#l

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#christ #christianity #cross #crucifixion #jesus

Kindness consents very readily to the removal of its object – we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#theology

The Psalms wrap nouns and verbs around our pain better than any other book. ↗

— Joni Eareckson Tada

#theology #theology

You are what you believe yourself to be ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#the-witch-of-portobello #witches

At a conservative estimate, there are probably a million men and women in their twenties and thirties who would happily work long hours doing what most needs to be done, if they were paid something for it. ↗

— Philip Slater

#politics #sociology #men

I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone’s prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago. It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense. ↗

— Oswald Chambers

#prayer #inspirational

To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws. ↗

— J. J. Abrams

#flaws #interesting #main #me #never

Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical. ↗

— Pope Benedict XVI

#faith #hope #theological-virtues #courage

Because others have let us down, it is now our duty to face the hard truths and do the right thing--no matter the personal cost. ↗

— Glenn Beck

#glenn-beck #common-sense

What is wrong with you?' I shake my head. 'Pull it together.' And that's what it feels like: pulling the different parts of me up and in like a shoelace. I feel suffocated, but at least I feel strong. ↗

— Veronica Roth

#dauntless #divergent #insurgent #tris-prior #bravery