Quotes by Janet Erskine Stuart

In order that our work may be the overflow of our interior life we must pray more than we work, not of course as to time, but by the intensity with which we give the whole of the powers of our soul to our prayer, and one such intense act of prayer is of more value than half an hour of vague prayer.

The unsimple ways and manners are found in the intermediate layers, those who are uneasy and anxious to be something which they are not and so become unreal. So, a simple manner belongs to those who are at ease in being themselves, not anxious to be taken for anything else, content and not afraid.

We live much more under secular supervision than of old; it is unavoidable if we want to do our work for children: all the more necessary then to strengthen ourselves in truth, in personal humility, in independence of the world, in the tendency to hiddenness which is characteristic of God's work in the universe.

God never sends a cross without a great grace for all concerned, even if they do not see it at the time.

There must be pain and darkness and unsearchable mysteries and insoluble problems, but there again, in case of doubts, hold on. Wait for God to explain Himself in eternity. It would be childish to think that we could understand in time. But never let go of the belief that God is the All Good.

... Among human beings, strong personalities are most entirely and permanently themselves; and without fear of losing themselves can challenge the currents of circumstances to play upon them, adapt themselves to new conditions. Change has not passed upon what was deepest in their souls, but the discipline of change has called out its deepest response. They have changed but that change was growth. They are unchanged; and that unchangeableness is their truth."
    Written by Janet Erskine Stuart about Mother Georgia Stevens, RSCJ and several other Religious of the Sacred Heart.

It was at Christmas that our Lord, as it were, took His first plunge into the heart of our troubles, of our difficulties, of our experiences, into the heart of the life we are leading. And that, not as someone standing at a distance, but as thrown into the stream---feeling the shock, the human astonishment at what took place around Him---feeling the poverty, the pain, the isolation in which He was left. He loves that we should sympathize with Him in it.

The best and greatest things in our lives, we cannot see or feel, but we can trust. God expects it. Most of us feel that the work we are called on to do is in some way beyond us, by quantity, by quality, by responsibility, etc. God sends it to us and will give us the means of carrying it through. But God expects also that we should show the good will of doing what lies in our power. What lies beyond it He will do, even if a miracle were necessary. If we fill our water jar with water (this we can do) God will change it into wine.

We must go to the duties which contain for us the will of God and the means of growing in His service and love. It does not matter what or where, we will take it as it comes. And if the sea of life is angry and troublesome for our navigation, we shall bear in mind that the harbor lights will surely appear one day, perhaps soon, and we shall be in port.

The externals of things, failure, success, scope, influence, acceptability, all these things say very little to me, and I think mean very little to God either. It is the inner tendency of each individual soul to Him, in the old phrase “the heart right with God” which alone matters and chiefly interests me.

We must remember that each one of our children is destined for a mission in life. Neither we nor they can know what it is, but we must know and make them believe that each one has a mission in life and that she is bound to find out what it is, that there is some special work for God which will remain undone unless she does it, some place in life which no one else can fill.

Some of us go by sea and others by land through our lives. We do not love the glories of these years less, now that we can look back and see that some of them were clouds and some were mirages in the desert. They did their work, and they were the band of yellow, clear gold in our lives.


Sincerity is a difficult virtue to practice and is too easily taken for granted. It has more enemies than appear at first sight. Inertness of mind, the desire to do things cheaply, dislike of mental effort, the tendency to be satisfied with appearances, the wish to shine, impatient with results; all foster intellectual insincerity.

There are two ways of preparing children for the government of themselves in after-life, one direct and the other indirect. The first has its merits, it is quick in results, often very successful. It fosters piety, inculcates some clear principles, dictates the main lines of action, and by rule and maxim, fits the being into its place in the world, and gives it means to do its duty creditably. The indirect method is longer and less clearly defined. It aims at giving a guiding light within, and power to climb a difficult path, and pick a way through unknown country by that light. This must be waited for, and slowly developed, but in the end it is of greater worth. The training of the Sacred Heart aims at this.

You cannot think how I wish that you could manage to let go of those “old unhappy, far-off thoughts” of God, and really believe Him to be what you know He must be and could not help being, the whole sweetness of life, the whole power of love and the world, and that you would give yourself into His hands by an “incomparable act of resignation,” sure, so sure, that nothing you could dream of can come near to what He is planning for you, and wants to give you if you will only let Him.