Quotes about Spirituality

In the many images of Mary, humans see our own feminine soul. We needed to see ourselves in her, and say with her, "God has looked upon me in my lowliness. From now on, all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:48).

If Christ represents the resurrected state, then Jesus represents the crucified/resurrecting path of getting there. If Christ is the source and goal, then Jesus is the path from that source toward the goal of divine unity with all things.

Great spiritual teachers learn to balance knowing with not knowing, as illustrated in this oft-quoted aphorism: It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. The true biblical notion of faith, which balances knowing with not knowing, is rather rare today, especially among many religious folks who think faith is being certain all the time--when the truth is the exact opposite. But we have little theology of darkness today.

To preach the Reign of God, dear brothers and sisters, we have to break with our dependency on a perfectible self.

Stop trying. Stop forcing reality. Learn the mystery of surrender and trust, and then it will be done unto you, through you, with you, in you, and, very often, in spite of you.

In this negative frame, the quickest ticket to heaven, enlightenment, or salvation is "unworthiness" itself, or at least a willingness to face our own smallness and incapacity.

Up to now, we have not been carrying history too well, because "there stood among us one we did not recognize," "one who came after me, because he existed before me" (John 1:26, 30). He came in mid-tone skin, from the underclass, a male body with a female soul, from an often hated religion, and living on the very cusp between East and West. No one owns him, and no one ever will.

He did not come to change God's mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God—and about ourselves—and about where goodness and evil really lie.

As the old joke put it: It is forbidden to smoke while you are praying! But it is wonderful and meritorious to pray while you are smoking!

Psychological wholeness and spiritual holiness never exclude the problem from the solution. If it is wholeness, then it is always paradoxical, and holds both the dark and light sides of things.

God, however, forgives even immature religion, and those who know God learn to do the same.

The self-same moment that we find God in ourselves, we also find ourselves inside God