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Reflections for January 2011
"I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light."
- Mary Brainard
"Being baptised means choosing a life like that of Jesus."
- F. J. Heggen
Reflections for December 2010
"No witness reaches our contemporaries more persuasively than the witness of Christians who do what Jesus did."
- Anthony Padovano
"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."
- Oren Arnold
"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."
- Roy L. Smith
Reflections for November 2010
"Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow."
- Theodore Epp
"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within."
- Ramona L Anderson
"There is no other way of spreading the Kingdom of God than by teh deeds and lives of individual Christians who strive each day to do the will of God in thier lives."
Walter Ciszek"There is no other way of spreading the Kingdom of God than by teh deeds and lives of individual Christians who strive each day to do the will of God in thier lives."
- Walter Ciszek
"You can tell the size of your God by looking at the size of your worry list; the longer your list, the smaller your God"
- annon
Reflections for October 2010
"Patience with others is Love; Patience with self is Hope; Patience with God is Faith."
- Adel Bestavros
"Nothing beats a smile for turning strangers into friends."
- Gigi Chung, Cathay Pacific Customer Service Officer / Miss Hong Kong 2001
"If a man cannot be a Christian in the place he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got angry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. But still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven."
- Phyllis McGinley
Reflections for September 2010
"God makes me play well. That is why I always make the sign of a cross when I walk out on to the pitch. I feel I would be betraying him if I didn't."
- Diego Maradona
"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them."
- Richard Evans
"Money may buy the husks of things but it cannot buy the kernel. It brings you food but not appetite; medicine but not health; acquaintances but not friends; servants but not faithfulness; days of pleasure but not peace and happiness."
- Henrik Ibsen
"Business is religion, and religion is business. The man who does not make a business of his religion has a religious life of no force, and the man who does not make a religion of his business has a business life of no character."
- Maltbie Babcock
Reflections for August 2010
"The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute."
- Honore de Balzac.
"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well."
- Margaret Thatcher
"If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world."
- Thomas Merton
Reflections for July 2010
"The glory of God is the living man; and the life of man is the vision of God".
- St Irenaeus
Reflections for June 2010
"The glory of God is the living man; and the life of man is the vision of God".
- St Irenaeus
"It is by forgiving that we are forgiven."
- Teresa of Calcutta
"Faith means taking the first step, even if you don't see the whole staircase."
- Martin Luther King Jnr
"Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow."
- Theodore Epp.
Reflections for May 2010
"We cannot believe in resurrection for some and not others.
It is an all inclusive symbol of life for everyone, and a kind of life that gives meaning to death."
- Dorothee Soelle
"The resurrection … has its analogues in the human experience of forgiveness, the renewal of love, and the rebirth of hope".
- Daniel Day Williams
"True love for our neighbour will be translated into courage and strength. The more we develop love for others, the more confidence we will have in ourselves".
- Dalai Lama
"The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control".
- Saint Paul
"The Trinity is not a doctrine, but a Person – three persons, in fact. "Trinity" is nothing less than the name by which we identify the God we worship. "Trinity" is the name of the God we know –in as far as we can know God – as Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
Reflections for April 2010
"Easter is not the triumph over the idea of death, it is the discovery of life in the midst of the experience of death. It is the experience that God's presence makes a difference in how we live our lives and deal with our losses".
- Keith A. Russell
"Whenever we encounter a human being in such a way that we feel absolutely certain of the infinity of that person's worth and the eternity of his or her life, that is Easter."
- Eugen Drewermann
"Resurrection does not simply spell the survival of the soul but requires the transformation of the world as we know it."
- Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza
Reflections for March 2010
"You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; [thank God] you can dare to be a sinner."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Love is often thought to be an immunization against suffering or a protection from it: rather it increases your vulnerability to it."
- Graham James
"Sin is anything which leads to greater deadening of one's mind, one's personality, one's feelings. God is ultimately interested in our being totally alive: everything that comes from him is life-giving."
- John V. Taylor
"Reconciliation alone will save the world; not justice which is generally another word for revenge".
Anthony de Mello
Reflections for February 2010
"The journey to God is a journey of discovery and it is full of surprises."
- Gerard Hughes
"You are a great, desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"If we are God's children it might be helpful to imagine ourselves sometimes as in her womb. There could not be a closer image of warmth, security and protection."
- Margaret Hebblethwaite
"This is what repentance means: discovering that you have more to you than you dreamt or knew, becoming bored with being only a quarter of what you are and taking the risk of surrendering to the whole, and thus finding abundant life."
