Quotes about Reflection

I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone.

The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion.

If I were to ask about my seven months at the Abbey, Did it work, did I solve my problems? the simple answer would be, It did not work, it did not solve my problems. And I know that a year, two years, or even a lifetime as a Trappist monk would not have worked either. Because a monastery is not built to solve problems but to praise the Lord in the midst of them.

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist.

When we are alone with God, the Spirit prays in us. The challenge is to develop a simple discipline or spiritual practice to embrace some empty time and empty space every day.

I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work.

In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.

Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say "thanks.

Silence is the discipline that helps us to go beyond the entertainment quality of our lives.

Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community.

I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.

Our individual as well as communal lives are so deeply molded by our worries about tomorrow that today hardly can be experienced.