The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.
Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.
Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.
Stop trying to impress people with your clothes and impress them with your life.
..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately....Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.
Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.
We who have turned our lives over to Christ need to know how very much he longs to eat with us, to commune with us. He desires a perpetual Eucharistic feast in the inner sanctuary of the heart.
Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification.
If you are too busy to read, you are too busy.
Submission reaches the end of its tether when it becomes destructive.
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. — William Penn
In a world of limited resources, our wealth is at the expense of the poor. To put it simply, if we have it, others cannot.
Thinking is the hardest work we can do, and among the most important
If we are a people rich in social relationships, we are rich indeed. Whenever we develop significant friendships with those who are not like us culturally, we become broader, wiser persons.
Freedom in the Gospel does not mean license. It means opportunity.
Celebration comes when the common features of life are redeemed.
The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives—altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter.
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You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war” (James 4:1, 2).
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Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).
The mind will always take on an order conforming to that upon which it concentrates.
Spiritual disciplines can do nothing. They can only get us to the place where something can be done.
And so the test of whether or not we have really gotten the point of the Bible would then be the quality of love that we show.
To conform to a sick society is to become sick.
There is a need today for what I call prophetic simplicity. We need voices of dissent that point to another way, creative models that take exception to the givens of society.
Cause every task of your day to be a sacred ministry to the Lord. however mundane your duties, for you they are a sacrament.
Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.
To use good things to our own ends is always a false religion
Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself. —TERESA OF ÁVILA
Law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.
We are not trying to manipulate God and tell Him what to do. Rather, we are asking Him to tell us what to do.
God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.
Meditation sends us into our ordinary world with greater perspective and balance.
If we watch the interactions between human beings, we will receive a graduate-level education.
The great writings interact with one another. They cannot be read in isolation..
Study cannot happen until we are subject to the subject.
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.
Extremes of wealth and poverty are a scandal to Christian brotherhood. They must not be allowed.
Important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which may arise.
The goal of work is not to gain wealth and possessions, but to serve the common good and bring glory to God.
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Will not break a bruised reed, or quench a smoldering wick” (Isa. 423; Matt. 12:20).
True service is a lifestyle. It acts from the ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need.
The moment we feel we can succeed and attain victory over sin by the strength of our will alone is the moment we are worshiping the will.
Thomas Merton says, “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!”2
Shekinah” means the glory or the radiance of God dwelling in the midst of his people. It denotes the immediate Presence of God as opposed to a God who is abstract or aloof.
You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!
Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort. -P. 11
Thomas Merton writes that if we have meditated on the events of the Passion but have not meditated on Dachau and Auschwitz, our perception of God at work in present times is incomplete.
Restriction often enhances clarity.
