The Destruction of Mediocrity
Inspiration
"Inspirational Quotes on Overcoming Mediocrity and Choosing the Narrow Way"
Scripture
Psalm 119:9, 11 - "How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word... I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you."
Matthew 5:28-29 - "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away."
1 Corinthians 10:13 - "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it."
Galatians 5:16 - "Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."
Ephesians 5:3 - "But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints."
Colossians 3:5 - "Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)."
Romans 13:14 - "Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."
2 Timothy 2:22 - "Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."
James 1:14-15 - "But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death."
1 Peter 2:11 - "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul."
1 John 2:16 - "For all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world."
The Church
CCC 2339 - "Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy."
CCC 2520 - "Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires. With God's grace he will prevail."
"Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. Man... must day by day build himself up through his many free choices."
CCC 2344 - "Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society."
CCC 2015 - "The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle."
Familiaris Consortio, 33 - "Self-discipline... is not a matter of negative asceticism which would impoverish married love. On the contrary, it is a matter of helping married love to acquire its full spiritual energy."
Deus Caritas Est, 5 - "Eros, reduced to pure 'sex', has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity... Yet from this it does not necessarily follow that eros is downgraded and the body merely tolerated; rather, the body and eros are acknowledged to be a gift."
Saints
St. Alphonsus Liguori - "He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things."
St. Francis de Sales - "Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset."
St. John of the Cross - "In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone."
St. Athanasius - "The devil is afraid of us when we pray and make sacrifices. He is also afraid when we are humble and good. He is especially afraid when we love Jesus very much. He runs away when we make the Sign of the Cross."
St. John Paul II - "Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."
St. Maximilian Kolbe - "No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it."
St. Padre Pio - "It is easier to guide an army than to guide a soul. If the soul does not will it, the hand of God Himself cannot touch it."
Venerable Fulton Sheen - "Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius."
St. Francis de Sales - "Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them — every day begin the task anew."
St. Bernard of Clairvaux - "What we love we shall grow to resemble."
St. Gregory the Great - "It is a greater thing to resist the passions than to govern provinces."
St. John Climacus - "The man who wishes to know the Lord is he who seeks to live a life of purity."
St. Augustine - "Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet."
St. Teresa of Avila - "Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices."
St. Ambrose - "No one heals himself by wounding another."
St. John Paul II - "The worst prison would be a closed heart."
St. Ignatius of Loyola - "Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God."
St. John Vianney - "The saints did not all begin well, but they all ended well."
St. Catherine of Siena - "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."
St. Padre Pio - "Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer."
The Experts
Dr. Doug Weiss
"Believe behavior. Behavior speaks volumes about how serious a person is during recovery from sexual addiction."
"Only those who want to get better, who are internally motivated, get better. Those that want to do it their own way are simply lying to themselves and their partner."
Dr. Patrick Carnes
"For all addicts, a moment comes when they realize they have a problem. There is sudden clarity—the insight that life has become unmanageable. That moment, however, is fragile. It is easily lost to craving and denial."
"Addicts do not perceive themselves as worthwhile persons, nor do they believe that other people would care for them or meet their needs if everything was known about them, including the addiction."
Dr. Peter Kleponis
"Point number one involves honesty, self-knowledge, and commitment. Honesty means you admit you have the problem and you take full responsibility for it."
"You cannot recover from pornography addiction alone. You need to surround yourself with other people who understand the struggle, who are going to support you, and who are going to keep you accountable."
"Pornography truly enslaves men and women. It promises a world of fun and excitement where one's own pleasure is the only concern. However, this is an illusion. What starts out as exciting ends in despair. The first step in recovery is asking for help."
Dr. Mark Laaser
"Today, I know that whenever I start to fantasize about anything or when unwanted thoughts come into my brain, my first question is going to be, 'What are these thoughts trying to tell me? What are they trying to teach me?' I don't tell them to go away. I ask them to stay, and I interview them."
"As addicts, we are powerless without God's help. A part of all sex addicts doesn't want to give up the addiction."
Philosophers
Søren Kierkegaard
"Lord! Make our heart Your temple in which You live. Grant that every impure thought, every earthly desire might be like the idol Dagon-each morning broken at the feet of the Ark of the Covenant. Teach us to master flesh and blood and let this mastery of ourselves be our bloody sacrifice in order that we might be able to say with the Apostle: 'I die every day.'"
"One dare not say of repentance and remorse that it has its time; that there is a time to be carefree and a time to be prostrated in repentance. Such talk would be: to the anxious urgency of repentance—unpardonably slow; to the grieving after God—sacrilege; to what should be done this very day, in this instant, in this moment of danger—senseless delay. For there is indeed danger."
Dietrich von Hildebrand
"Purity perceives and respects the character of sex-its depth, seriousness, intimacy, and true home within wedded love, which alone makes possible the total and mutual gift of self.
"Sex is essentially deep. We become what we do with our bodies, and there is no deeper act than sex."
"Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience."
"The great mystery of our metaphysical situation, that God is nearer to us than we are ourselves, is manifest in the fact that we cannot even be wholly ourselves—in the sense of individuality as a unique divine thought—until we are reborn in Christ."
"Contact with an environment permeated by beauty not only offers real protection against impurity, baseness, every kind of letting oneself go, brutality, and untruthfulness; it has also the positive effect of raising us up in a moral sense. It does not draw us into a self-centered pleasure where our only wish is to indulge ourselves. On the contrary, it opens our hearts, inviting us to transcendence and leading us in conspectu Dei ("before the face of God")."
Blaise Pascal
"If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?"
"All our dignity consists then in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor to think well; this is the principle of morality."