- H.A. Williams
Reflections for January 2010
"My Lord God, give me once more the courage to hope; merciful God, let my hope once again fructify my barren and infertile mind"
- A prayer by Soren Kiekegaard (1813-55)
"The church is not only a training ground for Saints and apostles, it is also a haven for sinners, the disturbed and the inadequate."
- Vima Dasan
"Life is not a problem to be solved, a question to be answered.
Life is a mystery to be contemplated, wondered at, and savoured."
- Anthony De Mello
"Because God has clothed himself in human nature any offence against human dignity is not an offence against humanity, but a blasphemy."
- Trevor Huddleston
Reflections for December 2009
"By reason of his immeasurable love God became what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land".
- Desmond Tutu
"The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none".
- Thomas Carlyle
Reflections for November 2009
"The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none".
- Thomas Carlyle
"Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason... Religion's task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations..."
- Karen Armstrong – The Case for God
"By reason of his immeasurable love God became
what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
"Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"True peace is not only the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."
- Martin Luther King Jr
"God is an infinite circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
- St. Augustine of Hippo
Reflections for October 2009
"God is an infinite circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
- St. Augustine of Hippo
"The Bible is not a book that answers all questions. It is a book that keeps inspiring new questions, new insights, new conversion and change of heart in us."
- L. William Countryman
"It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly concerned with religion"
- William Temple
"May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand."
- A Traditional Gaelic Blessing
Reflections for September 2009
"The eternal destiny of human beings will be measured by how much or how little solidarity we have displayed with the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and the oppressed. In the end we will be judged in terms of love."
- Leonardo Boff
"By reason of his immeasurable love God became what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
"If the only prayer you say in your whole life is thank you,
then that will suffice."
- Meister Eckhart
"Let us allow the healing, forgiving Spirit of Jesus to penetrate our whole being, and lead us to wholeness. Then will rise from that very darkness a new understanding of other."
- Jean Vanier
Reflections for August 2009
"Whoever is devoid of wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has closed his eyes upon life."
- Albert Einstein
"Life is what happens while we plan the future."
- John Lennon
"Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate."
- Corrie ten
"When people are animated by the love of Christ, they feel united, and the needs, sufferings and joys of others are felt as their own." - Pope John XXIII
"You're born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there's a loophole." - Billy Graham
Reflections for July 2009
"God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different." - Rabbi Harold Kushner
"Pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world." - C.S. Lewis
"The only Zen you find at the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there." - Robert M. Pinsig
"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
- John Henry Newman
Reflections for June 2009
"The journey to God is a journey of discovery and it is full of surprises."
- Gerard Hughes
"Life is a mystery to be lived."
- Thomas Merton
"You learn to pray by praying."
- Elizabeth Obbard
"It is faith that opens our eyes to the reality in which we live."
- Thomas Hart
Reflections for May 2009
"Peace of mind is rooted in affection and compassion."
- Dalai Lama
"Perhaps it didn't happen quite like that,
but the shape of the story will fit humanity for ever."
- Michael Mavor CVO
"The road to the sacred leads through the secular."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
"If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be
big enough to be worshipped."
- Evelyn Underhill
"Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged:
It is so. It is not so. It is so. It is not so."
- Benjamin Franklin
Reflections for April 2009
"The journey of faith is a journey of questions."
- Andrew Roundhill
"Spring is sooner recognised by plants than by men."
- Chinese Proverb
"A God understood is no God at all."
- Rudolph Otto
"Bidden or unbidden. God is present."
- Anonymous
Reflections for March 2009
"Perhaps it didn't happen quite like that,
but the shape of the story will fit humanity for ever."
- Michael Mavor CVO
"A God understood is no God at all."
- Rudolph Otto
"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Lord, fill our deep longing for you with your presence and your peace."
- David Adam
"Your daily life is your temple and your religion."
- Kahlil Gibran
Reflections for February 2009
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
- Yoda
"If you don't find God in the very next person you meet,
it is a waste of time looking for him further."
- Gandhi
"The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past and ever sinner a future."
- Oscar Wilde
"It is cynicism and fear that freezes life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
Reflections for January 2009
"Nothing in all Creation is so like God as stillness."
- Meister Eckhart
"If Bible notes and articulated prayers only add to the noise inside your head, learn to listen to God within you."
- Fraser Dyer
"Prayer is 'letting God soak in'."
