Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.
–Ignatius of Loyola
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux.
In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.
-John Brehm
“Religions should be understood as only the fingers that point to the moon, not the moon itself.”
“Jesus is never upset at sinners; he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners.”
“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”
“God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.”
“Religion is one of the safest places to hide from God.”
“It’s important to note that Jesus and Christ are two different faith affirmations. Hardly any Christians have been taught that – they think “Christ” is Jesus’s last name.”
“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.”
“The most common one-liner in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid.” Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.”
“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.”
“The cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves. The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.”
“To the degree, you have experienced intimacy with God, you won’t be afraid of death because you’re experiencing the first tastes and promises of heaven in this world.”
“Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.”
“God comes to us disguised as our life.”
“When we sense the direction in which our heart is yearning, then we realize: In that direction lies God.”
“I’m not talking about long hours of prayer, long hours of meditation, spiritual reading or studying, or anything like that – because the essence of monastic life does not consist in any of those. Those are all means to an end. The end – in all of the monastic traditions, of both East and West – consists in cultivating mindfulness, being mindful. And “mindful” may be a little misleading, because it sounds a bit much like mind-over-body, but it has nothing to do with mind over or against body. I think “wholeheartedness” is the English word that expresses better what mindfulness as a technical term means; that you respond to every situation from your center, from your heart – that you listen with your heart to every situation, and your heart elicits the response.”
“Gratefulness is the only appropriate response to that which is given – and this life is a given. Every human being can realize that: We didn’t make ourselves, we didn’t even choose this life. If you train yourself to be grateful for everything, every moment, then when you come to something that you don’t like, you realize it’s still given and you have to deal with it. You will be alert to the gift within every gift, which is opportunity. In this case it may not be opportunity to enjoy but primarily the opportunity to do something about it.”
It’s all I have to bring today-
This, and my heart beside-
This, and my heart, and all the fields-
And all the meadows wide-
Be sure you count—should I forget
Someone the sum could tell-
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
–Emily Dickenson
“The Word is, by definition, immanent in the divinity and active in the world, and as such the Father’s revelation. A revelation of the Father without the Logos and his incarnation would be like speaking without words.”
― Karl Rahner, The Trinity
“The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the most fundamental of our faith. On it everything else depends and from it everything else derives. Hence the Church’s constant concern to safeguard the revealed truth that God is One in nature and Three in Persons.”
—FATHER JOHN A. HARDON, S.J
“The Father is from no one; the Son is from the Father only; and the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Son equally. God has no beginning; He always is, and always will be. The Father is the progenitor, the Son is the begotten, the Holy Spirit is proceeding. They are all one substance, equally great, equally all-powerful, equally eternal.”
–Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
“The Father is entirely in the Son and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Son is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Son. None of the persons precedes any of the others in eternity, nor does any have greater immensity or greater power. From eternity, without beginning, the Son is from the Father; and from eternity and without beginning, the Holy Spirit has proceeded from the Father and the Son.”
–The Council of Florence, 1439
The Father, Who is Justice, is not without the Son or the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit, Who kindles the heart of the faithful, is not without the Father and the Son; and the Son, Who is the plenitude of fruition, is not without the Father or the Holy Spirit; they are inseparable in Divine Majesty.
-Hildegard of Bingen
