quote · Legacy record
Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity. Individuals that have carried their sinning to extremes should not despair or say, “I am too great a sinner to change,” or “God would not want me.” God will take anyone who is willing to love, not with an occasional gesture, but with a “passionless passion,” a “wild tranquility.” A sinner, unrepentant, cannot love God, any more that a man on dry land can swim; but as soon as he takes his errant energies to God and asks for their redirection, he will become happy, as he was never happy before. It is not the wrong things one has already done which keep one from God; it is the present persistence in that wrong.
Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity. Individuals that have carried their sinning to extremes should not despair or say, “I am too great a sinner to change,” or “God would not want me.” God will take anyone who is willing to love, not with an occasional gesture, but with a “passionless passion,” a “wild tranquility.” A sinner, unrepentant, cannot love God, any more that a man on dry land can swim; but as soon as he takes his errant energies to God and asks for their redirection, he will become happy, as he was never happy before. It is not the wrong things one has already done which keep one from God; it is the present persistence in that wrong.
Approximate author period: c. 1937 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Fulton J. Sheen
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1937 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1895 to 1979; Wikidata Q954398, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q954398 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 268238; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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