Breath of Life

“We do not always have to be in church to be with God. We can make of our hearts a chapel where we can withdraw from time to time to converse with him there, gently, humbly, and lovingly.”

“May the God who is all love be your unchanging dwelling place, your cell and your cloister in the midst of the world; remember that he dwells in the deepest centre of your soul.”

“In his aloneness on the cross – ‘My God, why…?’ – the Son of God included in his relationship with his Father all our dryness, confusion, incapacity, before the divine mystery. He consecrated it, folded it into his return to the Father’s house. Those bewildered by a Father who is not just at their disposal are accompanied by the derelict Christ, reassuring and strengthening them.”

“If Lent makes us think of an austere, judgmental or frightening God, we need to recall the God of the Psalms who ‘delights’ in us, the God proclaimed by the prophet Zephaniah: ‘he will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you, as on a day of festival.’ This is encouraging indeed.”

“When you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been and how much you planned that has gone undone and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.”

“Let us turn our gaze upon the Babe as one who shows us what God is like. He shows us the sort of heart the Father has. And what strikes us so wonderfully is that it is a vulnerable heart. A heart that offers itself to us unprotected.”

“All are invited to go further, for God simply longs to pour himself into our emptied hearts and to catch us up into the radiant mystery of Trinitarian love.”

“However quietly we speak, God is so near that He will hear us. We need no wings to go in search of God, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.”

“Will we ever understand how much we are loved? I think this is indeed the knowledge of the saints.”

“‘Facing’ the Crucified can reveal layers of self-identity, bringing home to us the truth that we are made in God’s image and loved wildly by this God on the cross.”