christ is the manifestation of the Divine Logos—the Divine Truth on earth and “the Light of the world.” This luminous Truth continued to shine through the writings of great Christian sages and sacred artistic creations, which form a central part of the Christian spiritual tradition. This time-honored tradition, built over centuries, helps provide a guiding light to spiritual seekers because it refers us back to the Divine Truth that is the ultimate source of the religion.…The importance of turning to the great religions to find the spiritual light to purify and illuminate our actions cannot be over-emphasized. It is also increasingly difficult for those who acknowledge the existence of spiritual principles to remember them during the daily turmoil of our fast-paced society. We hope this book will become a daily inspirational companion to facilitate that remembrance.
When you go to bed with a contented mind, recall the blessings and generous providence of God; be filled with holy thoughts and great joy. Then, while your body sleeps, your soul will keep watch; the closing of your eyes will bring you a true vision of God; your silence will be pregnant with sanctity, and in your sleep you will continue to glorify the God of all with the full strength of your soul.
Anthony the Great (251-356)
God always was, and always is, and always will be; or rather, God always is, for “was” and “will be” are portions of time as we reckon it, and are of a changing nature. He, however, is Eternal Being.…He gathers in Himself the whole of being, because He neither has beginning nor will He have an end. He is like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending every conception of time and nature.
Gregory Nazianzus (329-389)
You are a world within a world. Become quiet and look within yourself, and see there the whole creation. Do not look at exterior things but turn all your attention to that which lies within. Gather together your whole mind within the intellectual treasure-house of your soul, and make ready for the Lord a shrine free from images.
Nilus of Ancyra (363-430)
(from The Gospel Book of Triere)
The true heaven is everywhere, even in that very place where thou standest and goest; and so when thy spirit presses through the astral and fleshly, and apprehends the inmost moving of God, then it is clearly in heaven.
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)
These days no one thinks of the fears that the future holds; no one takes to heart the day of judgment, and the wrath of God; the punishments to come upon unbelievers, and the eternal torments decreed for the faithless. Whatever a conscience would fear if it believed, our conscience, because it no longer believes, doesn’t fear at all. If only it believed, it would take heed; and if it took heed, it would escape.
Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258)
When you have stabilized your heart in right faith, and steadfast hope, and perfect love, then you will heave up your heart in high contemplation of your Creator.
Edmund of Abingdon (1175-1240)
(Mount Sinai, Egypt)
For when he considers the universe, can anyone be so simple minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading, embracing, and penetrating it? For all things depend upon Him Who is, and nothing can exist which does not have its being in Him Who is.
Gregory of Nyssa (330-395)
If things created are so full of loveliness, how resplendent with beauty must be the One who made them! The wisdom of the Worker is apparent in His handiwork.
Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)
God not only produced the creation, but He holds together what He produced. Whether you are speaking about angels, archangels, the powers above, or simply about every creature both visible and invisible, they all enjoy the benefit of His providence. And if they are ever deprived of that providential action, they waste away, they perish, they are gone.
John Chrysostom (347-407)
(Russian Orthodox icon)
Contemplating the visible things of God’s power and providence, His goodness and wisdom, as Paul says (Romans 1: 20-21), and perceiving the mysteries hidden in the divine Scriptures, [the one whose intellect has been purified] is given the grace to ascend with Christ through the contemplation of intelligible realities.… Perceiving the invisible through the visible, and the eternal through the transitory, he realizes that if this ephemeral world … is so beautiful, how much more beautiful must be the eternal, inconceivable blessings “that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Peter of Damascus (1027–1107)
The one who gazes on the physical universe and perceives the wisdom which is reflected in the beauty of created realities, can reason from the visible to the invisible beauty, the Source of Wisdom, whose influence established the nature of all reality. So also can one who looks upon this new universe of creation which is the Church see in it the One who is all in all, and thus be led by our faith from things which are intelligible and understandable to a knowledge of the One who is beyond all knowledge.
