“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

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.

Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.

Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.

We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.

We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.

One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.

The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.

The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.

Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

There was a kid that had five brothers and sisters, and the family was missing for like five days. I was watching TV, they [found each other] and now they’re in San Antonio. So I bought them a little apartment in San Antonio. But I’m doing stuff like that all over.

I know it’s horrible, but they actually make me laugh. They make my day.

Dad, it’s been an up-and-down road for all of us, but you’ve always been there supporting from afar, texting me Bible verses every single day, telling me you love me every single day. That builds me up and I thank you so much. I love you. I’m just glad you’re part of this journey with us.

Fashions pass quickly, and nothing is more pathetic than those puppets of fashion outrageously made up one day, pale the next, pleated or ironed stiff, libertine or ascetic.

We’re on the computers, phones and tablets all day long, sometimes you just need to escape from the screens.

What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.

The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days

ISIS says they want to go back and reject modernity? Well, I think we should help them. We ought to bomb them back to the Stone Age.