In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.
The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.
Peace is first of all the art of being.
We need to remind each other that the cup of sorrow is also the cup of joy, that precisely what causes us sadness can become the fertile ground for gladness.
Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: ‘I love you, too.’
Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It’s a great honor to invite children to read with adults.
Emit gratitude as though it was done.
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
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. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness.
When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.