Quotes About Spirituality

Let's dare to enter into an intimate relationship with God without fear, trusting that we will receive love and always more love.

Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change in contacts, or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart.

If I have learned anything this week, it is that there is a contemplative way of working that is more important for me than praying, reading, or singing. Most people think that you go to the monastery to pray. Well, I prayed more this week than before but also discovered that I have not learned yet to make the work of my hands into a prayer.

Marriage is not that two people love each other so much that they can find God in each other, but that God loves them so much that they can discover each other as living reminders of God's presence.

People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it.

The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.

Jesus' first temptation was to be relevant: to turn stones into bread.

We are called to witness, always with our lives and sometimes with our words, to the great things God has done for us.

Many consumerist economies stay afloat by manipulating the low self-esteem of their consumers and by creating spiritual expectations through material means.

Spiritual reading, therefore, is slow, deliberate, meditative reading in which we allow the words to penetrate our heart and question our spirit.

The return to the Father from whom all fatherhood takes its name allows me to let my dad be no less than the good, loving, but limited human being he is, and to let my heavenly Father be the God whose unlimited, unconditional love melts away all resentments and anger and makes me free to love beyond the need to please or find approval.

we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us.

Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry.

We can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude. Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for the conversion of the elder son. By telling myself that I am not important enough to be found, I amplify my self-complaint. I must totally disown my self-rejecting voice and claim the truth that God does indeed want to embrace me as much as he does my wayward brothers and sisters.

The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

God is the hub of the wheel of life. The closer we come to God the closer we come to each other. The basis of community is not primarily our ideas, feelings, and emotions about each other but our common search for God. When we keep our minds and hearts directed toward God, we will come more fully "together.

Your unique presence in your community is the way God wants you to be present to others. Different people have different ways of being present. You have to know and claim your way. That is why discernment is so important. Once you have an inner knowledge of your true vocation, you have a point of orientation. That will help you decide what to do and what to let go of, what to say and what to remain silent about, when to go out and when to stay home, who to be with and who to avoid.

To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is more than pointing out someone's talents or good deeds; it is more than putting someone in the light. To give a blessing is to affirm, to say 'yes' to a person's Belovedness.

Community thus is obedience practiced together. The question is not simply, "Where does God lead me as an individual person who tries to do his will?" More basic and more significant is the question, "Where does God lead us as a people?" This

It is not easy for us, busy people, to truly receive a blessing. Perhaps the fact that few people offer a real blessing is the sad result of the absence of people who are willing and able to receive such a blessing. It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.

Meditation means to let the word descend from our minds into our hearts and thus to become enfleshed.

When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel.

It is by being awake to God in us that we can increasingly see God in the world around us.