Quotes about Understanding

Just because you do not have the right word for God does not mean you are not having the right experience.

For Scotus, as for Bonaventure, the Trinity is the absolute beginning point—and ending point too. Outpouring Love is the inherent shape of the universe, and when we love, only then do we fully exist in this universe. We do not need to "understand" what is happening, or who God is, before we can live in love. The will to love precedes any need to fully understand what we are doing, the Franciscan School would say.

The great commandment is not thou shalt be right. The great commandment is to be in love.

pride. If there's too much "I know," it will lead to illusion and ignorance. Isn't that ironic? Jesus says, "The person who says 'I know,' is precisely the blind one" (John 9:41).

And to be fully honest, I think your heart needs to be broken, and broken open, at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others.

mystery isn't something that you cannot understand -- it is something that you can endlessly understand!

But it takes us much longer to discover "the task within the task," as I like to call it: what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing.

To those who cling to Anselm's understanding, I would say, as J. B. Phillips wrote many years ago, "Your God is too small.

The second insight about steps and stages is that from your own level of development, you can only stretch yourself to comprehend people just a bit beyond yourself.

We were largely taught what to believe instead of how to believe.

Only presence can know presence. And our real presence can know Real Presence.

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in his ears than your sins.