Quotes from Brennan Manning

In our society, where money, power, and pleasure are the name of the game, the body truth is bleeding from thousand wounds.

When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments, and the surprises of the Spirit. Evangelical faith is bartered for cozy, comfortable piety. A failure of nerve and an unwillingness to risk distorts God into a bookkeeper, and the gospel of grace is swapped for the security of religious bondage.

The heart enveloped in the tenderness of God passes that tenderness around indiscriminately, making no distinction between the worthy and the unworthy.

Each time we deal a mortal blow to the ego, the pasch of Jesus is traced in our flesh. Each time we choose to walk the extra mile, to turn the other cheek, to embrace and not reject, to be compassionate and not competitive, to kiss and not bite, to forgive and not massage the latest bruise to our wounded ego, we are breaking through from death to life.

One spiritual writer has observed that human beings are born with two diseases: life, from which we die; and hope, which says the first disease is not terminal. Hope is built into the structure of our personalities, into the depths of our unconscious; it plagues us to the very moment of our death. The critical question is whether hope is self-deception, the ultimate cruelty of a cruel and tricky universe, or whether it is just possibly the imprint of reality.

To live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness is to humbly acknowledge the limitations of the rational, scientific, finite mind and to freely embrace mystery.

We cannot accept love from another human being when we do not love ourselves, much less accept that God could possibly love us.

On one level, a roomful of men is always a dangerous thing. Competition is usually in the air, so the potential for violence is always nearby.

Being the beloved is our identity, the core of our existence. It is not merely a lofty thought, an inspiring idea, or one name among many. It is the name by which God knows us and the way He relates to us.

It is not reserved for those who are well-known mystics or for those who do wonderful things for the poor.… [It is for] those poor enough to welcome Jesus. It is for people living ordinary lives and who feel lonely. It is for all those who are old, hospitalized or out of work, who open their hearts in trust to Jesus and cry out for his healing love.[1] —Jean Vanier

May all that I know apart from You be nothing more than a chance traveling companion on the journey toward You.

The Christian commitment is not an abstraction. It is a concrete, visible, courageous, and formidable way of being in the world, forged by daily choices consistent with inner truth. A commitment that is not visible in humble service, suffering discipleship, and creative love is an illusion.

Insecurity not only paralyzes our relationship with the living God but has a devastating effect on interpersonal relationships. It is the starting point of all social estrangement. It breaks down openness, which is the bridge to the existential world of the other. It undermines real communication and causes a kind of rupture in the evolution of authentic personality.

Dear Abba, I have had glimpses of enlightenment, quicksilver encounters that have allowed me to say a little more of who You are. But they've just been the tip of the iceberg. Give me the eyes to not merely notice but see. Give me the ears to not only hear but listen. Give me the courage to further touch Your scars. I want to taste more and digest more of the riches of the mystery that is You. Help me come to my senses, and know You better.

Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice.

discipleship, or the following of Christ, was not simply the most important thing in life—it was the only thing.

If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.

Winston Churchill said it well: "Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.

As Emile Leger said when he left his mansion in Montreal to go live in a leper colony in Africa, "The time for talking is over.

What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness.

That is why God is a scandal to men and women—because He cannot be comprehended by a finite mind.

Whatever we have done in the past, be it good or evil, great or small, is irrelevant to our stance before God today. It is only now that we are in the presence of God.

Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We ought to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death. We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in being a Christian.

The antithesis of giving thanks is grumbling. The grumblers live in a state of self-induced stress.