Gregory of Nyssa (330-395)
(Russian 12th century icon)
He, therefore, who is not illumined by such great splendor
Bonaventure (1221-1274)
of created things, is blind; he who is not awakened by
such great clamor is deaf; he who does not praise God
because of all these effects is dumb; he who does not
note the first principle from such great signs is foolish.
Open your eyes, therefore, prick up your spiritual ears, open
your lips and apply your heart, that you may see, hear, praise,
love and worship, glorify and honor your God.
This man He (God) set upon the earth as a kind of second world, a microcosm; another kind of angel…. He was king of all upon the earth, but a subject of heaven; earthly and heavenly, transient yet immortal; belonging both to the visible and to the intelligible order…; combining in the same being spirit and flesh…. Thus he is a living creature under God’s Providence here, while in transition to another state and … in process of deification by reason of his natural tendency toward God.
Gregory Nazianzus (329-389)
(Ravenna, Italy)
Faith is a luminous star that leads the honest seeker into the mysteries of nature. You must seek your point of affinity in God, and put your trust into an honest, divine, sincere, pure and strong faith, and cling to it with your whole heart, soul, sense and thought—full of love and confidence. If you possess such a faith, God’s wisdom will not withhold Truth from you, but He will reveal His works to you credibly, visibly and consolingly.
Paracelsus (1493-1541)
When you go to bed with a contented mind, recall the blessings and generous providence of God; be filled with holy thoughts and great joy. Then, while your body sleeps, your soul will keep watch; the closing of your eyes will bring you a true vision of God; your silence will be pregnant with sanctity, and in your sleep you will continue to glorify the God of all with the full strength of your soul.
Anthony the Great (251-356)
Just as you see that a ray of light entering through a window is colored in different ways according to the different colors… so the Divine Ray shines forth in each and every creature in different ways and in different properties.…
Bonaventure (1217–1274)
(Russian Orthodox icon)
God showed me in my palm a little thing round as a ball about the size of a hazelnut. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and asked myself: “What is this thing?” And I was answered: “It is everything that is created.” I wondered how it could survive since it seemed so little that it could suddenly disintegrate into nothing. The answer came: “It endures and ever will endure, because God loves it.” And so everything has being because of God’s love.
Julian of Norwich (1342-1423)
God, full beyond measure, brought creatures into being, not because He had need of anything, but so that they might participate in Him in proportion to their capacity, and that He Himself might rejoice in His works, through seeing them joyful and ever filled to overflowing with His inexhaustible gifts.
Maximus the Confessor (580-662)
(Romanesque Church, France)
God created everything, not only for our use, but also that we, seeing the great wealth of His creations, might be astonished at the might of the Creator and might understand that all this was created with wisdom and unutterable goodness, for the honor of man, who was to appear.
John Chrysostom (347-407)
All our life is like a day of celebration for us; we are convinced, in fact, that God is always everywhere. We work while singing; we sail while reciting hymns; we accomplish all other occupations of life while praying.
Clement of Alexandria (150-220)
Understand that you have within yourself, upon a small scale, a second universe: within you is a sun, there is a moon, and there are also stars.
Origen (185-254)
(Assisi, Italy)
God is within all, over all, under all, is both above with His power and beneath with His support, exterior in respect to magnitude and interior in respect to subtlety, extending from the heights to the depths, encompassing the outside and penetrating the inside; but He is not in one part above, in another beneath, nor in one part exterior and in another interior. Rather, one and the same wholly and everywhere, He supports in presiding and presides in supporting, penetrates in encompassing and encompasses in penetrating.
Gregory the Great (Pope) (540-604)
God is the unchanging conductor as well as the unchanged Creator
Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
of all things that change. When He adds, abolishes, controls, increases or diminishes the rites of any age, He is ordering all events according to His Providence, until the beauty of the completed course of time, whose parts are the dispensations suitable to each different period, shall have played itself out, like the great melody of some ineffable composer.
