“It’s not enough to attend church and pray every Sunday; you have to act.”

My family background was deeply Christian.

What I would say to the young men and women who are beset by hopelessness and doubt is that they should go and see what is being done on the ground to fight poverty.

I came from a wealthy family. I made over my share of the estate to various charities.

It’s true that humanity has seen a succession of crises, wars and atrocities, but this negative side is offset by advances in technology and cultural exchanges.

Illness has always brought me nearer to a state of grace.

People are needed to take up the challenge, strong people, who proclaim the truth, throw it in people’s faces, and do what they can with their own two hands.

After the war, prompted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I entered Parliament so that a priest could speak out for the poor, as canon law at that time still permitted.

When they are assailed by despair, young people should let universal concerns into their lives.

A smile costs less than electricity, but gives much light .

Those seven years in the cloister were the key to my life.

Providence was well aware what lay ahead for me, and my Capuchin training was to prepare me for it.

The process of my transformation came to a head with my discovery of St. Francis of Assisi during a pilgrimage I went on with a scout troop from my school.

I came then to a conviction that has never left me: that there is too much for me to attend to in this mortal life without overspeculation on the immortal, that it is not necessary to my peace of mind or to my effort to be a decent and useful person, to have a definite assurance about the affairs of the next world.

I don’t really get to attend church. That’s definitely one of the challenges.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.

Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer.

There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.

You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business.

In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch.