A short prayer pierces heaven.

There is no one who can return from there,To describe their nature, to describe their dissolution,That he may still our desires,Until we reach the place where they have gone.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem [Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, give us peace].

Christmas is a time to open our hearts to God and his gifts. Just like the rest of the year.

The Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.

I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.

As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.

The prayer of words cannot be eliminated. And I must pray them daily, whether I feel like praying or not. Otherwise, when God as something to say to me, I will not know how to listen. Until I have worked through self, I will not be enabled to get out of the way.

We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are, and what our relationship is to life and death, what is essential, and what, despite the arbitrariness of falling beams, will not burn.

How often we say prayers, but how little we really pray! May God make us worthy of doing the work for each other.

How little we understand that we need enough time with God for His light to shine into the depths of our hearts and fill our lives.

There can be only one answer. We have not honored the Holy Spirit as we should have done. Is there one who can say that that is not true? Is not every thoughtful heart ready to cry: "God forgive me that I have not honored the Holy Spirit as I should have done, that I have grieved