Isn’t it important for your friends close by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn’t they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love...
Indeed, living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation...
In the Gospels, there are many examples of Jesus not giving a direct answer to questions put to him by his disciples and others. (For example, the mother of James and John asks whether her two sons mi...
In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic secur...
I remember a student presenting with great enthusiasm a summary of a book on Zen meditation while his own life experiences of restlessness, loneliness and desire for solitude and quietude remained an...
I have found it very important in my own life to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that...
I can only be healed from above, from where God reaches down. What is impossible for me is possible for God. With God, everything is possible.
I asked him how he had been able to take such a splendid picture. With a smile he said, Well, I had only to be very patient and very attentive. It was only after a few hours of compliments that the li...
I am a good person, known and cherished by the One who brought me to my existence. Before I was hurt, I was a beloved.
Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life’s hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation.
Getting answers to my questions is not the goal of the spiritual life. Living in the presence of God is the greater call.
From God’s perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all that is needed to bring God from his throne to run to his returning son...
Deep spiritual formation is required, involving the whole person—body, mind, and heart. Formation in the mind of Christ, who did not cling to power but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, who...
By inviting God into our difficulties we ground life—even its sad moments—in joy and hope. When we stop grasping our lives we can finally be given more than we could ever grab for ourselves. And we le...
But real openness to each other also means a real closedness, because only he who can hold a secret can safely share his knowledge. When we do not protect with great care our own inner mystery, we wil...
But mortification - literally, making death - is what life is all about, a slow discovery of the mortality of all that is created so that we can appreciate its beauty without clinging to it as if it w...
Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free g...
Boredom is often closely linked to resentment. When we are busy, yet wondering if our busyness means anything to anyone, we easily feel used, manipulated, and exploited. We begin to see ourselves as v...
Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.
As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.