· 3 June 2008 | 692 words
In a narrative essay titled "Teaching a Stone to Talk" (found in the book by the same name), the author Annie DIllard describes an eccentric man trying to teach a stone how to talk. Several times a day, he removes...
· 30 May 2008 | 211 words
I've been listening (and re-listening) to some of Peter Kreeft's lectures and speeches. (Free to download in mp3 format.) A basic theme that runs through many of his talks (and books) is that every person seeks truth, goodness, and beauty...
· 25 May 2008 | 10 words
"Angels tremble to gaze at things we yawn at." (Peter Kreeft)...
· 11 May 2008 | 55 words
I think Walker Percy, in Lost in the Cosmos, sums up the situation between man and God via Jesus: If you're a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who...
· 22 March 2008 | 28 words
O wondrous exchange, eternal life is promised to us by the humility of the Lord, who bowed himself down to our pride. -- St. Augustine, Confessions Thank You....
· 1 March 2008 | 580 words
I occasionally venture into the blogsphere. About a week ago, I found this except posted by Julie from the book, Caring for the Dying With the Help of Your Catholic Faith by Elizabeth Scalia. I immediately copied and pasted it...
· 21 February 2008 | 200 words
From Thursday's collect in Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours (emphasis added): My mind is scattered among things, not because of my work, but because I am not detached and I do not attend first of all to God. On...
· 14 February 2008 | 26 words
O wondrous exchange, eternal life is promised to us by the humility of the Lord, who bowed himself down to our pride. -- Saint Augustine, Confessions...
· 29 January 2008 | 607 words
From Br. Joseph -- All is gift. Even your next breath is gift if you think about. Everything involves a choice, especially how we spend our time. Is it our time or God's time? Here is a reflection/prayer on time...
· 28 January 2008 | 608 words
Near the end of the film Into Great Silence (technically it is a film, but it is something more), there is an interview with an old, blind monk. The years of solitude do not wear heavy on him. He is...
· 26 January 2008 | 91 words
I rediscovered this piece of dialogue from the movie Matrix between Neo and the Spoon Boy in the waiting room of the Oracle's apartment: Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the...
· 25 December 2007 | 68 words
If a tree falls, it makes a lot of noise; but if a thousand flowers bloom, it happens in the greatest of silence. -- Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Something to ponder this Christmas day... Wake me up Father so...
· 13 December 2007 | 178 words
Ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts--nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the Grace of God, and God will have...
· 1 December 2007 | 648 words
You realize that prayer takes us beyond the law. When you are praying you are, in a certain sense, an outlaw. There is no law between the heart and God. (Thomas Merton) I have been mulling over this quote I discovered...
· 24 November 2007 | 95 words
Found this quote this afternoon. It is a beacon of hope for those lost in between like me. There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable, for it means the soul has cast...
· 11 November 2007 | 1563 words
In The Shattered Lantern, Ronald Rolheiser quotes Dag Hammarskjöld: I don't know Who--or what--put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone--or Something--and from...
· 30 October 2007 | 258 words
From Br. Joseph -- Hope keeps faith alive, and faith rekindles hope when all seems lost. At one point in Hannah Hurnard's allegorical book of the spiritual journey, "Hind's Feet on High Places", the protagonist is having a particularly tough...
· 27 October 2007 | 14 words
God refuses to be known except by love. -- St. John of the Cross...
· 14 October 2007 | 69 words
From the last line of the song "Closing Time" by Semisonic, Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Life is full of little transitions, little deaths and rebirths. What stays the same? What dies? What is transformed? It...
· 7 October 2007 | 162 words
The thought that the affairs of the world, like those of the stars, are in God's hands--and therefore in good hands--apart from being actually true, is something that should give great satisfaction to anyone who looks to the future...
· 2 October 2007 | 133 words
There are times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness. -- Jean Giono, afterword to The Man Who Planted Trees I want to run and go search for it, but I know it...
· 26 September 2007 | 535 words
Found myself with a rare free moment during the day. After a quick check on the internet for something, I found this little signpost for encouragement. It is a strange signpost, but one none the less. And the trick to...
· 24 July 2007 | 65 words
We cannot know whether or not we love God, although there are strong indications for recognizing that we do love Him; but we can know whether we love our neighbor. And be certain that the more advanced you see...
· 13 July 2007 | 206 words
From the movie, Red Planet: Chantilas: [Suppose] we just finished poisoning the earth and everyone was dead in a hundred years. Then what was the point of anything? Art, beauty--all gone--the Greeks, the Constitution, people dying for freedom, ideas. None...
· 29 June 2007 | 83 words
At the end of the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest, a man of limited "smarts", laments the answer to a question that has bothered philosophers and theologians from ancient times. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if...
· 29 June 2007 | 30 words
Mother Teresa said, "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." Unfortunately my pencil lead keeps breaking....
· 25 June 2007 | 111 words
Only in love can I find You, my God. In love, the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breath a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love, my whole being streams...
· 14 June 2007 | 4 words
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." - Julian of Norwich
· 23 May 2007 | 15 words
Every day I say to myself--today I will begin. -- Saint Anthony of the Desert...
· 29 April 2007 | 83 words
Whenever you think God has shown you other people's faults, take care; your own judgment may well be at fault. Say nothing. And if you do attribute any vice to another person, immediately and humbly look for it in...
· 27 April 2007 | 58 words
I ran across some Latin phrases the other day. This one struck me most applicable to living a spiritual life. In silvam ne ligna feras. (Don't carry logs into the forest.) -- Horace In other words, God will provide. The...
· 26 April 2007 | 47 words
In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of...
· 20 April 2007 | 16 words
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance. -- G.K. Chesterton...
· 2 April 2007 | 77 words
To paraphrase Peter John Cameron, O.P. in "Lent and Reality": Salvation is an escape from our own inability. In our darkness, the incomparable capacity of our being will settle for nothing less than the embrace of the Infinite. Like nothing...
· 22 March 2007 | 68 words
A poem from awhile ago reflects this line from Romano Guardini in The Lord: Love is a stream that flows from God to me, from me to my neighbor (and not to one only, but to all), from my neighbor...
· 19 March 2007 | 2 words
"We are constantly invited to be what we are." -- Henry David Thoreau
· 1 March 2007 | 28 words
LIVE love, ACT truth, HONOR life. And it will be God within you whom you live, act, and honor.
· 17 January 2007 | 101 words
"...What I like doing best is Nothing." "How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What...
· 28 December 2006 | 129 words
Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic...
· 21 November 2006 | 20 words
What the self decides in time is ratified in eternity. -- Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life I choose You......
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us