Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.
Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .
We just have to recognize life for what it is: a gift to be grateful for, not a property to cling to, hoard, or defend.
One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
The gospel word of the day can become like a painting on the walls. of your inner room, the inner room that is your heart.
Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.
Through discipline, discipline is the other side of discipleship. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to have discipline.
The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.
There are areas I have to work on. I had some questions and some struggles, but it was an enormously important time for me.
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.
Ministry in no way is a privilege...it is the core of the Christian life. No Christian is a Christian without being a minister.
I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can "apply" to their daily life.
The best of community does give one a deep sense of belonging and well-being; and in that sense community takes away loneliness.
Let's dare to enter into an intimate relationship with God without fear, trusting that we will receive love and always more love.
I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.
Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.
Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.
The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
My writing has developed drastically . The Return of the Prodigal Son is the most important thing I've done, and my most mature book.
My hope is that the description of God's love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover... God's love in yours.
The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin is more than the poor, that the rich find it easier to call sin a virtue.
When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.
God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.
...the word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ...wherever we look it is communion that we seek.
I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.
The pain that comes from deep love makes your love more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root.
Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are.
The great challenge is to discover that we are truly invited to participate in the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place.
In a strange way the spiritual life isn't "useful" or "successful." But it is meant to be fruitful. And fruitfulness comes out of brokenness.
When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.
We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
The most important thing I've come to believe in is that people with mental handicaps have a unique mission to bring God's blessing to the World.
People who pray stand receptive before the world. They no longer grab but caress, they no longer bite but kiss, they no longer examine but admire.
When we have sold our identity to the judges of this world, we are bound to become restless, because of a growing need for affirmation and praise.
One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.
I am working on three things: on being a prayerful person; on staying close to the handicapped; and on my writing. These are my constant concerns.
I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.
Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.
Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.
The evangelical movement has become just a bit victimized by a success-oriented culture, wanting the church - like the corporation - to be successful.
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.