We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.
All are called to be what in the reality of God they are already.
Only the believer obeys — obedience follows faith, the way good fruit comes from a good tree. Only the obedient believe.
He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community.
If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.
The beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them.
It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song.
There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture.
As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.
The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential.
The child asks of the Father whom he knows. Thus, the essence of Christian prayer is not general adoration, but definite, concrete petition. The right way to approach God is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to accept suffering as free, responsible men.
If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in his hands and under the protection of Him and His Father. And if we are in communion with the Father, nought can harm us. God will help us in the hour of need, and He knows our needs.
The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past.
The earthly form of Christ is the form that died on the cross. The image of God is the image of Christ crucified. It is to this image that the life of the disciples must be conformed; in other words, they must be conformed to his death (Phil 3.10, Rom 6.4) The Christian life is a life of crucifixion (Gal 2.19) In baptism the form of Christ's death is impressed upon his own. They are dead to the flesh and to sin, they are dead to the world, and the world is dead to them (Gal 6.14). Anybody living in the strength of Christ's baptism lives in the strength of Christ's death.
Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening.
Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespected hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them.
When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly.
God wants to see human beings, not ghosts who shun the world. . . . Our marriage must be a 'yes' to God's earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too.
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the sermon on the mount. I believe the time has come to gather people together to do this.
Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.
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