Category: FAITH

  • “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

  • 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

  • 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

  • “It’s not God I don’t accept. Understand this,” says Ivan. “I do not accept the world that He created, this world of God’s, and cannot agree with it.”

    The Brothers Karamazov

  • He left behind his worldly understanding and took with him his faith

    —Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

  • Thou wert not to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God.

    —St. Augustine, Confessions

  • “On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighbourhood; I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn’t believe in God.”

    Whatever
    Michel Houellebecq

  • Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

    —Emil Cioran

  • Elijah was so confident, he prayed five times knowing the rain would come. The Bible teaches us confidence and how to pray.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri