Reciprocating mercy

We cannot live together in harmony, in a family or in another kind of community, without the practice of forgiveness and reciprocal mercy.

From Minute Meditations

Hope

Hope is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness and moves us away from the sources of our fear.

Henri Nouwen

In the depth of winter

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

The cross

Never was fount so clear,
undimmed and bright;
From it alone, I know proceeds all light
although 'tis night.

Saint John of the Cross

Avent and waiting

Advent calls us to strengthen that interior tenacity, that resistance of the soul that permits us not to despair in waiting for some good thing that is late in coming, but to expect it, indeed, to prepare for its arrival with an active confidence.

Pope Benedict XVI

The more you pray

The more you pray, the more you will be illumined; the more you are illumined, the more profoundly and intensely you will see the Supreme Good, the supremely good Being; the more profoundly and intensely you see him, the more you will love him; the more you love him, the more he will delight you; and the more he delights you, the more you will understand him and become capable of understanding him. You will arrive successively to the fullness of light, because you will understand that you cannot understand.

Blessed Angela of Foligno

May my countenance always be open and joyful

May my countenance always be open and joyful, and my words gentle and pleasing, as is suitable for those who, no matter what the state of their life, enjoy the greatest of all goods, the favor of God and the expectation of eternal happiness.

Blessed John Henry Newman

Brave and patient

We would never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.

Helen Keller

To give all

This giving of self is a discipline because it is something that does not come spontaneously. As children of the darkness that rules through fear, self-interest, greed, and power, our great motivators are survival and self-preservation. But as children of the light who know that perfect love casts out all fear, it becomes possible to give away all that we have for others.

Henri Nouwen