“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”

Our culture says that ruthless competition is the key to success. Jesus says that ruthless compassion is the purpose of our journey.

The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God’s loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.

That which is denied cannot be healed.

Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is the heartbeat of the gospel, joyful liberation from fear of the Final Outcome, a summons to self-acceptance, and freedom for a life of compassion toward others.

If asked whether I am finally letting God love me, just as I am, I would answer, ‘No, but I’m trying.

God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.

God is enough. That is the root of peace. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it.

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives.

A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.

The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency… God’s sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.

For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.

When absolute control and rigid obedience pose as love within the family and the local faith-community , we produce trained cowards rather than Christian persons.

On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.

The deepest desire of our hearts is for union for God. God created us for union with himself. This is the original purpose of our lives.

The secret of the mystery is: God is always greater. No matter how great we think Him to be, His love is always greater.

I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.

Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.

Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

Scatter good will and love and prayers all around, everywhere, and you will be astonished, not only by what it does for other people, but how it comes back to you in generous abundance.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.