Faithfully Waiting

“The news media reminds us daily of the injustice, oppression, starvation, and violence faced by people around the world. It can feel overwhelming. But if we are people of faith, we cannot allow ourselves to lose hope.”

“Believing is entering into a relationship with God and clinging to it. Believing does not allow us to know the future. It calls us to trust in the one who does know the future and to believe that God cares for us.”

“God asks for faithfulness through the good and the bad. However, sometimes in the good times we do not think we need God’s help, and in the bad times we can blame God for all that is wrong in our lives.”

“Only the life of faith is without regrets”

“People of faith...They're people who listen to the Word of God and are willing to follow that Word, yes ,even into the darkness on a great adventure.”

“the Bible tells the story of God's own hero's journey. God's willingness to let go of his own godliness. To empty himself in order to find us who have wandered into what Augustine called 'the land of unlikeness'”

“Faith, listen now, properly understood is neither credulity nor intellectual naiveté”

“the line between faith and reason is not nearly as sharp as the avatars of the Enlightenment would have it...there is a mixing of faith and reason”

“What is faith throughout our lives but a kind of preparation for, or better, a kind of practicing for the great leap we will take into the darkness of death”

“The Christian hope is that all shall indeed be well because God has revealed that, with full effect, he himself will be the Joy at the end of the world, if we abide by his promise in faith and charity, the inseparable sisters of the virtue of hope”

“May our compassion for others and our noble and generous usage of our land reflect always Jesus’ vision revealed in today’s gospel”

“You may claim that God is what is most important to you in your life, yet never get round to spending time in prayer. Or, conversely, you may hold yourself in low esteem, but treat people with great kindness and be prepared to stand up for principles you care about.”

“The best way to prepare for the crisis that is to come is to be thankful for the blessings of today”

“By confronting and bringing back the word 'slave' into these parables and identifying with the slaves, I started to see Jesus doing what he so often does, taking something familiar and known in his world, like slavery, and subverting it.”

“if life is a gift, everything is a gift. What's our proper attitude toward God?...gratitude for what's been given and expectation for what might be given.”

“Faith is also the beginning of eternal life—once we have faith, we enter into relationship with God so we get to know him. Knowing God enables us to begin to be formed to be like God, and being formed to be like God is the beginning of Eternal Life.”

“As the author of the book of Wisdom reminded the diaspora Jews about the experience of their fathers, we are equally reminded that we also have been set free from slavery of sin through the Pascal mystery of Christ. Thus we can now live the present with the hope of eternity.”

“The gospel is not just a reminder to act, but also a warning of the dangers of not acting on our faith. Much has been entrusted to us – in fact far more than was entrusted to Abraham. He will be the first to condemn us if we fail to witness to the truth that God has come to us in Jesus, to make His love for us visible and tangible.”

“Will I be able to look Jesus in the face on the last day, with a clear conscience that I did what I could with the formation and talents that were entrusted to me, for the building up of the Church?”

“It means doing the right thing, letting humility replace our pride, and admitting that we are wrong and saying we’re sorry. Wow, how many conflicts could be avoided if we just simply did that?”

“So if we find ourselves, in this present life, unsettled, uncomfortable, sorrowful and suffering, then we have the assurance that this hardship is part of our journey into joy”

“As adopted children of God, made in his image, our perfection must include faithfulness to the promises we have made to him, so that when Christ comes again we may be ready and watching”

“Being a good and faithful servant, then, requires us to have a relationship with God based on trust that his words are life-giving, that they are true. It means to be open to his life-giving word.”

“When we think about faith like belief...it becomes a question of our willfulness. But I think that a much better word for faith is trust. And trust is something that can only develop over time. It's not even something that's in our control.”

“if you take the plunge, you trust in God, what you'll find is life in abundance, life you never dreamed possible”