I know your misery, the inner struggle of your heart. I also know the weakness of your heart. I am aware of your cowardice, your sins, and your falls. I still tell you, “Love me as you are.” . . . If you want to be perfect before giving me your heart, you will never love me.
—Anonymous

The cross is a symbol Christians have been given to image their hope that God is with them even in pain and tragedy and ambiguity. It is a symbol of the longing to give themselves over to a project larger than their own self-interest, and of the faith that pouring out one’s life for the sake of another brings new life. It is a symbol that enables Christians to name the hard things of their lives, to express anguish rather than repress it.
—Mary C. Boys, Cross Currents

O God of Wounded Hands,
who scoops us up out of lifeless clay,
who shapes us and sculpts us to reflect yourself;
O God of Wounded Hands,
who breathes life into us,
who knows our limited humanness and becomes like us;
O God of Wounded Hands,
who suffers the piercing and torment of your own flesh,
Heal us.
Knit together our wounded places, our deep pain,
and our kinships with our sisters and brothers
from whom we are estranged.
In you, O God who works through woundedness to create wholeness.
Amen.         
—Katye Fox, Candler School of Theology  

The great reason for this Transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed.
—Saint Leo the Great (d. 461)

Peter, James, John were familiar with the sight of their master eating and drinking, working and taking rest, growing tired and breaking out in sweat. . . . He therefore took them up onto the mountain so that they could hear his Father’s voice calling him Son, and he could show them that he was truly the Son of God and was divine.
—Saint Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373)

You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children, you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god. You who stand above them now, your hatchets blunt and bloody, you were not there before, when I lay upon a mountain and my father’s hand was trembling with the beauty of the word.
—Leonard Cohen, Story of Isaac

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give.
—Saint Peter Chrysologus (406-450)

Baptism is related not only to momentary experience, but to lifelong growth into Christ. The life of the Christian is necessarily one of continuing struggle yet also of continuing experience of grace. In this new relationship, the baptized live for the sake of Christ, of his church, and of the world which he loves. . . . As they grow in the Christian life of faith, baptized believers demonstrate that humanity can be regenerated and liberated.
—Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry document from the World Council of Churches

Baptism . . . like the Eucharist, became the means by which the Christ event would be reenacted, by which the Easter experience would be continued in time and space.
—Father Andrew M. Greeley, The Great Mysteries

The scribes asserted that only God could forgive sins, yet Jesus not only forgave sins, but showed he also had another power that belongs to God alone: the power to disclose the secrets of the heart.
—Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)

Nothing is today as it was yesterday. But this kind of new is old almost as soon as it appears . . . Yet sometimes a new thing appears which does not age so easily, which makes life possible again, in both our personal and our historical existence, a saving new, which has the power to appear when we least expect it, and which has the power to throw into the past what is old and burdened with guilt and curse. Its saving power is the power of the Eternal within it.
—Paul Tillich (1886-1965), The Shaking of the Foundations

Always we begin again.
–Benedictine motto

To seek God is nothing more than to respond to one’s maker, the Creator who keeps us in being, who cares for us and pursues us. To seek God is really to allow oneself to be found, and to say yes in the light of wisdom that is clearly greater than all human thought.
—Bishop Donald Wuerl, Our Catholic Faith

Each one of us can be healed by God every day. We have only to worship him with humility and love, and wherever we are to say with faith: Lord, if you want to you can make me clean. It is by believing from the heart that we are justified, so we must make our petitions with the utmost confidence, and without the slightest doubt of God’s power.
—Saint Paschasius Radbertus (c. 785-860)

Jesus’ compassion is not skin-deep, it is an upheaval of the depths of his being. There is not true compassion without passion: Those who are compassionate really suffer in their persons. Compassion is a communion in suffering.
—François Varillon (1905-1978)

