G.K. Chesterton

"My country, right or wrong," is something no patriot would think of saying, except in an extreme case.  It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."

Hilaire Belloc

If England had not broken off, the Reformation would have failed and our civilization have been today one Christian thing.  It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this historical catastrophe.  It has had effects which have gone on spreading from that long distant date, more than 400 years ago, to our own time, and those evil effects are if anything increasing rather than diminishing.

St. Augustine of Hippo

God, it is true, foresaw the evil man would do (foreseeing it, of course, he did not force man to do it) but at the same time knew the good that he would himself one day make come out of it

Luke 1:26-38, RSV-CE2

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at this saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."
And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no husband?"
And the Angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who is called barren.  For with God, nothing is impossible."
And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

Isaiah 6:1-13 RSV-CE2

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory."

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was full of smoke.  And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the glory, the LORD of hosts!"
Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said : "Behold, this has touched your lips ; your guilt has been taken away, and your sin forgiven." And I heard the voice of the LORD saying, "Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?" Then I said "Here am I Send me!" And he said,

"Go and say to this people:
'Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive'
Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

Then I said, "How long, O LORD?"
And he said:

"Until the cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, and the LORD removes men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains standing when it is felled."
The holy seed is its stump.

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St. Thomas Aquinas

One difference between an organic body and the Church's mystical body is this: the members of an organism are all knit together at one given period of time, whereas the members of the mystical body are dispersed throughout the ages , for the Church's body is made up of people of every century, from the beginning to the end of the world.