I Can Only Become Perfectly

It Is Almost Impossible To Overestimate The Value Of True Humility And Its Power In The Spiritual Life. For The Beginning Of Humility Is The Beginning Of Blessedness And The Consummation Of Humility Is The Perfection Of All Joy. Humility Contains In Itself The Answer To All The Great Problems Of The Life Of The Soul. It Is The Only Key To Faith, With Which The Spiritual Life Begins: For Faith And Humility Are Inseparable. In Perfect Humility All Selfishness Disappears And Your Soul No Longer Lives For Itself Or In Itself For God: And It Is Lost And Submerged In Him And Transformed Into Him.

In The Last Analysis, The Individual Person Is Responsible For Living His Own Life And For 'finding Himself.' If He Persists In Shifting His Responsibility To Somebody Else, He Fails To Find Out The Meaning Of His Own Existence.

Contemplation In The Age Of Auschwitz And Dachau, Solovky And Karaganda Is Something Darker And More Fearsome Than Contemplation In The Age Of The Church Fathers. For That Very Reason, The Urge To Seek A Path Of Spiritual Light Can Be A Subtle Temptation To Sin. It Certainly Is Sin If It Means A Frank Rejection Of The Burden Of Our Age, An Escape Into Unreality And Spiritual Illusion, So As Not To Share The Misery Of Other Men.

It Is Not Merely Our Own Desire But The Desire Of Christ In His Spirit That Drives Us To Grow In Love. Those Who Seldom Or Never Feel In Their Hearts The Desire For The Love Of God And Other Men, And Who Do Not Thirst For The Pure Waters Of Desire Which Are Poured Out In Us By The Strong, Living God, Are Usually Those Who Have Drunk From Other Rivers Or Have Dug For Themselves Broken Cisterns.

The Desire To Kill Is Like The Desire To Attack Another With An Ingot Of Red -hot Iron: I Have To Pick Up The Incandescent Metal And Burn My Own Hand While Burning The Other. Hate Itself Is The Seed Of Death In My Own Heart, While It Seeks The Death Of The Other.