We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat.
Violence in human relationship is so utterly destructive because it not only harms the other but also drives the self into a vicious circle asking for more and more when less and less is received.
Truth does not mean an idea, concept, or doctrine, but the true relationship.
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 a...
They discover that there are people who heal each other’s wounds, forgive each other’s offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and li...
There is within you a lamb and a lion. Spiritual maturity is the ability to let lamb and lion lie down together.
There is something beautiful about shyness, even though in our culture shyness is not considered a virtue. On the contrary, we are encouraged to be direct, look people straight in the eyes, tell them...
There are days, weeks and maybe months and years during which we are so overwhelmed by our sense of loneliness that we can hardly believe that the solitude of heart is within our horizon. But when we...
The parable that Rembrandt painted might well be called The Parable of the Lost Sons. Not only did the younger son, who left home to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country, get lost, but...
The main question is Do you own your pain? As long as you do not own your pain—that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world—the danger exists that you will use the other to seek he...
The Father’s love does not force itself on the beloved.
Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been diffe...
Our salvation comes from something small, tender, and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. The Lord, who is the creator of the universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness.
Our children are our most important guests, who enter into our home, ask for careful attention, stay for a while and then leave to follow their own way. Children are strangers whom we have to get to k...
One good way to listen is to listen with a sacred text: a psalm or a prayer, for instance. The Hindu spiritual writer Eknath Easwaran showed me the great value of learning a sacred text by heart and r...
Love is not based on the willingness to listen, to understand problems of others, or to tolerate their otherness. Love is based on the mutuality of the confession of our total self to each other.
Life in the Spirit of Jesus is therefore a life in which Jesus’ coming into the world—his incarnation, his death, and resurrection—is lived out by those who have entered into the same obedient relatio...
Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed.
Jesus, the Son of God, is the man of sorrows, but also the man of complete joy.
Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.