When you're going through hard times and God seems distant, apologetics can help you to remember that our faith is not based on emotions, but on the truth, and therefore you must hold on to it.

The Church is a perpetually defeated thing that always outlives her conquerers.

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.

Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive

Great work is always shunned at first.

When all seems to be against you, remember, a ship sometimes has to sail against the current, not with it.

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, 'Shake well before using.' That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

Job was still in God's will even when he lost his children, wealth, and health.

The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures.

Even saints do not smile sweetly when God throws them into mud puddles. Only pigs do that.

Expect the world to be Heaven, and it will feel like Hell. Expect it to be Purgatory, and it will feel like Heaven. The two most salient facts about Purgatory are pain and hope, suffering and meaning.