Quotes from Walter Wagner

Dominican life, hence Dominican prayer, depends on a healthy life of the Chapter.

I think one of the freedoms that can come from healthy Chapter life and flow into a healthy prayer life is the freedom not to observe.

The empathy we have is founded on the fact that God has put this person in my life. In other word, if this is true this allows me to be present to all kinds of people who I do not like.

Well, contemplation is always a gift, right? So you have to ask for it. It is a thing for which to beg, honestly, because it seems to me when we enter upon the contemplative gaze it is a sliver of revelation. We ask God to show us the beauty of the familiar, the complexity behind the obvious, and the struggle behind repeated failures, the patterns of behavior, because in the end the dysfunctions around us are not ever really conquered, they fade away and are replaced by new ones.

They should consider themselves richer since they are now more robust in putting up with privations. It is better to need less than to have more.

Another handicap on work is something we create, I speak from the experience of the friars, and this I think really is one of the saddest aspects of religious life—that we beat people up.

But behind that there is the truth about us and the truth is that most people come to religious life because they need to.

Do not allow your clothing to attract attention. Seek not to please by the clothes you wear but by the life you live.

lot of folks in the Church today have litmus tests for religious they like and religious they do not like and approve of or do not approve of and one of them is the habit.

Consecrated life is an icon of the whole Christian life, and to live it fully and effectively and joyously one must understand that one is rich.

So when we look at any sacrificial action, any surrender of wealth we must first acknowledge that it is in fact wealth.

Is everybody on the watch to make sure that the novice mistress and the prioress, just to name two, have appropriate leisure? Are they getting proper rest?

Everybody heard the gospel in their own language: you have a place.

Nobody has the right to expect a response to an email within an hour. It is not a valid expectation. People who do should be rebuked.

Do I situate myself in an environment that fosters recollection, that fosters calm, that allows me to see the value of things? Piles do not allow me to see the value of things. So what kind of space do I live in?

It is attention, really, that is the big resource; it is being acknowledged. It is being told you did a great job.

He has the gift of a voice and I have the gift of the grateful ear, and God has brought us together. It is a sharing of wealth, is it not? But if you do not get that, what you do is you fall into resentment, envy, and comparison. The spirit of comparison is evil.

Whoever has offended another with insults or harmful words or even a serious accusation must remember to right the wrong he has done at the earliest opportunity.

Whoever has offended another with insults or harmful words or even a serious accusation must remember to right the wrong he has done at the earliest opportunity. The injured must remember to forgive without further bickering.

Sooner or later you must confront this demon of comparison.

One of his Prayers of the Faithful was always "for those who are misunderstood.

the whole question of how the Mass is celebrated, from which angle the Mass is celebrated, how much Latin is used in the Mass. All of these questions are important questions but without the proper end in view what happens to the liturgical life? It becomes an aesthetic or ideological battleground; Traditionalists versus Modernists. This is always a risk. The