Michael Muller

“ American fellow-citizens—America is my home! I have no other country. After my God and my religion, my country is the dearest object of my life! I love my country as dearly as any one else can. It is this love that makes my heart bleed when I call to mind the actual state of society in our country, and the principles that prevail everywhere. It is indeed but too true that we live in a most anti-Christian age; principles are disregarded, and iniquity is held in veneration. We see nothing but confusion in religion, in government, in the family circle. ”

“ In the search after truth, one must find immense difficulties. There is prejudice. It is the effect of early training, of life-long teaching, of reading, and of living in the world. It is the result of almost imperceptible impressions, and yet its force, as an obstacle, is such as in many cases to defy human efforts to remove it. It is like the snow which begins to fall, as the darkness sets in, on roof and road, in little flakes that come down silently all the night, and in the morning the branches bend, and the doors are blocked, and the traffic on road and rail is brought to a standstill. ”

“ O eternal Father, through the merits of the death of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, make me to die in Thy grace, and in Thy love, that I may come to love Thee throughout eternity. I thank Thee for all the graces Thou hast given me through my life, and especially for the great grace of Thy holy faith, and for having caused me to receive, in these my last days, all the holy Sacraments. Thou wiliest that I should die, and I desire to die to please Thee. It is little, oh Jesus, my Saviour, that I should die for Thee, Who hast died for me. ”

“ Threats could not undo the heavenly truths, and therefore could not silence their confession of them. "Truth," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "is the good of the intellect, the life of the intellect, whilst falsehood is the evil, the death of the intellect. As long as man remained innocent, it was impossible for man's intellect to believe that to be true which was really false. As in the body of the first man there could not be the presence of any evil, so, in like manner, in his soul there could not be the belief in anything false." ”

“ What a shame for pastors of souls to know that the devil, in alliance with the wicked, is at work, day and night, for the ruin and destruction of youth, and to be so little concerned about their eternal loss; just as if it was not true what the holy Fathers say, that the salvation of one soul is worth more than the whole visible world! Since when is it, then, that the price of the souls of little children has been lessened? Ah, as long as the price of the Blood of Jesus Christ remains of an infinite value, so long the price of souls will remain the same also! ”

“ Let no one think that virtuous men and good Christians ever leave the bosom of the Church; it is not the wheat that the wind lifts, but the chaff; trees deeply rooted are not blown down by the breeze, but those which have no roots. It is rotten fruits that fall off the trees, not sound ones; bad Catholics become heretics, as sickness is engendered by bad humors. At first, faith languishes in them, because of their vices; then it becomes sick; next it dies, because, since sin is essentially a blindness of spirit, the more a man sins, the more he is blinded; his faith grows weaker and weaker ”

“ Those poor souls, for whom our Lord shed his precious blood, for whom bleed afresh the dear wounds in his hands, his feet, his side, bound in the chains of error and sin, sus­pended over the precipice, ready to drop into the abyss below, admonish all who have hearts of flesh, or any bowels of compassion, to speak out, to cry aloud in awful and piercing tones to warn them of their danger, rather than by ingenious distinctions or qualifications to flatter them, or to have the appearance of flattering them, with the hope that, after all, their condition is not perilous. ”

“ I earnestly beseech Thee to grant me those graces and virtues of which I have need, in order to deserve Thy love. Fill my heart with eternal gratitude for all the blessings which Thou hast conferred upon me, with a lively horror of sin, and with perfect charity towards my neighbor. Make my whole life worthy of one who is Thy child. I deserve not to be heard for my own sake, my God, but I beseech Thy mercy through the infinite merits of Thy divine Son. O divine Jesus, inexhaustible fountain of all good things, open to us, we beseech Thee, the interior of Thy heart ”

“ Is it not to deny, to a certain degree, Christ and his doctrine, when he declares that the faith of Protestants in Christ is precisely the same as that of Catholics? Is not this as much to say: The devil’s religion is as good as that of God; falsehood is as good as truth; counterfeit Christianity is as good as true Christianity; human faith is as good as divine faith; the way to hell is as good as the way to heaven? ”

“ You store the arsenal of his mind with weapons to sap alike the altar and the throne, to carry on a war of extermination against every holy principle, against the welfare and the very existence of society.
Science, without religion, is more destructive than the sword in the hands of unprincipled men; it will prove more of a demon than a god. It is these upholders of the present Public School system that arrest the progress of true happiness in our country, and prepare terrible catastrophes, which may deluge the land with blood. ”