I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself.
–Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Sometimes listening to people becomes monotonous and extremely boring, till one is nearly collapsing; but in such cases it helps to remember that even when Jesus was about to fall for the third time, he patiently consoled the women-folk and children of his persecutors, making no exceptions. How can we ever be as grateful as we ought for such a vocation?
—Solanus Casey (1870-1957), Franciscan Capuchin monk who conducted a ministry of healing and listening as the doorkeeper of his monastery

We know how to make beautiful speeches on suffering. I myself have spoken of it with enthusiasm. Tell the priests to say nothing about it; we don’t know what suffering is. I weep to think of it.
—Cardinal Pierre Veuillot, when he was dying from cancer

So Jesus took her by the hand, and the fever left her. Here you see how fever loosens its grip on a person whose hand is held by Christ’s; no sickness can stand its ground in the face of the very source of health. Where the Lord of life has entered, there is no room for death.
—Saint Peter Chrysologus (c. 400-450)

Unless the gospel is preached with contemporary relevance, it has not been preached.
—Martin Luther (1483-1546)

To believe in the relevance of God is to believe in the presence of prophets among us who show the relevance of his Word. To believe in the faithfulness of God and in his church is to believe that he will not let it fall asleep, be overwhelmed, lose its vigor and the dynamism of its hope.
—Jésus-Maria Asurmendi

At the time appointed Christ came forth from the Father and showed himself in this external word, first as its creator, then as its teacher, the revealer of secrets, the mediator . . . and the express image of his person.
—John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases God more than our coming back to God with true repentance.  
—Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) 

The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!
—Luke 11:32 

Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god . . . . Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts.
—Eugene Peterson​ 

Parent of parents and Friend of all friends,
Your intent in thus disposing was different from this;
For here without entreaty you took me into your care,
And by degrees led me from all else
That at length I might see and settle my love in you.
—Mary Ward (1585-1645)

We cannot be fishers of men and women if in our hearts we are haters of them. This truth . . . reveals a nonviolent ethic: Love even your enemies; become fishers of them. We will not win people to our convictions if we despise them.
–Susan B. W. Johnson, Christian Century (1/15/97)

Christian faith is lived in discipleship to Jesus Christ. As disciples, through the power of the Holy Spirit, our lives become increasingly centered on Jesus and the kingdom he proclaims. By opening ourselves to him we find community with all his faith-filled disciples and by their example come to know Jesus more intimately. By following the example of his self-giving love we learn to be Christian disciples in our own time, place, and circumstances.
—Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

John points to [Jesus] and says: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” [Jesus’] taking away sin is still going on, he is taking it away from every individual in the world, till sin be taken away from the whole world, and the Saviour deliver the kingdom prepared and completed to the Father.
—Origen (182-251)

Vocation doesn’t come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about . . . or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my expectations.
—Parker Palmer

In the year 2000, the Boston Globe reported, the number of adults being baptized as Catholics was up by up to 10 percent, and the number of Catholics baptized as infants but who received First Communion and were confirmed as adults rose at a slightly higher rate.

The gospel today is full of titles: John’s disciples call Jesus Rabbi, a “teacher” or “master” who acted like a traditional rabbinic figure but also claimed special authority; Lamb of God: a reference to the sacrificial paschal lamb—the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:7, who “like a lamb led to slaughter or a sheep before the shearers . . . was silent and opened not his mouth”—and perhaps to the Good Shepherd; and the Messiah: the Anointed One who came to save his people. We also hear of Peter as Cephas, the rock on whom the church will be built.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him.
—Saint Gregory of Nazianzen (329?-390)

Each year the Catholic Church baptizes about 1,000,000 infants and 80,000 adults, and receives into full communion almost 100,000 people from other Christian denominations.

Heaven is homecoming. Heaven is the beatific vision, by which we, who are not merely called but are sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1) will be made perfectly happy. It is the “banquet of life,” a wedding feast that, because God is eternal and infinite, can never be boring but will through all eternity be a fresh discovery of God’s creative love: an eternal honeymoon.
—Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., Christmas letter, 2001