Minutes to Moments » Great Quotes

Unconditional Love

Maria — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:01:08 +0000

“From her I had come to feel an unqualified acceptance which had little to do with my being good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, close by or far away. In her I had come to sense a love that was free from demands and manipulations, a love that gave me a sense of belonging that could be found nowhere else.”

Henri Nouwen, on his mother’s love for him

Dear Reader, who in your life has loved you the way Henri Nouwen described?

What shall I say about the Irish?

Maria — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:59:12 +0000

What shall I say about the Irish?
The utterly impractical
Never predictable
Sometimes irascible
Quite inexplicable Irish?

Strange blend of shyness, pride and conceit
And stubborn refusal to bow in defeat
He’s spoiling, and ready to argue and fight
Yet the smile of a child fills his soul with delight

His eyes are the quickest to well up with tears
Yet his strength is the strongest to banish your fears
His hate is as fierce as his devotion is grand
And there’s not middle ground on which he will stand

He’s wild and he’s gentle
He’s good and he’s bad
He’s proud and he’s humble
He’s happy and sad

He’s in love with the ocean, the earth and the skies
He’s enamoured with beauty wherever it lies
He’s victor and victim, a star and a clod,
But mostly he’s Irish
In love with his God
(Author unknown)

Pray Always!

Maria — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:57:17 +0000

The value of persistent prayer is not that God will hear us, but that we will finally hear God. William McGill

Friday of Ash Wednesday Week, Isaiah and Bono

Maria — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:40:06 +0000

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! Isaiah 58: 6-9

Today’s first reading from Isaiah was also quoted in Bono’s 2006 National Prayer Breakfast address, in Washington D.C. Here are a few of his comments:

“Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

That is a powerful incentive: ‘The Lord will watch your back.’ Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.

Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.”

To read the full text of his remarks, visit USA Today.

The true source of creativity

Maria — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:21:59 +0000

From my almost-ten-year-old daughter: “If you can’t imagine something, you’ve detached yourself from God.”

At the center of our being….

Maria — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:04:19 +0000

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our son/daughtership. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we could see these billions of particles of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

The holy shining through

Maria — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:37:33 +0000

Frederick Buechner on the Transfiguration: “Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing.”

From the movie “Stranger than Fiction”:

Maria — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:13:48 +0000

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be okay.

Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies, and fortunately when there aren’t any sugar cookies we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or a subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace or an offer of comfort.

And we must remember that all these things–the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties which we assume only accessorize our days, are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And so it was that a wrist watch saved Harold Krik.

–Zach Heln

A Mom’s Heart

Maria — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:41:42 +0000

Making the decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

From O-the Oprah Magazine, April, 2008

Maria — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:16:32 +0000

Scrapping a career to raise kids is every bit as hard as being away from them 9 to 5. But there is no having it all. Whatever you opt for, something gets cheated. That’s what’s known as the human condition. The ultimate peril is motherhood, loving someone more than you love yourself. – Patricia Volk