Quotes about Holiness

The name of this city much helpeth Jew and Gentile to see the state of peace, for this is called Jerusalem, and that in Canaan hath Christ destroyed: this name should clearly have taught bot h the Hebrews not to look and pray daily for to return to Canaan, and pseduo-catholics not to fight for special holiness there (658-9).

Much more do they want that moral perfection which the blessed partake of; those holy dispositions of mind; that cheerful readiness to do the will of God; that perfect rectitude of all their actions: instead of these, they have that perverseness of will, that loathing of good, that love to evil, that violence of passion, which they had on earth.

It is difficult to talk with God each day and continue to sin.

True spirituality is not taught, it's caught. Once our sails have been unfurled to the Spirit, henceforth our motivation for the journey toward holiness and wholeness is immense gratitude.

If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A "perfect" person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.

People are always trying to build temples and churches for God. And what is God trying to do? He is trying to build us into a temple, a living temple, a temple of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

May the God of peace make you whole and holy, may you be kept safe in body, heart, and mind, and thus ready for the presence. God has called you and will not fail you" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

there is an early stage "holiness" that looks like the real thing, but it isn't.

Everything is the "child of God." No exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All creatures must in some way carry the divine DNA of their Creator.

Such a down-and-then-up perspective does not fit into our Western philosophy of progress, nor into our desire for upward mobility, nor into our religious notions of perfection or holiness.

When you look at any other person, a flower, a honeybee, a mountain—anything—you are seeing the incarnation of God's love for you and the universe you call home.

We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That just might be the central message of how spiritual growth happens, yet nothing in us wants to believe it. If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness so that only the humble and the earnest will find it.