Category: FAITH

  • Such persons are so caught up in God’s love that everything else can only receive its meaning and purpose in the context of that love. They ask only one question: “What is pleasing to the Spirit of God?” And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers.

    —Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

  • “Pray as if everything depends on God. Work as if everything depends on you.”

    —St. Ignatius

  • “But if the future is not in my hands, then I have all the more reason to stay in the present.”

    —Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

  • We don’t come into this world separate, or belonging to a select few, but we’re a part of the human race. All of us amazingly the same in spite of our differences.

    This is the real thing. We belong to each other. We always have…

    I count it a loss if I don’t touch a life, offer a smile, a prayer, a pause along the way. So every day I continue to do this one tiny thing. This one tiny, incredible thing.

    —River Jordan, Praying for Strangers

  • “The question of where to live and what to do is really insignificant compared to the question of how to keep the eyes of my heart focused on the Lord. I can be teaching at Yale, working in the bakery at the Genesee Abbey, walking with poor children in Peru, or writing a book, and still feel totally useless.”

    —Henri Nouwen

  • “In an ordinary journey, the further the traveler proceeds, the more tired he becomes; but on the way of spiritual life the longer a man travels, reaching forth unto those things which are before, the greater the strength and power he acquires for his further progress.”

    —Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

  • If the path toward heavenly bliss seems difficult, compare it with the path toward earthly happiness, and you will see that the path toward earthly happiness is not really easier at all. Just observe how much people toil to amass earthly things, how many disappointments, fights, sleepless nights and deprivations they bear. Or remind yourself of how much effort and expenses it takes to achieve some meaningless and fleeting pleasure! And for what? Instead of the expected happiness, you are left with disappointment and weariness. When you carefully examine the heart of the matter, it becomes evident that people stay away from the Heavenly Kingdom not because the path to it is more difficult than the other paths of this world, but because it appears that way to them.

    —St. Innocent of Alaska, The Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven

  • “If we always see God in our minds, and always remember Him, everything appears tolerable to us.”

    —St John Chrysostom

  • Of course, it’s easy to trust God when the bush is burning, the waters are parting, and the mountains are shaking— it’s those silent years that are discouraging. But blessed is the person who does not interpret the silence of God as the indifference of God!

    —Erwin W. Lutzer, Getting Closer to God: Lessons from the Life of Moses

  • “Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something. I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.”

    —Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation