REALITY CHECK What we see as we go through life always depends upon where we stand to look.Many a man who tries to talk as if he were standing on a mountain, showsby what he says that he is up to his eyes in the mud.
—Billy Sunday in a sermon, “Under the Sun,” from The Real Billy Sunday
DEEDS I would go near thee—but I cannot press Into thy presence—it helps not to presume. Thy doors are deeds.
—George MacDonald in 3,000 Quotations from George MacDonald
WHEN YOU NEED PRAYER MOST In times when you are sad and troubled, do not give up the good works ofprayer and penance which you have been in the habit of doing. For the devilwill try to persuade you to abandon them, and unsettle you. Rather, practicethem more than before, and you will see how quickly the Lord will come toyour aid.
—Theresa of Avila in A Life of Prayer
A VALUABLE INTERFERENCE Rather than let the world interrupt our time in prayer, how about interruptingthe world with prayer?
—Paul Williams in a sermon (July 20, 1997)
TOO MANY WORDS People don’t want to hear any more words. In our mechanical age, all wordshave become alike. … To say “God is Love” is like saying, “Eat Wheaties.”
—Thomas Merton in The Spring of Contemplation
ONLY GOD’S INSTRUMENT Your own efforts “did not bring it to pass,” only God—but rejoice if Godfound a use for your efforts in His work.
Rejoice if you feel that what you did was “necessary,” but remember, evenso, that you were simply the instrument by means of which He added one tinygrain to the Universe He has created for His own purposes.
—Dag Hammerskjold, a Christmas Eve reflection, quoted in Dag Hammerskjold: The Man and His Faith
NOT A GAME Seeking God with one’s whole heart is no joke, especially if it might bethe only way to find him.
—Paul L. Holmer in The Grammar of Faith
FAITH THAT’S WORTHWHILE So many Americans watched as Cardinal Bernardin faced his mortality. … I think we were all edified by his acceptance of death as a friend andnot an enemy. Any religion that doesn’t deal with death realistically isnot worth its salt.
—Archbishop Rembert Weakland in New York Times Magazine (March 9, 1997)
TIME’S VALUE Time does not last forever, and therefore I do not want to waste a singlemoment of it. If I make good use of it, I will actually have more of it.
—Ingrid Trobisch in The Confident Woman
NO DEMOCRACY WITH GOD For centuries people have blocked, frustrated, humiliated, and oppressedother people to “keep them in their place.” Whites have done this wickednessto blacks, rich to poor, men to women. Victims of this oppression have rightlysought to be free.
But a great spiritual danger always accompanies the democratic spirit. Thedanger is that we may seek to rid our lives of not only human but also divinedominion. … The danger in a popular democracy is that we may try todemocratize God. If we don’t like God’s program, if “our eyes are opened”and we conclude that God isn’t necessarily any better qualified than we are,we can simply vote him out and run for office ourselves.
—Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., in Assurances of the Heart
THE SPIRIT OF CHIRST I remember once hearing Bishop Whipple … utter these beautiful words:”For thirty years I have tried to see the face of Christ in those with whomI differed.” When this spirit actuates us we shall be preserved at once froma narrow bigotry and an easy-going tolerance, from passionate vindictivenessand everything that would mar or injure our testimony for Him who came notto destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
—W. H. Griffith Thomas, quoted in Streams in the Desert
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