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Quote by Pope John XXIII

“The mark of Cain is stamped upon our foreheads. Across the centuries, our brother Abel was lain in blood which we drew, and shed tears we caused by forgetting Thy love. Forgive us, Lord, for the curse we falsely attributed to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did.”

Quote by Pope John XXIII

Author

Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII

Pope John XXIII (born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, November 25, 1881 – June 3, 1963) was the 261st pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1958 to 1963. He is best known for convening the Second Vatican Council, which modernized the Church and promoted dialogue with the modern world. Born into a peasant family in Bergamo, Italy, he served as a papal diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey, and France before becoming Patriarch of Venice. Elected pope at age 77, he was seen as a transitional figure but initiated profound reforms. His encyclical Pacem in Terris addressed peace and nuclear disarmament. Known for his humility and humor, he was beatified in 2000 and canonized in 2014. more

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“How not to imagine the tumors ripening beneath his skin, flesh I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips, pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights so hard I thought I could enter him, open his back at the spine like a door or a curtain and slip in like a small fish between his ribs, nudge the coral of his brains with my lips, brushing over the blue coil of his bowels with the fluted silk of my tail.”

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”

“And exactly how does a miserable face help the war effort?" he asked sharply, his mood beginning to change. "Will a frown bring back the dead or fortify a town? If I allow myself to laugh in the face of misery, I rest my mind from the stress of it all, and then it'll work the better for you and your war. And if I'm really to be one of your advisers, Your Majesty, accept this piece of advise: Take happiness where and when you find it, because there is going to be precious little of it in the next few months!”