The real mystery of marriage is not that husband and wife love each other so much that they can recognize God in each other’s lives, but more because God loves them so much that they can discover each other more and more as living reminder’s of God’s presence.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.

I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.

To live in the present, we must deeply believe that what is most important is in the here and now.

God doesn’t give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.

The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.

Drinking our cup is not simply adapting ourselves to a bad situation and trying to use it as well as we can. Drinking our cup is a hopeful, courageous, and self-confident way of living. It is standing in the world with head erect, solidly rooted in the knowledge of who we are, facing the reality that surrounds us and responding to it from our hearts.

Doctors, lawyers, and psychologists study to become qualified professionals who are paid to know what to do. A well-trained theologian or minister is only able to point out the universal tendency to narrow God down to our own little conceptions and expectations, and to call for an open mind and heart for God to be revealed.

As the Father, I have to dare to carry the responsibility of a spiritually adult person and dare to trust that the real joy and real fulfillment can only come from welcoming home those who have been hurt and wounded on their life’s journey, and loving them with a love that neither asks nor expects anything in return.