When Saint Patrick was sent to Ireland, he was confronted by a Druidic society headed by kings and tribal chieftains. In reply to a question from a Druid’s daughter about the nature of the Christian God, Patrick said, “Our God is the God of all men, the God of Heaven and Earth, of sea and river, of sun and moon and stars, of the lofty mountain and the lowly valley, the God above Heaven, the God in Heaven, the God under Heaven. He has His dwelling round Heaven and Earth and the sea and all that is in them. He inspires all, He quickens all, He rules over all, He sustains all. He lights the light of the sun; He furnishes the light of the light; He has put springs in the dry land and has set stars to minister to the greater lights.…”
Patrick of Ireland (385-471)
The fear of God prepares a place for love. But once love has begun
Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
to dwell in our hearts, the fear that prepared the place for it is driven out.… In sewing, the needle introduces the thread into the cloth. The needle goes in, but the thread cannot follow unless the needle comes out first. In the same way, the fear of God first occupies our minds, but it does not remain there, because it enters only in order to introduce love.
(Haute Rive, Switzerland)
You alone are unutterable,
Gregory Nazianzus (329-389)
from the time You created all things that can be spoken of.
You alone are unknowable,
from the time You created all things that can be known.
All things cry out about You;
those which speak and those which cannot speak.
All things honor You;
those which think, and those which cannot think.
For there is one longing, one groaning,
that all things have for You.…
All things pray to You that comprehend your plan
and offer You a silent hymn.
In You, the One, all things abide,
and all things endlessly run to You Who art the end of all.
(by Fra Angelico)
There is then only one God, Maker of souls and bodies; one Creator of heaven and earth, the Maker of angels and archangels.… This Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not circumscribed in any place, nor is He less than the heavens; but the heavens are the works of His fingers, and the whole world is held in His grasp: He is in all things and around all things.
Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386)
Nothing in creation has erred from the path of God’s purpose for it, save only man. Sun, moon, stars, water, air, none of these has swerved from their order, but, knowing the Word as their Maker and their King, remained as they were made. Men alone, having rejected what is good, have invented nothings instead of the truth, and have ascribed the honor due to God and knowledge concerning Him to demons and men in the form of stones.
Athanasius (297-373)
(Paris, France; High Gothic style)
When the Light of God first manifesteth itself in the soul, it shineth forth as light from a candle, and kindleth the outward light of reason immediately; yet it yieldeth not itself wholly up to reason, so as to be under the dominion of the outward man. No, the outward man beholdeth himself in this through-shining luster, as he doth his likeness in a looking-glass, whereby he presently learneth to know himself.
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)
What is the source of patience?
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
What is the source of faith, of hope, of charity?
The same compassion that gives birth to mercy.
What frees the soul from herself and binds her to You?
This compassion achieved in the light.
O lovely compassion achieved in the light.
O compassion,
you are a balm that snuffs out rage and cruelty in the soul.
This compassion, Compassionate Father,
I beg You to give to all creatures,
especially to those You have given me to love with a special love.
(Byzantine)
I know that the Immovable comes down;
John Scotus Eriugena (810-877)
I know that the Invisible appears to me;
I know that He who is far outside the whole creation
Takes me within Himself and hides me in His arms,
And then I find myself outside the world.
I, a frail, small mortal in the world,
Behold the Creator of the world, all of Him, within myself;
And I know that I shall not die,
For I am within the Life,
I have the whole of life springing up as a fountain within me.
He is in my heart, He is in heaven:
Both there and here He shows Himself to me with equal glory.
God is closer to me than I am to myself: my being depends on God’s being near me and present to me. So He is also in a stone or a log of wood, only they do not know.… So man is more blessed than a stone or a piece of wood because he is aware of God and knows how close God is to him. And I am more blessed, the more I realize this.
Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)
(Kostroma, Russian Orthodox)
Be at peace with your soul; then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the kingdom is hidden within your soul. Flee from sin, dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascend.
Isaac the Syrian (7th century)
Whether you pray along with the brethren or alone,
Evagrius of Pontus (512-582)
strive to make your prayer more than a mere habit.
Make it a true inner experience.
