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 comm...
Each little step toward the center seemed like an impossible demand, a demand requiring me to let go one more time from wanting to be in control, to give up one more time the desire to predict life, t...
Confronted here with the impossibility of self-redemption, I now understand Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: Do not be surprised when I say: ‘You must be born from above.’ Indeed, something has to happen t...
Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological make-up, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for communi...
Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine.
By slowly converting our loneliness into a deep solitude, we create that precious space where we can discover the voice telling us about our inner necessity—that is, our vocation.
But when I forget that voice of the first unconditional love, then these innocent suggestions can easily start dominating my life and pull me into the distant country. It
Both trust and gratitude require the courage to take risks because distrust and resentment, in their need to keep their claim on me, keep warning me how dangerous it is to let go of my careful calcula...
Boredom is a sentiment of disconnectedness. While we are busy with many things, we wonder if what we do makes any real difference. Life presents itself as a random and unconnected series of activities...
Becoming a child is living toward a second innocence: not the innocence of the newborn infant, but the innocence that is reached through conscious choices.
As long as religious people are well dressed, well fed, and well cared for, words about being in solidarity with the poor will remain pious words more likely to evoke good feelings than creative actio...
As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.
Are we really servants when we can become masters again once we think we have done our part or made our contribution? Are we really servants when we can say when, where, and how long we will give of o...
Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.
There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-l...
When two people have become present to each other, the waiting of one must be able to cross the narrow line between the living or dying of the other.
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.
There are many other voices, voices that are loud, full of promises and very seductive. These voices say, Go out and prove that you are worth something. Soon after Jesus had heard the voice calling hi...
Experience tells us that we can only love because we are born out of love, that we can only give because our life is a gift, and that we can only make others free because we are set free by Him whose...
Everyone shares the handicap of mortality. Our individual physical, emotional, and spiritual failures are but symptoms of this disease.