Quotes about Reflection

To pray means to stop expecting from God the same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself.

Sometimes we feel trapped in our humanness. We experience keenly how things fall short of our expectations.

Distractions mean that we are being pulled into the past or into the future. That is what a distraction is. We start thinking about what happened yesterday or what is happening tomorrow. Distractions mean we are not yet fully here. We are not fully present yet.

What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of our life are born often in our pain and in our vulnerability and in our losses.

Dear Lord, Be with me today. Listen to my confusion and help me know how to live it. I don't know the words. I don't know the way. Show me the way. You are a quiet God. Help me to listen to your voice in a noisy world. I want to be with you. I know you are peace. I know you are joy. Help me to be a peaceful and joyful person. These are the fruits of living close to you. Bring me close to you, dear Lord. AMEN.

There are many times when I cannot pray, when I am too tired to read the gospels, too restless to have spiritual thoughts, too depressed to find words for God, or too exhausted to do anything. But I can still look at these images so intimately connected with the experience of love.

A spiritual life in the midst of our energy-draining society requires us to take conscious steps to safeguard that inner space where we can keep our eyes fixed on the beauty of the Lord.

Our first task is to dispel this vague, murky feeling of discontent and to look critically at how we are living our lives. This requires honesty, courage, and trust. We must honestly unmask and courageously confront our many self-deceptive games. We must trust that our honesty and courage will lead us not to despair, but to a new heaven and a new earth.

Gazing is probably the best word to touch the core of Eastern spirituality. Whereas St. Benedict, who has set the tone for the spirituality of the West, calls us first of all to listen, the Byzantine fathers focus on gazing.

On the one hand the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose, (pp. 49).

In and through solitude we do not move away from people. On the contrary, we move closer to them through compassionate ministry.

To love and work for the glory of God cannot remain an idea about which we think once in a while. It must become an interior, unceasing doxology.