One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves.

We are united to Him in darkness, because we have to hope.

March 1 FIRST EMBER SATURDAY IN LENT Last night it snowed again and there is a fairly thick blanket of snow on the ground and on the trees. The sky looks like lead and seems to promise more. It is about as dark as my own mind. I see nothing, I understand nothing. I am sorry for complaining and making a disturbance. All I want is to please God and to do His will.

Bonum est praestolari cum silentio salutare Dei. ("It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.")

It may be fashionable to assert that all is holy, but not many are willing to haul ass to church four or five times a day to sing about it. It's not for the faint of heart.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

It has been my observation in life that, if one will only exercise the patience to wait, his wants are likely to be filled.

Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of these discoveries, but future generations. There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers.

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment, but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must- in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all morality.

The weapon of the brave is in his heart.

A brave arm makes a short sword long.