For all the saints who from their labors rest....

WE INTERRUPT THIS FALL BREAK BLOGGING EXTRAVAGANZA BECAUSE TODAY IS ALL SAINTS DAY.

I really like saints. This is a newer thing for me because I've been very Protestant for most of my life and therefore wasn't raised particularly knowing saints. Now I'm obsessed with saints. This was an inevitable turn in my life. One time I was sitting in a classroom before class started and the teacher had his Dictionary of the Saints with him and he danced it in front of my face and I spazzed out. Occasionally all one of my friends and I can say to each other is, "Prepare for saints," which is from Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts, and that's now become a phrase extremely close to my heart. Four Saints in Three Acts also includes the line "Saint saint a saint". Cristann said I reminded her of Joan of Arc. Barbara said I reminded her of St. Catherine of Siena. I remind myself of no saint, I'm very very far from a saint, but St. Teresa of Avila and I share a birthday. One of my solos when I was younger was "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God", which I sung last year in the PHTS office when they refused to unlock a room for me unless I sang for them. Erik Ehn wrote The Saint Plays and when Emily saw him speak she thought, "Oh hey Colleen," because he kept talking about God, prayer, and Africa. I've worked on three of the Saint Plays, including more productions of "Wholly Joan's" than I can count on my hands. One time I got a strawberry cheesecake milkshake at Cookout. Lindsay noted that the receipt said "St Cheesecake", which led to jokes about Saint Cheesecake and how when we form a theater company it should have Saint in the name so now it's colloquially being referred to as Saint Company.

"O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it."

"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers."

Said to God: “If this is the way you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few!”

“About the injunction of the Apostle Paul that women should keep silent in church? Don't go by one text only.”

---St. Teresa of Avila

"Yes, when a soul has allowed herself to be captivated by the inebriating fragrance of Thy perfumes, she could not run alone, all the souls whom she loves are drawn after her; this is a natural consequence of her attractions towards Thee."

"For me to love you, Jesus, as you love me, I would have to borrow your own love and then only would I be at rest."

"You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love at which we do them."

---St. Therese of Lisieux (saw a good number of statues of her over break. Sometimes labelled, sometimes not, but Ialways knew.)

“Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames!”

When asked if she was in God's grace: "If I am not, may God put me there, and if I am, may God so keep me! I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I was not in His grace."

---St. Joan of Arc

“If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.”

“To saints, their very slumber is a prayer.”

“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”

---St. John of the Cross

"I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone."

"It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching."

"It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look."

"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words."

---St. Francis of Assisi

"True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor."

---St. Ignatius of Loyola

"Love God, serve God: everything is in that."

---St. Clare of Assisi

"Let us not look at the world and think that we have renounced great things, for even the whole world is very small when compared with all of heaven."

---St. Anthony

"If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion."

"The most deadly poison of our time is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers."

"Pray that my love will be without limits."

---St. Maximillian Mary Kolbe

"Lose yourself wholly; and the more you lose, the more you will find."

"To the servant of God ... every place is the right place, and every time is the right time."

"When we are whom we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze."

St. Catherine of Siena