Unveiling the Kingdom

“What's he talking about but the kingdom of the Church. Jesus himself is this figure, the Church is his mystical body.”

“God rules the universe. Only God can shake the heavens. Therefore, the purpose of the gospel is not to frighten us, but to assure us, to assert that God is in control.”

“for the Christian, crisis is not a basic, inescapable, or final reality. Its destructive moments are ordered to the reception of something new and glorious.”

“What will be revealed...is simply how we stand in relation to Christ’s Cross: are we with those who put him there and mock him, or have we joined him there by mercy and compassion?”

“Understanding our lives, then, is not about heroically creating meaning. It’s about discovering the meaning that is already there, our part in the greatest story ever told, the history of the whole universe, as told by its Creator, the God who loves us.”

“Resonance, with people’s uncertainties and fears, however, is just one aspect of apocalyptic writing. Another aspect is the encouragement to hope.”

“The sacrifice of Calvary cannot be repeated because it is not terminated. It throbs through every molecule of the cosmos and stands at the heart of the Trinity.”

“But in the end there are only three questions we need to be able to answer positively: Did I let love in? Did I give love away? Did I choose love even when it was difficult?”

“It was the dying and rising of Jesus that pulled back a veil, everybody, to reveal the deepest truths of things. That God's love is more powerful than death and more powerful than all those institutions that are based upon the fear of death.”

“The truth of the matter was that what we called 'good violence' was really just 'our' violence and what we called 'bad violence' was really just 'their' violence”

“Apocalyptic is not depressing language, not meant to frighten us, just the contrary. It's meant to show us a way out.”

“We are called upon to be prepared to accept Jesus every moment. We are called upon to keep the door of our hearts, our family and our society open for Jesus.”

“This passage equally calls for repentance. Since it speaks of the gathering of the elect, it means that everybody may not be an elect. It reminds us of the need to hasten up, the need to rise from the dust of sin and corruption in order to embrace Christ.”

“So we need to remember that hell is a self-chosen state. Heaven is a kingdom of love, of truth, and of humility. But love is self-giving, not selfish.”

“We can be the sign in the world that the people we live with and work with and meet every day are needing to see, that give them hope. We can turn so many people to righteousness if we simply try and live it out in our own life.”

“I think it’s especially in these times where we let our guard down a little, because everything is going well. Maybe we get a little prideful. It’s often at these times when our relationship with God gets placed on the back burner. We may lose focus a bit and relax.”

“We might also ask ourselves: “What can I do to change my lifestyle and live more simply, so that others may simply live? Or, how can I make a difference by speaking out and acting on behalf of the natural world?””

“Something's fallen apart, something's fallen away and a new world has emerged. The world of the resurrected Christ where we're not governed by the fear and the threat of death...We see things now within the horizon of God.”

“Jesus came to fight all of that. The dysfunction at the personal level...the dysfunction that abides at the deepest spiritual level.”

“It's the Church's job now to do this mop-up work, it's the Church's job to engage this struggle knowing that we will win, knowing that in Christ we have already won”