Quotes About God

Overall, being spiritual and being religious are both part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without the other. Religion without spirituality can become a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community. That's what I'm warning against. For St. Ignatius

So be joyful. Use your sense of humor. And laugh with the God who smiles when seeing you, rejoices over your very existence, and takes delight in you, all the days of your life.

Religion can provide a check to my tendency to think that I am the center of the universe, that I know better than anyone about God, and that God speaks most clearly through me.

Gratitude, peace, and joy are ways that God communicates with us. During these times, we are feeling a real connection with God, though we might not initially identify it as such. The key insight is accepting that these are ways that God is communicating with us. That is, the first step involves a bit of trust.

Noticing helps you realize that your life is already suffused with the presence of God. Once you begin to look around and allow yourself to take a chance to believe in God, you will easily see God at work in your life.

So if anyone asks you to define Ignatian spirituality in a few words, you could say that it is: Finding God in all things Becoming a contemplative in action Looking at the world in an incarnational way Seeking freedom and detachment

Everyone's true self is a unique creation of God's, and the way to sanctity is to become the unique self that God wishes us to be.

This is the greatest challenge of faith, says Polish, "to live with a God we cannot fully understand, whose actions we explain at our own peril.

To some of us the humiliation of failure seems to open a wide gulf between God and us. We imagine that God turns away from us in disgust. What I discovered was that failure could be a bridge across the chasm that pride had created.

What kind of relationship do you have if you never carve out time for the other person? One that is superficial and unsatisfying for both parties. That's why prayer, or intentional time with God, is important if you want a relationship, a friendship, with God.

The multiplicity of desires leads to a multiplicity of paths to God.

the beginning of the path to finding God is awareness. Not simply awareness of the ways that you can find God, but an awareness that God desires to find you.

Joy] does not ignore pain in the world, in another's life or in one's own life. Rather, it goes deeper, seeing confidence in God—and for Christians, in Jesus Christ—as the reason for joy and a constant source of joy.

But it is always God who takes the initiative and who surprises us with his presence, as God did with Mary. When

basically, we pray because we love God. Father Barry writes, "The primary motive for prayer is love, first the love of God for us and then the arousal of our love for God."3 We pray to come

Finding joy in times of pain begins with understanding that true joy is rooted in God. Thus, keeping one's relationship with God at the center of one's life is essential to discovering areas of joy, comfort and solace.

Don't let anyone take from you the freedom to become who God wants you to be.

FOR IGNATIUS AND HIS friends, finding God often meant noticing where God was already active in their lives. And we can notice God not only in peak moments, like the ones we just discussed, but also in daily events where God's presence is often overlooked. God is always inviting us to encounter the transcendent in the everyday. The key is noticing.

The second step in the examen is asking for the grace to "know my sins," to see where you have turned away from the deepest part of yourself, the part that calls you to God. Where did you act contrary to your better judgment or to God's voice inside you, to the divine spark within?

Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.2

Every Sunday night in the novitiate our community gathered for "faith sharing," which meant speaking to one another about our spiritual lives: where we had experienced God in our daily lives and what our prayer was like. There were two rules. First, everything was confidential. Second, no comments were allowed after someone spoke, unless it was a question asked to clarify something.

GOD COMMUNICATES WITH US in many ways. But prayer is a special time when God's voice is often heard most clearly because we are giving God our undivided attention. Whether in Ignatian contemplation, lectio divina, the colloquy, the examen, or any other practice, the "still small" voice can be heard with a clarity that can delight, astonish, and surprise you. So when you pray, however you pray, and feel that God is speaking to you—pay attention.

The fourth step of the examen is asking for forgiveness from God for anything sinful that you've done during the day.

Finally, in the last step of the examen you ask for the grace of God's help during the next day, and you can close with any prayer you like. Ignatius suggests the Our Father.