Quotes from Alban Butler

A spiritual joy is the greatest sign of the divine grace dwelling in a soul.

There never was a truly great man, who was not a lover and encourager of learning, as of the highest improvement of the human mind

In Hom. 3, p. 30, he exaggerates the grievousness of sin in a priest, and has these remarkable words, "I do not believe that many priests are saved; but that far the greater number are lost: for this dignity requires a great soul and much courage.

We owe infinitely more to Christ than any brother can owe to us:

For his innocence and great virtues he was beloved by his master, and all who were acquainted with that religious family, above all his fellow-disciples, for which reason he was called Munghu, or Mungho, which in the language of that country signified "one dearly beloved;" and this is the name which the Scots usually give him to this day.

The Pelagian heresy having taken deep root among the Christians in those parts, he so vigorously opposed that fatal, growing evil, as entirely to banish that hydra out of the church of the Picts

Herod was then near his death; but as a man lives, such does he usually die. The near prospect of eternity seldom operates in so salutary a manner on habitual sinners, as to produce in them a true and sincere change of heart.

Their bodies were said to have been translated to Constantinople under the first Christian emperors. From thence they were conveyed to Milan, where the place in which they were deposited is still shown in the Dominicans' church of that city. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa having taken Milan, caused them to be translated to Cologne in Germany, in the twelfth century.

The virtue of this great saint was often exercised with temptations. One was a suggestion to quit his desert and go to Rome, to serve the sick in the hospitals; which, by due reflection, he discovered to be a secret artifice of vain-glory inciting him to attract the eyes and esteem of the world. True humility alone could discover the snare which lurked under the specious gloss of holy charity

It is an illusion of false zeal, and a temptation of the enemy, for young novices to begin to teach before they have learned themselves how to practise

As much as the heavens exceed the earth, so much larger is the field of spiritual meditation than that of all terrestrial concerns.

AS IN CORPORAL distempers a total loss of appetite, which no medicines can restore, forebodes certain decay and death; so in the spiritual life of the soul, a neglect or disrelish of pious reading and instruction is a most fatal symptom.

The method of forming men to virtue by example, is, of all others, the shortest, the most easy, and the best adapted to all circumstances and dispositions.

He was exceedingly cautious in conferring holy orders. He ordained but few, neither was it without the strictest scrutiny passed upon all their qualifications for the priesthood.

He severely forbade the custom of Valentines or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it