Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.
If you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.
If God continues to give me health and a sane mind and verbal ability, I want to teach.
Egoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else! Every culture teaches egoic consciousness in different ways. At that level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires and me and my group as the central reference point.
Ancients knew that you need guidance, patronage and protection as you move from one place or state to another, whenever you cross a bridge. You had better know what you are doing when you leave one group or place to join another.
We Catholics must admit that there is a constant temptation among us to avoid the lectionary and the Word of God for private and pious devotions that usually have little power to actually change us or call our ego assumptions into question.
Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.
Every time you choose to love, you have also just chosen to die.
A paradox is a seeming contradiction, always demanding a change on the side of the observer. If we look at almost all things honestly we see everything has a character of paradox to it. Everything, including ourselves.
I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.
Most of us live in the past, carrying our hurts, guilts and fears. We have to face the pain we carry, lest we spend the rest of our lives running away from it or letting it run us. But the only place you’ll ever meet the real is now-here.
God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.
Having a school really is the fulfillment of a longtime dream of mine.
One is struck in the study of saints, angels and gods by a pattern that seems quaint and harmless. Yet, it is so common that I know there must be a deeper meaning. There always seem to be guardians and spirits of doors, bridges, exits and entranceways.
The ego hates losing – even to God.
As you look back on a year almost ended, recall the ways in which God has been inviting you to return, again and again, to Love which is the same as returning to God.
To the degree you have experienced intimacy with God, you won’t be afraid of death because you’re experiencing the first tastes and promises of heaven in this world.
The Eucharist becomes a microcosmic moment of belief and power in which we say we believe in the real presence of God in Jesus, in this bread, and in this wine.
The Gospel gives our suffering personal and cosmic meaning, by connecting our pain to the pain of others, and finally, by connecting us to the very pain of God.