Intelligence without faith is not as admirable as faith without intelligence.
—St. Augustine
Category: FAITH
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How do we acquire faith, the deep conviction that produces the most zeal? The saints teach that it comes from gathering knowledge. He who does not know the truth cannot have true faith; for in the nature of things, knowledge comes before faith (Hesychius).
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How quickly you can have faith depends upon how quick, and how willing, you are to put available facts together into knowledge.
God’s Path to Sanity
Dee Pennock -
SECT. VII. Third Comparison, drawn from a Statue.
If a man should find in a desert island a fine statue of marble, he would undoubtedly immediately say, “Sure, there have been men here formerly; I perceive the workmanship of a skilful statuary; I admire with what niceness he has proportioned all the limbs of this body, in order to give them so much beauty, gracefulness, majesty, life, tenderness, motion, and action!”
What would such a man answer if anybody should tell him, “That’s your mistake; a statuary never carved that figure. It is made, I confess, with an excellent gusto, and according to the rules of perfection; but yet it is chance alone made it. Among so many pieces of marble there was one that formed itself of its own accord in this manner; the rains and winds have loosened it from the mountains; a violent storm has thrown it plumb upright on this pedestal, which had prepared itself to support it in this place. It is a perfect Apollo, like that of Belvedere; a Venus that equals that of the Medicis; an Hercules, like that of Farnese. You would think, it is true, that this figure walks, lives, thinks, and is just going to speak. But, however, it is not in the least beholden to art; and it is only a blind stroke of chance that has thus so well finished and placed it.”
—François Fénelon, Existence of God -
“We may study as much as we will but we shall still not come to know the Lord unless we live according to His commandments, for the Lord is not made known through learning but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and scholars have arrived at the belief in the existence of God. To believe in God is one thing, to know God is another.”
— St. Silouan the Athonite -
Thank You, Lord, for, had You seen a better situation for me than where I am, You would have taken me there. Or, if I deserved more than this, You would have given me. Certainly, You always give me above what I deserve. It is enough that I trust Your wisdom and love in planning my life; this deserves thanks.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine
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Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our [the devil] Enemy’s will [God], looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
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Radical Waiting
I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen in me.
To wait with openness and trust is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear.
Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.
—Henri Nouwen
SO GOOD QUOTES 