Quotes About Belonging

Without trust, I cannot let myself be found. Trust is that deep inner conviction that the Father wants me home. As long as I doubt that I am worth finding and put myself down as less loved than my younger brothers and sisters, I cannot be found. I have to keep saying to myself, "God is looking for you. He will go anywhere to find you. He loves you, he wants you home, he cannot rest unless he has you with him.

coming home" meant, for me, walking step by step toward the One who awaits me with open arms and wants to hold me in an eternal embrace. I

It is hard for me to imagine what it means to be a complete foreigner, a person to whom no one shows any sign of recognition.

In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call.

Real loneliness comes when we have lost all sense of having things in common. When

That is the great joy of being chosen: the discovery that others are chosen as well. In the house of God there are many mansions. There is a place for everyone – a unique, special place. Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God's eyes, we are able to recognise the preciousness of others and their unique places in God's heart.

It had brought me into touch with something within me that lies far beyond the ups and downs of a busy life, something that represents the ongoing yearning of the human spirit, the yearning for a final return, an unambiguous sense of safety, a lasting home.

Here is a home for you; maybe you need us." All my desires to be useful, successful, and productive revolted.

Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God's only desire is to bring me home.

It is important to think about the Church not as over there but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.

a much deeper human darkness: the darkness of not feeling truly welcome in human existence.

What I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father.

The paradox indeed is that those who want to be for "everyone" find themselves often unable to be close to anyone.

Worrying causes us to be "all over the place," but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. "All these other things" keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address, that is, the place where we can be addressed.

It is easier to live in the world without being of the world than to live in the church without being of the church

To live in the world without belonging to the world summarizes the essence of the spiritual life. The spiritual life keeps us aware that our true house is not the house of fear, in which the powers of hatred and violence rule, but the house of love, where God resides.

That joy can be seen on the faces of the many simple, poor, and often suffering people who live today among great economic and social upheaval, but who can already hear the music and the dance in the Father's house.

The great spiritual task facing me is to so fully trust that I belong to God that I can be free in the world--free to speak even when my words are not received; free to act even when my actions are criticized, ridiculed, or considered useless.... I am convinced that I will truly be able to love the world when I fully believe that I am loved far beyond its boundaries.

But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run amok against society; but I preferred that society should run amok against me, it being the desperate party.

But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It

Je souhaiterais rappeler à mes compatriotes qu'il sont avant tout des hommes, et qu'ils ne sont des Américains qu'en second lieu. Qu'importe une loi qui protège vos biens et qui préserve votre âme et votre corps, si elle ne vous maintient pas dans les rangs du genre humain.

for this world a family mansion, and for the

I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

for, by whatever means you get into the polite circle, when you are once there, it is sufficient merit for you that you are there.