The blood that ran so close to her fair skin might have been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element; yet her look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor dull, but only primitive and pure.

The gospel is only available to people who know they are unclean.

Ironically, our desire to clean ourselves actually minimizes the problem of uncleanness. It assumes we can give ourselves a good enough scrubbing to get a little holy before we meet the Holy One.

A storm broke loose in my mind.

When the soul, through its own fault... becomes rooted in a pool of pitch-black, evil smelling water, it produces nothing but misery and filth.

We cannot be unclean and expect the help of the Almighty.

O]ur applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins(77)[.]

As one can hardly find any thing in a house where nothing keeps its place, but all is cast on a heap together; so it is in the heart where all things are in disorder, especially when darkness is added to this disorder: so that the hear t is like an obscure cave or dungeon, where there is but a little crevice of light, and a man must rather grope than see No wonder if men mistake in searching such a heat, sand so miscarry in judging of their estate (304).

If we won't be serious about dealing with our sin,we cannot expect to grow in our faith. If you want to move to a new level with God,take an inventory of what God has told you about your sin and consider what you've been doing about it.

As my father, St. Francis, put it, when the heart is pure, "Love responds to Love alone" and has little to do with duty, obligation, requirement, or heroic anything. It is easy to surrender when you know that nothing but Love and Mercy is on the other side.

Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor.

I further believe that a free and loving God would create things that continue to recreate themselves, exactly as all parents desire for their children.