Read these quotes from G.K. Chesterton to renew your understanding of and thankfulness for your faith.

1. "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

Christianity is a religion of life. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that He came so that we can have life, and have it more abundantly (see John 10:10). Without Christ’s passion, death and Resurrection, man would have no hope of eternal life. We would be doomed to an eternity of separation from God due to our sins. Mankind was caught up in the stream of sin, swept away by concupiscence, into a life without God. Only due to His infinite mercy toward us, do we have the hope of swimming “against the stream,” against the current of human nature and towards a “future full of hope,” (see Jeremiah 29:11). When we are dead in our sins, we simply go with the stream live. But when we live Christian lives, we are swimming against the stream of the popular culture, because Christ Himself was counter-cultural. To follow Christ is to be against the stream, but fully alive.

2. "The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

The Christian faith is counterintuitive. The message of Christ, that we are to love our enemies, and to offer forgiveness instead of revenge, is impossible to comprehend by mere human standards. In fact, people literally walked away from Jesus during His lifetime because His teachings were too hard to accept (see John 6). If our faith were a mere human invention, it would have died out after a generation or two, because human “wisdom” doesn’t understand it. As it is, this counterintuitive faith shook the world. It toppled kingdoms, converted far-off peoples, and liberated mankind from an eternity of life without God after death.

3. "If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

This startling quote from Chesterton should serve to remind us of the fact that everything in creation comes directly from the hand of God, and out of His goodness. Even those of us who reject God, put up roadblocks against Him, and dry desperately to explain away His creation, are still made in His Image and are capable of receiving His grace. It can be easy to think that God only exists for those who believe in Him, and only showers His grace on those who are pious and practice their faith diligently. However, the reality is that the Catholic faith is really for everyone. Even the most hardened atheist actually belongs in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has compared the Church to a hospital which binds up the wounds of sinners. Who belongs in a hospital? Anyone who is sick or wounded, and every single person at some point in their life is going to end up sick or wound ed. So, e very single person belongs in the Catholic Church!

4. "The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man."

One thing that is very beautiful about the Catholic faith is that it is not man-made. All other religions or philosophies, even if they do contain some elements of truth, are ultimately merely human creations, human answers to our questions, and so they cannot provide the deep and lasting solutions that our hearts desire. Our hearts are made for God; nothing and no one else will satisfy them. The Catholic faith is literally a God-given gift in which we give God our sins, weaknesses and failings, and He nails them to the cross and in return gives us grace and salvation, and bottomless love. And even when the ways in which His Providence plays out in our lives don’t always make sense to our minds, we have the consolation of knowing that they do, in fact, make sense, and that the mysteries through which He leads us are actually more satisfying than the answers that other philosophies propose to us, for we know that they are coming from the One Who has the true answers to every question of our heart.

5. "Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car."

The Letter to the Hebrews states that “the Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword...” (Hebrews 4:12). God wants our faith to be active, not passive. This is because in His innermost being, God is love, and love is not passive. True love is active. It moves us out of ourselves and urges us to seek the good of the other. It was love for us that made Jesus come down from heaven, spend thirty-three years on earth, suffer and die. His love certainly was not passive! When we love another - our spouse, children, family, friends - we do not just sit around and think about them. We get up and do good for them. We care for our spouse and children. We spend time with family and friends. That’s what love demands, and love for God is no different. If all we do is go to church on Sunday, our love will become dull and stagnant. But if we go out into the world during the rest of the week and actively love God in our neighbor, our love for Him will be active, alive and real. It will be “living and effective.”

6. "Religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary."

Before the eyes of God, we are all equal. Saint Paul said, “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). The noblest king, the most effective military conqueror, the lowly janitor, and the exhausted, harried mother of five are all equally sinful, and yet also equally redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Unlike any and all other religions, Christianity is the great equalizer. No one is not welcome in the arms of the Church. This reality is best encapsulated in the second of the two Great Commandments: love your neighbor as yourself. It was this all-encompassing love of God that inspires missionaries to traverse sea and land to convert strangers to Christ. It moved Mother Teresa to journey to the “poorest of the poor,” and to treat them like royalty. It should move us as well to extend God’s love to every single person we meet, especially those whom we find difficult to love. In doing this, we are genuinely bringing God’s love to the world.

7. "One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created."

Faith in God can mean simply believing that He exists, just as we believe that millions of stars and planets exists. Or it can mean believing that God is all good, all loving, all powerful, and that He cares about you individually. The “simple fact that we are created” ought to make us bask in the wonder of God’s goodness. Without any compulsion from the outside, without any need on His part, God chose to make the universe, and He chose to make each individual person out of sheer love. There is no other reason for creation than simply God’s love. This alone should be enough to increase our faith in God’s goodness. Ever since the original sin in the garden of Eden, humanity’s perpetual problem has been a lack of trust in God’s goodness and love. The story of salvation history is one of God continually proving to humans that He is worthy of trust. Will you shrink back, as Adam and Eve did in the garden? Or will you take Him up on His offer of trust? Remembering that God made you individually out of nothing but love should inspire you to unconditional trust.

8. "Neither reason nor faith will ever die; for men would die if deprived of either."

God made humanity to be rational creatures. With our minds we can use reason to know truths about the created universe in which we live. Reason is a remarkable tool, for it is what most properly sets us apart from animals, and it is why we are made in the Image of God. Yet there is another power that our reason has, in addition to knowing about creation. Through our reason, we can also know that there is a God. We can know certain truths about Him: that He is eternal, uncreated, outside of space and time, and deserving of our worship. Our faith is not a blind grasping of beliefs that seem pleasant to us. It is grounded in knowledge, beginning with the knowledge that there is a God. This is an important fact to remember, especially when the wider culture challenges our faith as being superstitious or irrational. Our Catholic faith is not irrational. It is grounded in a sure and unwavering knowledge that there really is a God.

9. "The first effect of not believing in God is that you lose your common sense."

Frank Sheed, another great English theologian like Chesterton, has said that believing in God is essential for common sense, because to deny God is to deny something that is truly there, and common sense is simply acknowledging what exists. Not only does God exist, but He has more being than any of His creations. To deny the existence of the God Who is being is to deny the greatest part of reality. Chesterton knew this, even before the many tragic events of the twentieth century displayed the consequences of not believing in God. The effects of two world wars and much oppression has shown that denying the existence of God does in fact lead people to lose their common sense. Only through a firm faith in God’s existence and His goodness will any society flourish in peace and virtue.

10. "Praised be God for all sides of life, for friends, lovers, art, literature, knowledge, humor, politics, and for the little red cloud away there in the west."

At the end of the day, Christianity is a religion of joy. The Greek word e uangelios, which we usually translate as “Gospel,” means “good news,” or “good message.” Joy has been a defining characteristic of Christianity ever since the day Jesus was born: “The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people.” Is it any wonder that one of the most well-known and best-loved Christmas carols is called “Joy to the World”? There is a good reason for this joy. It’s not just blind commitment to maintaining a sunny disposition, or merely a “Let’s hope things end up well” optimism. The reason for our joy is that God has chosen, through no obligation or compulsion, but solely out of sheer love and mercy that is totally undeserved on our part—“while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), to free us from the eternal agony of separation from Him, even though we actually did deserve it because of our sins. Further, God did more than just free us from something bad; He also freed us for something good. He revealed Himself to us, and invited us back into an eternal relationship of love with Him, which, although we decided to ruin it through original sin, still remained t he relationship for which we were created in the first place. We were created for union with God in heaven. And that is something to praise Him for.

What's your favorite G.K. Chesterton quote? Share in the comments!