We know we can look to the saints in all circumstances of our lives, so we should also look to them to understand love and friendship more deeply.
Of course, married saints are often the first we look to for this. That makes sense, as they walked this path daily.
But many other saints who were priests and religious teach us much about this vocation that is love.
Here are fifteen inspiring quotes from the saints to carry us deeper into the mystery of love friendship in our daily lives!
1. Saint Zelie Martin on total love
“I am longing to be near you, my dear Louis. I love you with all my heart, and I feel my affection so much more when you’re not here with me. It would be impossible for me to live apart from you.”
2. Saint Louis Martin on family
“Soon we’ll have the intimate happiness of the family, and it’s this beauty that brings us closer to him.”
3. Saint Gianna Beretta Molla on sacrifice
“Love and sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot love without suffering and we cannot suffer without love.”
4. Saint Gianna Beretta Molla on love
“Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the souls of men and women.”
5. Pope Saint John Paul II on community
“Man becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion.”
6. Saint Teresa of Calcutta on kindness
“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor… Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
7. Saint Maximus the Confessor on loving others
“The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds. A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified. If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.
8. Saint Clare of Assisi on transformative love
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others.”
9. Saint Thomas a Kempis on the greatness of love
“Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is above all created things.”
10. Pope Saint John Paul II on how to interact with others
“The human person is a good towards which the only proper attitude is love.”
11. Saint Maximilian Kolbe on friendship
“God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle. In the company of friends, we will find strength to attain our sublime ideal.”
12. Saint Basil on the fruit of friendship
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”
13. Saint Thomas Aquinas on the prize of friendship
“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”
14. Saint Edith Stein on relating to others in our lives
“On the question of relating to our fellowman – our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.”
15. Saint Thomas Aquinas on the beauty of marriage and friendship
“The greater the friendship, the more solid and long-lasting the marriage will be, as we are ‘United not only in flesh but in domestic activity.”
What are some of your favorite quotes from the saints about love and friendship? Add them in the comments below!
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