- Rowan Williams
"When people are animated by the love of Christ, they feel united, and the needs, sufferings and joys of others are felt as their own."
- Pope John XXIII
Reflections for December 2008
"Christmas, for a Christian tells us why people matter. They matter because God took us seriously, seriously enough to get involved with our lives to suffer with us and change things."
- Rowan Williams
"Advent is a time to practice what you pray"
- Anonymous
"By reason of his immeasurable love God became what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
"We should travel light and live simply. Our enemy is not possessions, but excess."
- John Stott
Reflections for November 2008
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner a future"
- Oscar Wilde
While we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond: yes, we can."
- US President Elect, Barack Obama
"Peace of mind is rooted in affection and compassion"
- The Dalai Lama
"In the Messianic Era all prayers will cease with the exception of prayers of Thanksgiving."
- Jewish saying
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
- Annie Dillard
Reflections for October 2008
"We are here to care for the Earth, not to dominate it."
- John Bell
"Money, money, money, must be funny in the rich man's world. Money, money, money, always sunny in the rich man's world."
- Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus
"You may learn the whole Bible by heart and speak to any point in divinity according to text and letter, and yet know nothing of God or of spiritual life."
- Rufus Jones (16th Century Reformer)
Reflections for September 2008
"When human beings are human in the fullest sense, they are God's existence in the world."
- Karl Rahner
"To choose Christ is to choose the cross...the way to union with Jesus is not by acquiring possessions, not even spiritual ones,not by building up but by letting everything go."
- Elizabeth Ruth Obbard
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."
- Martin Luther King
Reflections for August 2008
"Every athlete who competes in the games goes into strict training - and this is to win a wreath that will wither, whereas ours will never wither."
- 1 Corinthians 9.25
Reflections for July 2008
"If you don't find God in the very next person you meet it is a waste of time looking for Him further."
- Gandhi
"A bishop is most like Jesus when he has his mouth shut."
- Ignatius of Antioch
Reflections for June 2008
"If not here, where else could we bring alive compassion, justice and liberation?"
-Jack Kornfield
Reflections for June 2008
"If not here, where else could we bring alive compassion, justice and liberation?"
-Jack Kornfield
Reflections for May 2008
"It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion."
- William Temple
"If you understand, it is not God."
- St. Augustine
Reflections for April 2008
"Easter is not the triumph over the idea of death, it is the discovery of life in the midst of the experience of death. It is the experience that God's presence makes a difference in how we live our lives and deal with our losses. "
- Keith A. Russell
Reflections for March 2008
"There is a mother's heart in the heart of God."
- Celtic saying
Reflections for February 2008
"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
- Anonymous
"Dare to face reality and say of everything you cling to: this too will pass away."
-Anthony De Mello
Reflections for January 2008
"To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star."
- W. H. Auden
"When people are animated by the love of Christ, they feel united, and the needs, sufferings and joys of others are felt as their own. "
- Pope John XXIII
"In this man we have met God in a degree that puts Jesus in a class by himself."
- Thomas N. Hart
Reflections for December 2007
"In the Messianic Era all prayers will cease with the exception of prayers of Thanksgiving."
- Jewish saying
"Of all types of waiting, the waiting of pregnancy is most like the waiting we do during Advent."
- Wendy M. Wright
Reflections for November 2007
"You do not have to change for God to love you."
- Anthony de Mello
"We do not pray to get benefits from God but to become like God."
- Origen
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
- A. J. Mustre
"If you don't find God in the very next person you meet it is a waste of time looking for him further."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"In the Messianic Era all prayers will cease with the exception of prayers of Thanksgiving."
- Jewish saying
Reflections for October 2007
"A credit card is a theological tool - it shows who and what you worship."
- Billy Graham (adapted)
"Earth is crammed with heaven, and very common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"If the only prayer you say in your whole life is thank you, then that will suffice."
- Meister Eckhart
"If you're going to quote Leviticus, then don't eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics. Poke your eye out if you look at women other than your wife then come to me. "
- John Amaechi (gay NBA player) on anti-gay Christians
Reflections for September 2007
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Doubt is faith's friend. The enemy of faith is fear."
- Anthony De Mello
"Take all you can, save all you can, give all you can."
- John Wesley
Reflections for August 2007
"Not to give to those in need what is to you superfluous is akin to fraud."
- Augustine of Hippo
"Blessed be God for having created me."
- St. Clare of Assisi
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
- Annie Dillard
Reflections for July 2007
"Good religion...teaches you...to believe your actions are always fallible and resting on mixed motives, that you need grace and mercy. Bad religion tries to persuade you that God is invariably and automatically on your side."
