Whether you call on him or don't call on him, God will be present with you.

I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or believe in him or not, or even know his name, again and again he comes and walks a little way with us along whatever road we're following. And I believe that through something that happens to us, or something we see, or somebody we know--who can ever guess how or when or where?--he offers us, the way he did at Emmaus, the bread of life, offers us new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome.

As I understand it, to say that God is mightily present even in such private events as these does not mean that he makes events happen to us which move us in certain directions like chessmen. Instead, events happen under their own steam as random as rain, which means that God is present in them not as their cause but as the one who even in the hardest and most hair-raising of them offers us the possibility of that new life and healing which I believe is what salvation is.

When we enter the gates of pain and use the healing power of memory, we will hear God speaking, and we can take comfort and rest our weary souls in his crazy, holy grace.

In winter when the snow and ice were fierce, we shook beneath our different roofs alone, and that's what Hell is like, I think. It's cold and shame and shaking. And worst of all, it's loneliness.

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

The truth was, that he had not whipped me at all. I considered him as getting entirely the worst end of the bargain; for he had drawn no blood from me, but I had from him. The whole six months afterwards, that I spent with Mr. Covey, he never laid the weight of his finger upon me in anger. He would occasionally say, he didn't want to get hold of me again. No, thought I, you need not; for you will come off worse than you did before.

The man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down.

Two world wars in twenty-one years, and the universal dread of nuclear incineration. This time God has given us John Paul II.

Every sorrow is really the "Shade of His Hand outstretched caressingly."

We were just covered in dirt the whole time. It was so hot - and that was in winter. I can not imagine what it's like in summer and how the people who actually live out there survive.

Our Father's commitment to us, His children, is unwavering. Indeed He softens the winters of our lives, but He also brightens our summers.