· 31 December 2004
The past is done and over; learn from it. The future is full of possibilities where the vast majority will never exist; hope for it. Only the present moment is the reality where God has a chance to touch us, transform us, if only we are open to it; live it.
« πλ | Spirituality »
· 30 December 2004
God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form…The perfect surrender and humiliation was undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man.
· 29 December 2004
If we possessed every virtue, but lacked humility, those virtues would be without root and would not last.
· 28 December 2004
How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.
· 27 December 2004
We who run in the way of Love must never torment ourselves about anything. If I did not suffer minute by minute, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I see only the present moment, I forget the past, and take good care not to anticipate the future. If we grow disheartened, if sometimes we despair, it is because we have been dwelling on the past or the future.
· 26 December 2004
What good is it that Christ was born [2,000] years ago if he is not born now in your heart?
· 25 December 2004
The myth of this world is that the way to transformation is through power, but God choose to enter the world in a weak manner, gentle and tender through the heartbeat of a child.
« πλ | Spirituality »
· 24 December 2004
We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.
· 23 December 2004
There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world.
· 22 December 2004
To get into the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has not first known himself.
· 21 December 2004
After about 20 years of marriage, I’m finally starting to scratch the surface of [what women want]. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate.
« πλ | Observation »
· 20 December 2004
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s own, or real life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s real life is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight; but it’s hard to remember it all the time.
· 19 December 2004
One thing is clear and tangible to me in a way that it seldom has been: the world is full of God. From every pore, God rushes out to us, as it were. But we’re often blind. We’re stuck in the good times and the bad times and don’t experience them right up to the point where the spring flows forth from God. That’s true for pleasant experiences as well as unhappy ones. In everything, God wants us to celebrate encounter and asks for the prayerful response of surrender. The trick and the duty is only this: to develop a lasting awareness and a lasting attitude out of these insights and graces—or rather, to allow them to develop. Then life becomes free, in that freedom which we have often looked for.
· 18 December 2004
Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread. It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandonded, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty.
« πλ | Spirituality »
· 17 December 2004
Often people think they are lost. They think that nothing in the world can help them. And then God looks and says, “It is time.” And all at once everything looks different. Everything comes into a different light, and all at once you see that all is not lost, but won. Remember this, all is not lost in His eyes. “The lowly shall be lifted up, the first shall be last.”
· 16 December 2004
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.
· 15 December 2004
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
· 14 December 2004
The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
· 13 December 2004
When you love, you complete a circle.
When you die, the circle remains.
The connections we make here in this life, the people we love, the souls we touch, will remain when we get to heaven.
· 12 December 2004
When at night you cannot sleep, talk to the Shepherd and stop counting sheep.
· 11 December 2004
Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself.
· 10 December 2004
Love is an orientation and not a state of the soul. Anyone who does not know this will fall into despair at the first onset of affliction.
· 9 December 2004
There are four ways God answers prayer:
No, not yet;
No, I love you too much;
Yes, I thought you’d never ask;
Yes, and here’s more.
· 8 December 2004
God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away. God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love.
· 7 December 2004
When prayer is a struggle, do not worry about the prayers that you cannot pray. You yourself are a prayer to God at that moment. All that is within you cries out to Him, and He hears all the pleas that your suffering soul and body are making to Him with groanings which cannot be uttered.
· 6 December 2004
It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: the heart cannot actually break, it can only break open. When we feel both our love for this world and the pain of this world—together, at the same time—the heart breaks out of its shell. To live with an open heart is to experience life full-strength.
· 5 December 2004
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
· 4 December 2004
Love is that flame that once kindled burns everything, and only the mystery and the journey remain.
· 3 December 2004
Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue.
· 2 December 2004
Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone.
· 1 December 2004
Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.
« πλ | Observation, Proverb »
May God’s love,
peace, and energy
touch you in faith.
![[Jerusalem Cross with Heart]](http://cowpi.com/journal/grafiks/jerusalem-cross-heart.gif "Jerusalem Cross with Heart")