- Rowan Williams
"Busyness is a great obstacle to prayer; yet our busyness is best cured by stopping and taking time to pray."
- Robert Warren and Kate Bruce
"How anyone having read the prophets could say, 'Do not mix religion with politics' is quite baffling. Which bible have they read?"
- Desmond Tutu
"When we pray we become ourselves as God always intended us to be. We let go of the illusion our self-image so often creates and enter into a relationship of love where our true self comes to light, knowing it is cherished and valued."
- Stephen Cottrell
Reflections for June 2007
"He is the God for whom none of the traditional images are adequate, and all of them are necessary to convey a reality greater than themselves."
- Michael Ramsey
"God is at work in all religions, cultures and histories. We cannot restrict God's action in the world."
- Christian Conference of Asia
"In situations of injustice nothing could be so revolutionary and so subversive of the status quo than the Bible and its prophets."
- Desmond Tutu
Reflections for May 2007
"Where there is love, there is life."
- Mahatma Ghandi
"It is cynicism and fear that freezes life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
"By reason of his immeasurable love God became what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
Reflections for April 2007
"The resurrection...has its analogues in the human experience of forgiveness, the renewal of love, and the rebirth of hope."
- Daniel Day Williams
"It is faith that opens our eyes to the reality in which we live."
- Thomas Hart
"Easter is not the triumph over the idea of death, it is the discovery of life in the midst of the experience of death. It is the experience that God's presence makes a difference in how we live our lives and deal with our losses."
- Keith A. Russell
"Resurrection does not simply spell the survival of the soul but requires the transformation of the world as we know it."
-Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza
Reflections for March 2007
"The good news is that sin is not something to be punished, but something to be healed."
- Anonymous
"In the centre of Christianity is the cross. It is the centre of all Christian religious paths and roads. Suffering conquered and transcended is a highway which leads to God."
- Lionel Blue
"There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and down-right ignorance."
- Martin Luther King
Reflections for February 2007
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. "
- Annie Dillard
"Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have."
- Eckhart Tolle
Reflections for January 2007
"God became human in order that humans might participate in God."
- Wendy Wright
"Those who are confident in their faith are not threatened but enlarged by the different faith of others."
- Rabbi Jonathan Sachs
"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
- John Henry Newman
Reflections for December 2006
"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."
- Deepak Chopra
"Advent gives us the opportunity to take seriously issues that most of the time we sweep out of sight at the back of our minds."
- John Polkinghorne
Reflections for November 2006
"The glory of God is man fully alive"
- St Irenaeus
"The market place is as good a place for silence as the monastery for silence is the absence of the ego."
- Anthony De Mello
"A peaceable person doth more good than a well-learned."
- Thomas a Kempis
Reflections for October 2006
"Life is an adventure in forgiveness."
- Norman Cousins
"A cheque book is a theological document – it shows who and what you worship."
- Billy Graham
"Instead of just reading the Bible to confirm your own version of Christianity, try studying it alongside someone from a different denomination, a different culture. Expect to see things you've never seen before."
- David Gill
Reflections for September 2006
"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."
- Deepak Chopra
"I do not believe we can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare."
- C.S. Lewis
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
- Winston Churchill
"There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and down-right ignorance."
- Martin Luther King
"We go abroad to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the long courses of the rivers, at the circular motion of the stars: and we pass by ourselves without wondering."
- St Augustine
Reflections for August 2006
"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."
- H.L. Mencken
"Say to yourself, 'I am loved by God more than I can either conceive or understand.'
- Henri de Tourville
"Life is for the gambler."
- Anthony De Mello
Reflections for July 2006
"The Glory of God is the human person fully alive."
- St Irenaeus
"The more people sell you the idea of spiritual peace through what you drive and how you look and how you live, the less
connected you become."
- Edward Norton
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
- Woody Allen
"How do you make a day holy? By seeing that it is holy already; and behaving accordingly."
- Joy Davidman
Reflections for June 2006
"True knowledge of God breaks open the cocoon of our hearts and minds and liberates us from the constrictions which our upbringing and present environment are imposing on us."
- Gerard Hughes
"Love is often thought to be an immunization against suffering or a protection from it: rather it increases your vulnerability to it."
- Graham James
"If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshipped."
- Evelyn Underhill
"Only wealthy cultures have the luxury of worrying about face creams that prevent ageing"
- Edward Norton
Reflections for May 2006
"Easter is not a passport to another world; it is a quality of perception for this one."
