Quotes by Fenelon

Why art thou troubled and anxious about many things? One thing is needful—to love Him and to sit attentively at His feet.

— Fenelon

Jesus Christ was born in a stable; He was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of His life were spent in a workshop; He suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; He was poor, despised, and miserable; He taught the doctrines of heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took Him, subjected Him to frightful torments, treated Him as a slave, and put Him to death between two malefactors, having preferred to give liberty to a robber, rather than to suffer Him to escape. Such was the life which our Lord chose; while we are horrified at any kind of humiliation, and cannot bear the slightest appearance of contempt.

— Fenelon

Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience.

— Fenelon

Live, as it were, on trust. All that is in you, all that you are, is only loaned to you; make use of it according to the will of Him who lends it; but never regard it for a moment as your own.

— Fenelon

  ​ A cross borne in simplicity, without the interference of self-love to augment it, is only half a cross. Suffering in this simplicity of love, we are not only happy in spite of the cross, but because of it; for love is pleased in suffering for the Well Beloved, and the cross which forms us into His image is a consoling bond of love.

— Fenelon

We must bear our crosses; self is the greatest of them all. If we die in part every day of our lives, we shall have but little to do on the last. O how utterly will these little daily deaths destroy the power of the final dying!

— Fenelon

  ​ I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands.

— Fenelon

The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts toward that eternal goodness which we desire on earth. All our happiness consists in thirsting for it. Now this thirst is prayer. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray. Do not think it necessary to pronounce many words.

— Fenelon

There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid every thing that tends to make us lose it.

— Fenelon

  ​ The great point is to renounce your own wisdom by simplicity of walk, and to be ready to give up the favor, esteem, and approbation of every one, whenever the path in which God leads you passes that way.

— Fenelon

This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom,—the very fashion of which "passeth away."

— Fenelon

If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God, and follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we should have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.

— Fenelon

If, after an absolute consecration to Him, and a conviction in conscience that He requires something of us, we hesitate, delay, lose courage, dilute what He would have us do, indulge fear for our comfort or safety, desire to shield ourselves from suffering and obloquy, or seek to find some excuse for not performing a difficult or painful duty, we are truly guilty in His sight.

— Fenelon

We must follow Jesus Christ, step by step, and not open up a path for ourselves. We can only follow Him by denying ourselves. "Ye are not your own."

— Fenelon

We must imitate Jesus; live as He lived, think as He thought, and be conformed to His image, which is the seal of our sanctification.

— Fenelon

Let me, O my God, stifle forever in my heart every thought that would tempt me to doubt Thy goodness. I know that Thou canst not but be good. O merciful Father, let me no longer reason about grace, but silently abandon myself to its operation.

— Fenelon

God's treasury where He keeps His children's gifts will be like many a mother's store of relics of her children, full of things of no value to others, but precious in His eyes for the love's sake that was in them.

— Fenelon

As a general rule, those truths which we highly relish, and which shed a degree of practical light upon the things which we are required to give up for God, are leadings of Divine grace, which we should follow without hesitation.

— Fenelon

Can we be unsafe where God has placed us, and where He watches over us as a parent a child that he loves?

— Fenelon

  ​ The kingdom of God which is within us consists in our willing whatever God wills, always, in every thing, and without reservation; and thus His kingdom comes; for His will is then done as it is in heaven, since we will nothing but what is dictated by His sovereign pleasure.

— Fenelon

This is the love that does all things; that brings to pass even the evils we suffer; so shaping them that they are but instruments of preparing the good which, as yet, has not arrived.

— Fenelon

We may be sure that it is the love of God only that can make us come out of self. If His powerful hand did not sustain us, we should not know how to take the first step in that direction.

— Fenelon

Thou lovest like an infinite God when Thou lovest; Thou movest heaven and earth to save Thy loved ones. Thou becomest man, a babe, the vilest of men, covered with reproaches, dying with infamy and under the pangs of the cross; all this is not too much for an infinite love.

— Fenelon

The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose.

— Fenelon