The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction," wrote the fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart.

In my case, the attention deficit was all mine. I had moved to the country in order to lie down in more blessed fields, to live closer to the Divine Presence that had held me all my life, but I had once again become so busy caring for the household of God that I neglected the One who had called me there. If I still had plenty of energy for the work, that was because feeding others was still my food. As long as I fed them, I did not feel my hunger pains.

We can face whatever comes once we have relinquished our lives and the lives of our loved ones to Him. He is the God we can trust for strength each day. He is the One with all the love and understanding, who has a clear and eternal purpose for us.

Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'

In God, there is no lack and no recession.

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

'Having it all,' to me, means having my family, having health, my kids' health, a roof over our heads, everybody fed.

Do your duty and leave the rest to heaven.

Highly functioning self-actualized people simply never imagine what it is that they don't wish to have as their reality.

The thing that's important for me is to remember what's the most important thing.

It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there.