- W.P. Lemon
"Whenever we encounter a human being in such a way that we feel absolutely certain of the infinity of that person's worth and the eternity of his or her life, that is Easter."
- Eugen Drewermann
"When people are animated by the love of Christ, they feel united; and the needs, sufferings and joys of others are felt as their own."
- Pope John Paul XXIII
Reflections for April 2006
"Forgiveness is not an occasional act it is a permanent attitude. "
- Martin Luther King
"To choose Christ is to choose the cross...the way to union with Jesus is not by acquiring possessions, not even spiritual ones, not by building up but by letting everything go. "
- Elizabeth Ruth Obbard
"Surprise! said Jesus to his friends, 3 days after they buried him. "
"We cannot believe in resurrection for some and not others. It is an all inclusive symbol of life for everyone, and
a kind of life that gives meaning to death."
- Dorothee Soelle
"The resurrection has its analogues in the human experience of forgiveness, the renewal of love, and the rebirth of hope.
- Daniel Day Williams
Reflections for March 2006
"The easiest sins to condemn are the ones that do not tempt you."
- C.S. Lewis
"How do you make a day holy? By seeing that it is holy already; and behaving accordingly"
- Joy Davidman
"A good mother is worth more than ten priests"
- Spanish Proverb
Reflections for February 2006
"If you want happiness of an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness of a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness of a lifetime, help somebody. "
- Chinese proverb
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. "
- Anonymous
"The journey to God is a journey of discovery and it is full of surprises. "
- Gerard Hughes
Reflections for January 2006
"To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star. "
- W. H. Auden ("For the Time Being")
By reason of his immeasurable love God became what we are in order to make us what he himself is."
- Irenaeus
Reflections for December 2005
"In Advent, we come face to face with themes like death, and the moral seriousness of life that is called judgement. "
- John Polkinghorne
"God is coming to us. But in order for that truly to happen, we must go to God as well."
- Wendy M. Wright
Reflections for November 2005
"The journey to God is a journey of discovery and it is full of surprises. "
- Gerard Hughes
"When we say, 'War is over if you want it', we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace. "
- John Lennon
"Here is God: no monarch he, throned in easy state to reign; here is God, whose arms of love aching, spent, the world sustain. "
- W H Vanstone
"It's the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope. "
- Joseph Ratzinger
Reflections for October 2005
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo
"Each Christian is called to attempt, however feebly, to do the work that Christ did: to serve without tiring and give without limit. "
- Rosemary Haughton
"The prospect of an intimate relationship with God and God's creation is, for Anglicans, the centre of the scriptures. "
- L. William Countryman
"He who believes himself to be far advanced in the spiritual life has not even made a good beginning. "
- Jean Pierre Camus
Reflections for September 2005
"When other people commit sins, you are startled, but when you commit them yourself, they seem absolutely natural. "
- Elspeth Husley
"One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
- Dalai Lama
"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of
our service and relationship to humanity."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Reflections for August 2005
"No God, no peace; know God, know peace."
- Croft M. Pentz
"Human beings must be known to be loved, but divine things must be loved to be known."
- Blaise Pascal
Reflections for July 2005
"Happiness is not tomorrow. Happiness is now."
- Anthony de Mello
"As we look into the darkness of violence we commit ourselves afresh to respond not with fear, not with hate, but with new resolution and with hope... "
- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (following the London bombings
"The Kingdom of God is within you and he who searches for it outside himself will never find it. "
- Rufus M. Jones
"I look to gurus, writers, friends, surroundings to give me peace or fortitude or meaning in my life. But these external agents can never be a substitute for inner, deeper sources. "
- Anthony de Mello
Reflections for June 2005
"We must have long moments under the anaesthetic of quiet prayer, because Jesus can teach us certain things only if we are under an anaesthetic."
- Jean Vanier
"Live simply, that others may simply live."
- Anonymous
If you dwell on the past and worry about the future, you will struggle with the present.
- Anonymous
"You do not have to change for God to love you."
- Anthony de Mello
Reflections for May 2005
"If you understand, it is not God."
- St. Augustine
Reflections for April 2005
"We cannot believe in resurrection for some and not others. It is an all inclusive symbol of life for everyone, and a kind of life that gives meaning to death."
- Dorothee Soelle
"The resurrection...has its analogues in the human experience of forgiveness, the renewal of love, and the rebirth of hope."
