Jesus my Lord has come, then. He has smoothed out your rough places and changed your disorderly ways into level paths, making in you an unimpeded road, a road that is absolutely clear, so that God the Father may walk in you and Christ the Lord make his dwelling in you and say: My Father and I will come and make our home in them.
—Origen

John the Baptist . . . was just the voice, not the Messiah. So everybody’s calling has dignity to it and God seems to know better than we do what is in us that needs to be called forth.
–James Green Somerville

When the Church celebrates . . . Advent each year, she makes present [the] ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 524)

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharp.
–Bertrand Russell

Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the cross; he experiences hunger, thirst, and privation. Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering the Kingdom.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 544)

Love him who loved you when he was a child and who suffered cold for you and wept in the manger for you. . . . And as he grew older, his love grew too and was sown in the works which he did among us. As his body grew, his trials grew, his pains and tortures and crosses. Love, then, him who first loved you and loves you now in heaven.
–Saint John of Avila (1500-1569)

Even to the birds was it said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Do you wish to hold as a great blessing what was given to birds? Who can be ignorant, that it was given indeed by the voice of God? But use these goods, if you receive them; and rather think how you may nourish those who have been born, that others may be born.
—Saint Augustine

Psychology says, “Let go.” Spirituality says, “Wake up.” In both cases there is a withdrawal from the busyness of daily life (our dream state) and a waking up to the subconscious and spiritual depths of ourselves.
–Alfred Mcbride, O. Praem., The Priest

We celebrate the love and the unity we share as the family of faith that is the church everywhere people gather in faith, goodwill, and love.
—Father Dominic Grassi

Today we celebrate another glorious feast: It is the feast of the Lord’s house, of God’s temple, of the city of the eternal king. . . . Let us ask ourselves what this house of God, this temple, this city . . . can be.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is a flash of lightning in the sky. Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.
—Buddha (c. 563-c. 483 b.c.)

A day well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
–Leonardo da Vinci

Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house.
—Blessed Mother Teresa

The things that we love tell us what we are.
–Saint Thomas Aquinas

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
—Abraham Lincoln

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
–Winston Churchill

God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us if we are with them. This is not a burden; this is an adventure.
—Bono at the NAACP awards, March 2007

Love consents to all and commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication.
–Simone Weil

I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.
—Billy Joel

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection.
–Henri Nouwen