Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We are formed by environment and grace, by politics and prayer, by church and conscience. All God's creatures conspire to teach us as well. We stumble. We stutter. We rise. We are lifted.
Divine reality is not way up in the sky somewhere; it is readily available in the encounters of everyday life, which make hash of my illusions that I can control the ways God comes to me.
If you believe you are the beloved of God, you need to spend time listening to his voice - period! You can't say, "Yes God calls me the beloved, but I have to go out to do something now."
True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers.
Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.
People inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control.
Happiness is the sense that one matters. Happiness is an abiding enthusiasm. Happiness is single-mindedness. Happiness is whole-heartedness. Happiness is a by-product. Happiness is faith.
There has always been a certain proportion of people who leave the Church on issues of authority and sex. That hasn't changed since we started doing research on it back in the early 1960s.
The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord
To the degree that we embrace the truth that our identity is not rooted in our success, power, or popularity, but in God's infinite love, to that degree can we let go of our need to judge.
God is to us like the sky to a small bird, which cannot see its outer limits and cannot reach its distant horizons, but can only lose itself in the greatness and immensity of the blueness.
[Mary] is the safest, easiest, shortest and most perfect way of approaching Jesus and will surrender themselves to her, body and soul, without reserve in order to belong entirely to Jesus.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are never acceptable acts of mercy. They always gravely exploit the suffering and desperate, extinguishing life in the name of the 'quality of life' itself.
The only science that gives purpose to every other science is the science of religion - the science of our happy relationship with, and our providential dependence on God and our neighbor.
Abject poverty, political instability, torture, and other abuses push thousands across our border. There is not a deterrent imaginable that equals the conditions that force their migration.
The Eucharist, behold the Christian's treasure, his delight on earth. Since Jesus is in the Eucharist for him personally, his whole life ought to be drawn to it like a magnet to its center.
I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother. I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.
The goal and target of our life is He, the Christ who awaits us -- each one singly and altogether -- to lead us across the boundaries of time to the eternal embrace of the God who loves us.
Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better.
It's not correct to say Jesus is God. Now, don't run and report me to the bishop, all right? It's not correct to say that - Jesus is the union of the human and the divine. That's different.
[W]isdom consists in following Providence step by step. And you can be sure of the truth of a maxim which seems paradoxical, namely, that he who is hasty falls back in the interests of God.
Scientists in general tend to have what I would call a bit of hubris that the public do not necessarily understand. So scientists some times make claims that are misunderstood by the public.
It is not that the university as such is against spiritual formation. It is just that often the university does not know how to integrate spiritual formation within its academic disciplines.
There is nothing more man needs than Divine Mercy - that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights to the holiness of God.
The cross is Jesus going into the very lair of death. He goes to meet head-on that which frightens us the most. And what does He do? He battles it. He engages it. And finally he conquers it.
I hope that this man can be won over by your bearing charitably with him, advising him prudently, and praying for him. This is what I do for your family in general and for you in particular.
When we learn to move through suffering, rather than avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it teach us. We even begin to see how God can use it for some larger end.
The third discipline is community. Whom do you choose as your companions? Whom do you choose to be friends with, to live with? Are they people who love you, and care for you, and nurture you?
To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.
Patriotism is a salt against rottenness, a glorious spur to high endeavour; it recovers the half-obliterated virtue of loyalty, calls every man to service, and ennobles great and small alike.
Faith intervenese not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts.
Remember finally, that the ashes that were on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.
We should take as a maxim never to be surprised at current difficulties, no more than at a passing breeze, because with a little patience we shall see them disappear. Time changes everything.
The kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Spirit; He will reign in you if your heart is at peace. So, be at peace, Mademoiselle, and you will honor in a sovereign way the God of peace and love.
In the name of God, Monsieur, let us have greater confidence in Him than we do; let us allow Him to steer our little bark; if it is useful and pleasing to Him, He will save it from shipwreck.
People tend not to disassociate the technological issues from pure scientific research, so that science sometimes gets a bad name for things that science doesn't deserve having a bad name for.
Christendom is not primarily a mental construct. It is above all a fact, indeed the longest historical experience the Church has had. Hence the deep impact it has made on its life and thought.
The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.
The same ones who brought the children physically in the world have the natural obligation binding in the natural law to provide for the mental, moral and social upbringing of their offspring.
Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church.
The most profound and serious indication of the moral implications underlying the ecological problem is the lack of respect for life evident in many of the patterns of environmental pollution.
What does it matter where we go? Wherever we go, won't we be serving God there? And wherever we go, won't we have Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with us? Isn't that enough to make us happy?
Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact Angels have no religion as we know it... Their existence precedes every religious system that has ever existed on Earth.
His Divine Goodness asks that we never do good in any place to make ourselves look important but that we always consider Him directly, immediately, and without intermediary in all our actions.
In a word, we owe obedience to the bishops in all things pertaining to our work in the missions, with ordinands, etc., but the spiritual and internal direction belongs to the Superior General.
The boundaries became constrictive in what I was doing, and if my faith grew, it was because I pressed some of the boundaries in ways I hadn't felt comfortable or responsible doing that before.
Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.
Let us never forget that an age prospers or dwindles in proportion to its devotion to the Holy Eucharist. This is the measure of its spiritual life and its faith, of its charity and its virtue.
Live on the divine Eucharist, like the Hebrews did on the Manna. Your soul can be entirely dedicated to the divine Eucharist and very holy in the midst of your work and contacts with the world.
Jesus Christ has taken the lead on the way of the cross. He has suffered first. He does not drive us toward suffering but shares it with us, wanting us to have life and to have it in abundance.