Jesus has done ninety-nine percent of what is necessary to make us saints. He is quite prepared to do the other one percent, but we will not let him. What did he cry for over Jerusalem? How often I would have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you would not let me(Luke 13:34). That is our trouble. We will not be gathered under his wings. We want to be big fellows. We want to have something big on our tombstone: ‘This man did so and so.’ We will not trust our Lord. We will not accept the truth about our weaknesses and admit that we need our Lord. In every other walk of life, progress is associated with independence. The more competent you are, the more independent you are. The one exception is the spiritual life. The more you progress in the spiritual life, the more completely dependent you become on God.

– Father Eugene Boylan, O.C.S.O.

God stands at the center of our lives just as Jesus stands at the center of the Gospel story. Jesus is the source of the gift of healing, but he is easily forgotten. He does not force himself into the lives of the ten lepers. Only one of them makes the connection between his good fortune and the role Jesus plays in it, and he is the one you would least expect to make it. The story of the ten lepers . . .teaches us that not only do most people forget who they are, but that the one who remembers is . . .someone whom we think can teach us nothing. And yet in the story, he is the only one who shines. He is the only one with real insight into life. God is central to our personal story, but he is easily forgotten. God will not usually overwhelm us. Jesus portrays God as knocking at the door of our lives, waiting to enter. He will not come uninvited.

– Father Brendan Freeman, O.C.S.O.

In all trouble, you should seek God. . . .God can only relieve your troubles if you in your anxiety cling to Him. Trouble should not really be thought of as this incident or that in particular, for our whole life on earth involves trouble; and through the troubles of our earthly pilgrimage we find God.

– Saint Augustine

The contemplative life is not a life that offers a few good moments between the many bad ones, but a life that transforms all our time into a window through which the invisible world becomes visible. Contemplative prayer requires that we listen, that we let God speak to us when he wants and in the way he wants. This is difficult for us precisely because it means allowing God to say what we might not want to hear. But if we listen long and deeply, God will reveal himself to us as a soft breeze or a still, small voice; he will offer himself to us in gentle compassion. Without this obedience, this listening to the God of our heart, we will remain deaf and our life will grow absurd.

– Henri Nouwen

Many things are given to us through the Holy Spirit, but they are valueless if the chief gift of charity is lacking. . . Even if all the other gifts are lacking, charity will take us to the kingdom of God. Although faith can exist without charity, only the faith that works through love can have any value. The Holy Spirit is the charity of the Father and the Son, by means of which they love each other . . . When he is given to men, he enkindles in their hearts the love of God and of their fellow men . . . It is he who teaches us to pray as we ought, making us cleave to God . . . He enlightens our minds and forms love in our hearts. All of this is the work of the Holy Spirit.

– William of St. Thierry

To be enlightened is to know that heaven is not ‘coming to me.’ Heaven is here. We have simply not been able to realize that yet because, like King Arthur and his search for the Holy Grail, we look in all the wrong places, worship all the wrong idols, get fixated on all the wrong notions of God. We are always on our way to somewhere else when this place, the place in which I stand, wherever it is, is the place of my procession into God, the site of my union with the Life that gives Life.

-Anonymous

I don’t believe that my life is a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents of which I am not much more than a passive victim. No, I think that nothing is accidental but that God molded me through the events of my life and that I am called to recognize his molding hand and praise him in gratitude for the great things he has done for me. I wonder if I really have listened carefully enough to the God of history, the God of my history, and have recognized him when he called me by my name . . . Maybe I have been living much too fast, too restlessly, too feverishly, forgetting to pay attention to what is happening here and now . . . Just as a whole world of beauty can be discovered in one flower, so the great grace of God can be tasted in one small moment.

– Henri Nouwen

By justice, Jesus Christ once risen should have ascended at once to the glory of the right hand of the Father . . . And yet we know very well that for forty days he wanted to be seen as risen. And why? To affirm, as St. Leo says, by such an excellent mystery, the good news of our faith . . . These forty days before our ascent to heaven will pass for us too. Perhaps they will not be days, but months and years. I wish you, my brothers and sisters, a long and prosperous life full of heavenly and material blessings. But finally this life will come to an end. And then we will be happy, if we have assured for ourselves the joy of a happy transit to eternity. Then our resurrection will be complete. There will be no more danger of losing the grace of God. There will no longer be any suffering, no more death, but instead everlasting life with our Savior, Jesus Christ in heaven. May the Lord confirm with his blessings these wishes of mine, for your happiness is very close to my heart and I work and pray continuously for this end.

– St. Pio of Pietrelcina

For me, there is no greater image than the Holy Face of Jesus because it embodies the physical and spiritual suffering of Christ, the Redeemer. In the Holy Face, the sick person sees how suffering can and should be accepted. By imploring the Lord to sanctify his suffering and make it similar to Jesus’, it becomes redemptive for the soul and purifying for one’s existence . . . The Holy Face of Jesus is beautiful. Look at it.

– Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini

If Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain. (I Corinthians 15:14) But he is risen. The tomb is empty. . .It is the emptiness that matters. He is not here. He has risen. All the chambers of my heart, of my being, need to be emptied, even of beautiful images, of holy images, if the reality is going to enter in and wholly possess me. But I can’t empty myself by any of my efforts. My very efforts fail me. I need to let the risen Lord come in with all his radiance, his enlightenment, which will disperse all my dark shadows and homemade images and totally fill me with the reality. . .Christ is risen.

–Father Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O.