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

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.

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.

Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.

Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.

At two o’clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen, You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun. And the trees in the Shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten, And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.

Everything belonged to him–but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.

We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.

The martyrs shook the powers of darkness with the irresistible power of weakness.

Nature is the greatest teacher and I learn from her best when others are asleep. In the still dark hours before sunrise God tells me of the plans I am to fulfill.

Your dark times will show you who can never be your light.

I knew I held strength when in the darkest, coldest corner of my mind I managed to make flowers grow.

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.