“For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.”
– Pericles, “Funeral Oration”
“And a vision was shewed to Paul in the night, which was a man of Macedonia standing and beseeching him, and saying: Pass over into Macedonia, and help us.”
– Acts 16:9
“Into thy hands I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.”
– Psalms 30:6
“Christians believed first of all, and only afterwards, in the desire to defend, to explain and to understand what they believed, did they develop theology, and in a subordination to philosophy, theology.”
– Fr. Copleston, S.J
“Let not the discourse of the ancients escape thee, for they have learned of their fathers: For of them thou shalt learn understanding, and to give an answer in time of need.”
– Ecclesiasticus 8:11-12
“Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness.”
– Psalm 96:12
What they defended was the Catholic faith that we profess. We, who are the heirs of so great a tradition, ought to know at least something about the story of the long chain that joins us back to the first Whitsunday.
“The Greek epics express, with an incomparable depth and fulness, the eternal knowledge of truth and destiny which is the creation of the heroic age—the age that cannot be destroyed by any bourgeois ‘progress’.”
– Werner Jaeger
“Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.” – St. Augustine
“Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”
– 1 Peter 2:17