- Dorothee Soelle
"The Christian story makes most sense of my experience, but there are other stories."
- Martin Palmer
Reflections for March 2005
"If we are God's children it might be helpful to imagine ourselves sometimes as in her womb. There could not be a closer image of warmth, security and protection. "
- Margaret Hebblethwaite
Reflections for February 2005
"If you understand, it is not God."
- St. Augustine
"The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none."
- Thomas Carlyle
Reflections for January 2005
"Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with his presence."
- Paul Claudel
"Is your love of God secure enough that you can rage against Him? "
- Anthony De Mello
"The manger: that small, holy space; filled with an infinity of radiance, love and light."
- Angela Cheung
"Instead of just reading the Bible to confirm your own version of Christianity, try studying it alongside someone from a different denomination, a different culture. Expect to see things you've never seen before."
- David Gill (Kowloon Union Church)
"If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshipped. "
- Evelyn Underhill
Reflections for December 2004
"The Gospel is not a pat on the back; it is a slap in the face."
- Anonymous
"Advent is a time to practice what you pray."
- Anonymous
"Of all types of waiting, the waiting of pregnancy is most like the waiting we do during Advent."
- Wendy M. Wright
Reflections for November 2004
"One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform others."
- Thomas Merton
"You don't have to believe in God to feel God's presence."
-Lawrence Freeman
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
- A. J. Mustre
"This is our God, the Servant King."
- Graham Kendrick
"Ruthlessly eliminate hurry."
-David Bracewell
Reflections for October 2004
"Preach the Gospel. Use words (only) if you have to."
- St. Francis of Assisi
"The classic Anglican approach to scripture is to read it not so much for detailed rules, but in the context of prayer, expecting to encounter God in its pages."
- L. William Countryman
Reflections for September 2004
"We go abroad to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the long courses of the rivers,at the circular motion of the stars: and we pass by ourselves without wondering."
- St. Augustine
"There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and down-right ignorance."
- Martin Luther King
"The one who has God has everything."
- St. Teresa
Reflections for August 2004
"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"To be alive and free you must shed your fear of walking unaccompanied."
- Anthony De Mello
"If we are God旧 children it might be helpful to imagine ourselves sometimes as in her womb. There could not be a closer image of warmth,
security and protection."
- Margaret Hebblethwaite
"If our mind is calm and clear, using the toilet can be as sacred as lighting incense."
- Thich Naht Hanh
"Your daily life is your temple and your religion."
- Kahil Gibran
Reflections for July 2004
"When we say, 'War is over if you want it', we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace."
- John Lennon
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
- Mark Twain
Reflections for June 2004
"Bidden or not bidden, God is present.
- Anonymous
"A God understood is no God at all."
- Rudoph Otto
"Be prepared to scrap false assumptions you挙e been nurturing about what other Christians believe and why."
- David Gill (Kowloon Union Church and CCA)
"God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different."
- Rabbi Harold Kushner
"Reconciliation alone will save the world; not justice - which is generally another word for revenge."
- Anthony de Mello
Reflections for May 2004
"Before Jesus died for him, Peter, relying on his own resources, can only deny him; but after Jesus has died and risen, Peter can follow him along the same road to his own death and resurrection."
- Tom Smail
"The resurrection...has its analogues in the human experience of forgiveness, the renewal of love, and the rebirth of hope".
- Daniel Day Williams
"God became human in order that humans might participate in God."
- Wendy Wright
Reflections for April 2004
"'Surprise!' said Jesus to his friends 3 days after they buried him."
- Churches Advertising Network
"Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won急 stay there."
- Clarence W. Hull
"The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty."
- Anonymous
Reflections for March 2004
"Instant comfort is quite inadequate to fill the gaping hole at the centre of our spirit."
- Barbara and Tom Butler
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
- Dalai Lama
"Love is what I need to help me know my name."
- Seal
Reflections for February 2004
"Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see."
- William Newton Clark
"Christ beats the drum. But he does not press men. Christ is served with volunteers."
- John Donne
"The life of faith does not earn eternal life: it is eternal life."
- William Temple
"Bidden or not bidden, God is present"
- Anonymous
"To approach God is to enter the sphere of forgiveness."
- Arnold Browne
Reflections for January 2004
"To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow the star."
- from The Three Wise Men by W.H. Auden
"The birth of God in human form was a radical act of solidarity with the height and breadth of the human condition."
- Wendy M. Wright
"We are to take the water of life as we find it and convert it into wine."
- Cosmo Gordon Lang
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