Mystery

"Mystery is not an argument for the existence of God; mystery is an experience of the existence of God. Very much like suffering and joy, mystery can often be that place in which we come to know better who God is, and who we are. The Bible is valuable to us because it is the record of those for whom mystery and meaning are not antithetical but a life's work in the growing knowledge of self and of God. It is my impression that this biblical ambition for humankind is perhaps more urgent and vital now than at any previous point in history."
The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart

What God Makes Is Good

"Well, there is good news, and that is why they call it the gospel. The news is not that we are worse than we think, it is that we are better than we think, and better than we deserve to be. Why? Because at the very bottom of the whole enterprise is the indisputable fact that we are created, made, formed, invented, patented in the image of goodness itself. That is what it means, that is how one translates being created in the image of God: it means to be created in the image of goodness itself. We are cast from a perfect die and the imprint is on us, and it cannot be evaded or avoided. God made us, male and female, in the image of goodness, and goodness itself is who and what we are, and God pronounced it good, and hence it is good, because, as the kid in the ghetto said, 'God don't make no junk.' What God makes is good."
The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart

Doing Virtuous Things

"It was, as Aristotle said, 'Happiness: the exercise of vital powers along the lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope.' The good cellist is one who is good at playing the cello, just as the good person is one who is good at being a person, doing what is most good, most noble, and most pleasant. What the good person and the good musician do is perform virtuously, and the virtue of something is related to the notion of its ability to perform excellently its characteristic activity. The characteristic activity of a musician is to do music excellently, and the characteristic activity of a human being is to be human excellently; the effective discharge of this function is the only real happiness. We do not do virtuous things in order to be happy; rather, we are happy because we do virtuous things; and we are only truly happy when we are doing what we are meant to do and being what we are meant to be."
The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need

The Practice of Virtue

"A habit is an essential ingredient in the formation of the life of virtue not only because 'practice makes perfect,' but because temptation and conflict are the stuff of daily human life: there is never a moment when these are not present, however latent or benign they or the person or the circumstance may appear to be. This is the second reason why St. Thomas urges practice of the virtues upon us: not simply to perfect the virtues themselves, but to make effective use of them in the discernment of evil and the prosecution of good. The practice of virtue is the daily work of the believer: it does not wait for a crisis, since to wait for a crisis is to create a crisis. The cardinal virtues are not made up by human philosophy as a consensus document for human practice. They are gifts of God, and they reflect what God is and what God values."
The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need

Learn to Be a Generous Receiver

"Knowing the risk of giving, now try the even greater risk of receiving. Learn to be a generous receiver. Somebody wants to love you; think of that. Let down the barriers, open the doors, remove the inhibitions, let him in. Somebody less worthy of you wants you to accept him or her. Try it. Open your hand to receive what someone else is prepared to give to you. The old spiritual fathers used to say that we get so little from God because we are prepared to accept so little from God. Open your hands that you may be prepared to receive what is there for you. Open your hands, and open your hearts to the abundance that is waiting to fill them both."
Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living

Endurance

"Endurance is what you must have when you cannot have anything else. Endurance, my dear, young, bewildered friends, is what you must have; and what must sustain you in those circumstances is the firm conviction, however awkwardly expressed, that there is a reality beyond what appears to be your reality. For believers, that reality is God, who does not abandon you when the going gets rough, but who keeps you going in the rough going; and it is sad that it is often only at the moment of our darkest doubt that we call upon God. There will be many, many dark moments: do not lose heart; do not be discouraged."
Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living

Prisoners of Our Own Fears

"Fear is no policy; it represents the absence of courage and a poverty of imagination. To be defined by our fears is to accept as normal the lowest possible level of emotional intelligence. The risk of indulging in the fear factor is that not only will we not overcome our fears, but we will become dependent upon the means to control and contain them. For example, in our fear of terror and terrorists we are often tempted to resort to the very tactics that we fear and despise in our adversaries. Thus, in Abu Ghraib we engage in torture and humiliation to fight our enemies, making their tactics our own, and in Guantanamo Bay we refuse to apply to the prisoners there, whom we fear, the rights we would expect for ourselves. Thus, how easily we become the prisoners of our own fears and hold hostage our own principles."
The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?

Hope

"Hope can seem a wimpy word, and it can be as flaccid as the typical Advent service, yet if we remember, as Paul reminds us, that genuine hope, a hope worth having, is forged upon the anvil of adversity, and that hope and suffering are related through the formation of character, then we will realize that hope is much more than mere optimism. Hope is the stuff that gets us through and beyond when the worst that can happen happens."
The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?