“Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.”

Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.

Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.

For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.

If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.

Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.

The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.

Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.

The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing that is a friend who cares.

Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.

Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.

We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.

If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.

This is a modern fairytale. No happy endings. No wind in our sails. But I can’t imagine a life without. Breathless moments.

The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.