“ Ignorance alone is the cause of his not acknowledging the authority of his true mother. The Catholic Church does not look upon him as wholly a stranger; she calls him her child; she presses him to her maternal heart; through other hands she prepares him to shine in the kingdom of heaven. Yes, the profession of a creed different from the true one will not, of itself, bar the gates of heaven before this Christian; invincible ignorance will, before the tribunal of the just God, ensure the pardon of his errors against faith; and, if nothing else be wanting, heaven will be, his home for eternity. ”

“ Lamb without spot, Who wast immolated to the justice of Thy divine Father, to the end that He might forgive us our sins, have mercy on those who have died united by love to Thy sacred heart.
Lamb of God, Who wast offered in sacrifice, that Thou mightest lead us out of this land of perdition to the true land of promise: Thou Who hast said: I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live, — give to the souls of the faithful departed that life, the principle of which was imparted to them by the grace of the holy sacraments ”

“ To know God's will is to know the true religion or the true way to heaven. As God is but one, so his holy will is but one, and therefore his religion is but one and the same. In order that we might learn, with infallible certainty, this one true religion, Almighty God appointed but one infallible teaching authority - the Roman Catholic Church - and commanded all to hear her and believe her infallible doctrine, under pain of exclusion from eternal life.
Now, God is infinite truth itself. He knows things only as they are, and can speak them only as he knows them. ”

“ And what will the child learn, in this Pagan system of education, to press down his rising passions? What precept of positive virtue does he learn? What principle of self-restraint? What does he learn in such a school to make him obedient, honest, chaste, a good citizen, a good Christian? The common school system proceeds on the principle of suffering the passions of youth to take any development which fallen nature may bring about, and then trusting to a riper age for a change for the better, just as if it were possible "to gather grapes of briars, or figs of thorns." ”

“ The intellect of any man cannot help acknowledging the existence of God, and of the first principles of right and wrong. But a perverse will may deny these truths."
Of all things that are good for men, truth is, without doubt, the greatest good.
Truth is the good thing for the intellect. As the eye was made to receive light, and the ear to receive sounds, and the hand to do all kinds of work, so the intellect was made to see and embrace the truth, to unite itself with the truth, and to find its repose in truth alone.
Truth is the good thing for the heart. The heart is bound to love something. ”

“ O eternal and most merciful Father, behold, we come to offer Thee our homage this day : we desire to adore, praise, and glorify Thee, and to give Thee thanks for Thy great glory, joining our hearts and voices with all Thy blessed in heaven, and with Thy whole Church upon earth. But acknowledging our great unworthiness and innumerable sins, for which we are heartily sorry and humbly beg Thy pardon, we dare not venture to approach Thee otherwise than in company of Thy Son, our advocate and mediator, Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast given us to be both our High Priest and Sacrifice. ”

“ Pride never surrenders; it prefers rather to take an illogical position than to bow even to the authority of reason. Furious, beside itself, and absurd, it revolts against evidence. To all reasoning, to undeniable evidence, the infidel—the man without religion—opposes his own will: "Such is my determination." It is sweet to him to be stronger, single-handed, than common sense, stronger than miracles, than even the God who manifests Himself by them. ”

“ All hail to thee, dear and ever-blessed Mother, thou chosen one, thou well-beloved, thou Bride adorned, thou chaste, Immaculate Spouse, thou Universal Queen! all hail to thee! We honor thee, for God honors thee; we love thee, for God loves thee; we obey thee, for thou ever commandest the will of thy Lord. The passers-by may jeer thee; the servants of the prince of this world may call thee black; the daughters of the uncircumcised may beat thee; earth and hell may rise up in wrath against thee, and seek to despoil thee of thy rich ornaments and to sully thy fair name ”

“ I adore Thee, O my God ; and, in union with the priest, offer Thee this sacrifice, for Thy honor and glory, in thanksgiving for all the benefits conferred upon myself and upon the whole world; and in satisfaction for my many sins, and the sins of other men. Accept, Lord, of this holocaust, which is no other than Thy divine Son, at once made priest and victim, offering and offerer, and apply his saving merits to my needy soul. — Be comforted, my heart, Jesus sacrifices Himself for thee. ”

“ Instruction without religion, is like a ship without a compass. Ignorance is, indeed, a great evil; but of the two evils, it is even better, in some respects, for our children to remain ignorant, than to acquire mere worldly knowledge without any religious training; for without religion they grow up a burden to themselves, and a pest to society.
Human nature is prone to evil; and the rising passions, especially in youth, need religious influence to check them. There is a vast difference between teaching the child's head and forming his heart. ”