A Life That Is Without

Words Stand Between Silence And Silence: Between The Silence Of Things And The Silence Of Our Own Being. Between The Silence Of The World And The Silence Of God. When We Have Really Met And Known The World In Silence, Words Do Not Separate Us From The World Nor From Other Men, Nor From God, Nor From Ourselves Because We No Longer Trust Entirely In Language To Contain Reality.

Every Breath We Draw Is A Gift Of God's Love; Every Moment Of Existence Is A Grace.

To Be Truly Catholic Is Not Merely To Be Correct According To An Abstractly Universal Standard Of Truth, But Also And Above All To Be Able To Enter Into The Problems And The Joys Of All, To Understand All, To Be All Things To All.

We Who Claim To Love Peace And Justice Must Always Be Careful That We Do Not Use Our Righteousness To Provoke The Violent, And In This Way Bring About The Conflict For Which We, Too, Like Other Men, Are Hungering In Secret, And With Suppressed Barbarity.

You Must Realize That It Is The Ordinary Way Of God's Dealings With Us That Our Ideas Do Not Work Out Speedily And Efficiently As We Would Like Them To. The Reason For This Is Not Only The Loving Wisdom Of God, But Also The Fact That Our Acts Have To Fit Into A Great Complex Pattern That We Cannot Possibly Understand. I Have Learned Over The Years That Providence Is Always A Whole Lot Wiser Than Any Of Us, And That There Are Always Not Only Good Reasons, But The Very Best Reasons For The Delays And Blocks That Often Seem To Us So Frustrating And Absurd.