Quotes About Service

To be lifted up into the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit does not mean, however, to be taken out of the world. On the contrary, those who have entered into the spiritual life are precisely the ones who are sent into the world to continue and fulfill the work that Jesus began. The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.

ministry can be fruitful only if it grows out of a direct and intimate encounter with our Lord.

We wonder if we serve better than someone else. We import a drive to achieve into our works of mercy.

Dorotheus writes: "Don't look for the affection of your neighbor. He who looks for it is troubled when he does not get it. You yourself, however, have to give witness to the love for your neighbor and to offer him rest, and thus you will bring your neighbor to love.

The basis of all ministry is the experience of God's unlimited and unlimiting acceptance of us as beloved children, an acceptance so full, so total, and all-embracing, that it sets us free from our compulsion to be seen, praised, and admired and frees us for Christ, who leads us on the road of service.

To live and serve and worship with others thereby brings us to a place where we come together and remind each other by our mutual interdependence that we are not God, that we cannot meet our own needs, and that we cannot completely fulfill each other's needs.

La formación espiritual exige emprender un viaje al interior del corazón. Aunque este viaje se realiza dentro de la comunidad y conduce al servicio, la primera tarea es mirar dentro de uno mismo, reflexionar sobre nuestra vida cotidiana y buscar a Dios y su actuar justamente ahí.

If that is true, then the real question for me as I consider my own death is not: how much can I still accomplish before I die, or will I be a burden to others? No, the real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?

in and through solitude we do not move away from people. On the contrary, we move closer to them through compassionate ministry.

To love and work for the glory of God cannot remain an idea about which we think once in a while. It must become an interior, unceasing doxology.

as a Christian, I am called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, blessed, broken and given.

Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.

Compassion- which means, literally, to suffer with- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, What difference do you make? but What do you have in common? It is not excelling but serving that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.

Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed but 'How can we put our roundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

I am asking for a conversion of our whole person so that all we do, say, and think becomes part of our urgent vocation to be peacemakers… Peacemaking is not restricted by any schedule, job, or talent. It is as universal a calling as the call to love." (pg.23)

You may have confidence in the Lord's service. The Savior will help you do what He has called you to do, be it for a time as a worker in the Church or forever as a parent. You may pray for help enough to do the work and know that it will come.

I hope you will go out today looking for opportunities to do as He did and to love as He loves. I can promise you the peace that you felt as a child will come to you often and it will linger with you. The promise is true that He made to His disciples: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:... not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.

I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.

I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way.