Quotes from Caryll Houselander

He had longed for it—that is what the phrase means; longed for the moment when He would give us the Body that Mary had given to Him and for the moment when each one receives Him in Communion. He waited thirty-three years in time for the Last Supper; two thousand years for me.

We incline to think that the comparison of Christ's oneness with His Church to human marriage is an attempt to find a symbol for Christ's love, that the marriage is the greater reality. But it is the other way about: the marriage of man and woman is the dim showing of the reflected glory of Christ's union through the giving of Himself, in the flesh, to humanity.

No league or conference or committee or group can put life into the world: it can only be born into the world, and only individuals can give birth.

Body and soul together give glory to God: the sharper the capacity for sorrow and joy, the greater the hallowing; the subtler the delicacy of the daily life, the surer is Christ proved in it. In office or home or hospital; prison, barracks, or church—anywhere at all where men and women are—the mystery of the Incarnation can bear fruit in bodies and souls all day and all night, too.

We are the mediocre, we are the half givers, we are the half lovers, we are the savourless salt. Break the hard crust of complacency. Quicken in us the sharp grace of desire.

God speaks silently, God speaks in your heart; if your heart is noisy, chattering, you will not hear.

We are only syllables of the perfect Word.