Quotes from Brennan Manning

The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the originating Lover, the Son who is the full self-expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible activity of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself.

Abba, You stretch wide Your loving arms to me in the darkest, loneliest moments of my life.

We project into the Lord our own measured standard of acceptance. Our whole understanding of him is based in a quid pro quo of bartered love. He will love us if we are good, moral, and diligent. But we have turned the tables; we try to live so that he will love us, rather than living because he has already loved us.

became too heavy, and I couldn't carry it. I just couldn't.

Henri Nouwen said, "When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.

I know you will get disgruntled at times and start to act out, but the longer you spend time in the presence of Jesus, the more accustomed you grow to His face, the less adulation you will need because you will have discovered for yourself that He is Enough. And in the Presence, you will delight in the discovery of what it means to live by grace and not by performance.

The cardinal rule in prayer remains the dictum of Don Chapman: "Pray as you can; don't pray as you can't.

The demands of forgiveness are so daunting that they seem humanly impossible. The demands of forgiveness are simply beyond the capacity of ungraced human will. Only reckless confidence in a Source greater than ourselves can empower us to forgive the wounds inflicted by others. In boundary moments such as these there is only one place to go—Calvary.

My indwelling pharisee has devised a way to disembowel my true self, deny my humanity, and camouflage my emotions through a fraudulent mental maneuver called "spiritualizing.

The nature of God's love for us is outrageous. Why doesn't this God of ours display some taste and discretion in dealing with us? Why doesn't He show more restraint? To be blunt about it, couldn't God arrange to have a little more dignity? Wow!

The Trappist monk Thomas Keating once said, "The cross Jesus asked you to carry is yourself. It's all the pain inflicted on you in your past and all the pain you've inflicted on others.

Finally, my old and now retired spiritual director, Larry Hein, who wrote this blessing—"May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit"— has come up with another one:

Impressions form images that become fixed ideas that give birth to prejudices. Anthony De Mello said, "If you are prejudiced, you will see that person from the eye of that prejudice. In other words, you will cease to see this person as a person."[12] The pharisee within spends most of his time reacting to labels, his own and others'.

If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own.

It is Christ offering the opportunity of a lifetime: "I have come into the world as light, to prevent anyone who believes in me from staying in the dark any more" (John 12:46).

There was a time in the not too distant past when a thunderstorm caused grown men to shudder and feel small.

ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE the overriding issue for the ragamuffin rabble is the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says, "A tidal wave is approaching and you are lollygagging on the patio having a party." Or as Joachim Jeremias puts it, "You are feasting and dancing—on the volcano which may erupt at any moment."3

Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for, never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness. —Rilke

Instead of expanding our capacity for life, joy, and mystery, religion often contracts it. As systematic theology advances, the sense of wonder declines. The paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities of life are codified, cabined, and confined within the pages of a leather-bound book. Instead of a love story the Bible is viewed as a detailed manual of directions.

Much of my callousness and invulnerability has come from my refusal to mourn the loss of a soft word and a tender embrace.) Blessed are those who weep and mourn.

A atualidade da ressurreição decifra o enigma da vida.

I HAVE GIVEN THEM THE GLORY YOU GAVE TO ME, THAT THEY MAY BE ONE AS WE ARE ONE. WITH ME IN THEM AND YOU IN ME, MAY THEY BE SO PERFECTED IN UNITY THAT THE WORLD WILL RECOGNIZE THAT IT WAS YOU WHO SENT ME AND THAT YOU HAVE LOVED THEM AS YOU HAVE LOVED ME. (JOHN 17:22–23 NJB)

All men and women are the people of His caring. All are called to accept the extravagant gift of His grace, for acceptance means simply to turn to God.