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.
Friends share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place.
The pain that comes from deep love makes your love more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root.
Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.
Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God’s suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
The real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?
I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can “apply” to their daily life.
From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.
I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one’s own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.
God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth.