Whenever you think God has shown you other people’s faults, take care; your own judgment may well be at fault. Say nothing. And if you do attribute any vice to another person, immediately and humbly look for it in yourself also. Should the the other person really possess that vice, he will correct himself so […]
I ran across some Latin phrases the other day. This one struck me most applicable to living a spiritual life. In silvam ne ligna feras. (Don’t carry logs into the forest.) — Horace In other words, God will provide. The energy you need to love others and God will be given when you need it. […]
In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. — John S. Mogabgab
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance. — G.K. Chesterton
To paraphrase Peter John Cameron, O.P. in “Lent and Reality”: Salvation is an escape from our own inability. In our darkness, the incomparable capacity of our being will settle for nothing less than the embrace of the Infinite. Like nothing else, our helplessness moves us to cry out for that embrace in confidence and trust. […]
A poem from awhile ago reflects this line from Romano Guardini in The Lord: Love is a stream that flows from God to me, from me to my neighbor (and not to one only, but to all), from my neighbor back to God. “Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like […]
“We are constantly invited to be what we are.” — Henry David Thoreau
LIVE love, ACT truth, HONOR life. And it will be God within you whom you live, act, and honor.
“…What I like doing best is Nothing.” “How do you do Nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. “Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, Nothing,’ and then you go […]
Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has […]
What the self decides in time is ratified in eternity. — Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life I choose You…
Lately, when anger comes up I try to ask myself “What am I working so hard to protect or avoid?” Every time I ask this question and breathe instead of trying to run from or shut down the conflict, my anger eventually turns into compassion for myself and for my so-called “attacker” who most likely […]
From the last chapter of The Cloud of Unknowing: It is not what you are nor what you have been that God sees with his all-merciful eyes, but what you desire to be. The original Middle English written in the 14th century by the unknown abbott is quite readable to the modern reader: For not […]
The maxim of illusory religion runs: “Fear not; trust in God and he will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you;” that of real religion, on the contrary is, “Fear not; the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to […]
There is a moment in each day that Satan cannot find. — William Blake I saw this quote today. My mind searched for a specific time or label for this moment in each day. I was tempted to answer, “Now. Now, the present moment, is the moment Satan cannot find.” Many of the saints, and […]
It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot. — St. Jerome [via]
From a Newsweek article titled “Visions of Jesus”, March 27, 2000 [via]: Clearly, the cross is what separates the Christ of Christianity from every other Jesus. In Judaism there is no precedent for a Messiah who dies, much less as a criminal as Jesus did. In Islam, the story of Jesus’ death is rejected as […]
This seems an appropriate thought for the last day of the year. If you were to die tonight and stand before God, and He were to ask you, “Why should I take you to Heaven?” What would you say? We can argue forever your answer or my answer, but here is God’s answer. It is […]
What time I am afraid, I will trust in you. — Psalm 56:3
God never forces himself upon us or works in us beyond what we are willing to allow him to do. If we do not grow in love, it is not because his love for us is limited, but because we set limits to what his love can do in us. — Thomas Green, When the […]
It’s a hundred and six blocks; I’ve got a full bladder, half an idea of where I’m going; it’s Tuesday, and I am wearing sunglasses. — Bloo, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends What more do you need?
I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was speaking: “My name is I am.” He paused. I waited. He continued. “When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WAS. “When you live in the future, […]
A couple weeks ago, I changed the subtitle to this weblog from “Watch your step…” (a play on words with the title of this journal) to “Got prayer?” because it seems to fit more with who I am and what I would really like to ask any visitors to this weblog. This morning, I changed […]
Resurrection—not progress, not evolution, not enlightenment, but a call from heaven to us: “Rise up! You are dead, but I will give you life.” That is what is proclaimed here, and it is the only way that the world can be saved. … We do not like to see that we are deeply imprisoned, and […]
From Happy Catholic, via Flos Carmeli, via Summa Minutiae, here is a blogger challenge: Describe yourself with three quotes—serious, ironic, humorous, whatever—from various (literary?) sources. My quotes: Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share. — Henri Nouwen If I am not [in God’s grace], may it please God to put me in it; if […]