Build your house with many places for all to dwell, for all to be welcome, so all may come to believe and meet the challenges of faith.

Fill a room with people, and you're inviting not only individuals but the very real possibility of conflict. Fill a world with people, and those chances multiply exponentially.

Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing.

I HAVE A FEELING that something similar to this has happened to a lot of people. A while back when I was in the hospital, the nurse brought me in a wheelchair up to a mirror so that I could shave. The image in it looking back at me, face drawn and gray, hair uncombed, eyes sunk deep in their sockets, was not me. It was my father who had died many years ago.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

The psalms frequently contrast the power of God’s word—which is mighty—with the power of human words—scanty unless grounded in the divine word

Ever since Jesus prayed that his followers “may all be one,” the concept of Christian unity has been easier to agree to in principle than in the real world, where divisions remain. Still, hope remains that the various traditions and confessions of Christian faith might one day overcome their divisions through dialogue and move toward unity.

Deacons . . . serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God. —Lumen Gentium, no. 29