“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 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.

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.

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.

God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.

Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.

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

Anger that has no limit causes terror, and unseasonable kindness does away with respect. Be not so severe as to cause disgust, nor so lenient as to make people presume.

Sometimes anger is the hardened hurt we never healed from.

In adversity assume the countenance of prosperity, and in prosperity moderate the temper and desires.

You can’t gaslight a fire burning from rage.

Alms in secret extinguish the wrath of the Lord’ means you are so immersed in sincerity and in preserving that sincerity that you have no pleasure in giving alms.

I read one psychologist’s theory that said, “Never strike a child in your anger.” When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he’s recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?

Lord, grant that anger or other bitterness does not reign over us, but that your grace, genuine kindness, loyalty, and every kind of friendliness, generosity, and gentleness may reign in us. Amen

Your anger can be 49 percent and your comedy 51 percent, and you’re okay. If the anger is 51 percent, the comedy is gone.