Every man becomes the image of the God he adores.
He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes dead.
He who loves corruption rots.
He who loves a shadow becomes, himself, a shadow.
He who loves things that must perish lives in dread of their perishing. — Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island, p. 239)
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a Word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that?”– Archbishop Oscar Romero
When we consider how much our educational, political, religious, and even social lives are geared to finding answers to questions born of fear, it is not hard to understand why a message of love has little chance of being heard.
Fearful questions never lead to love-filled answers.
“In a word, the end of our civilized society is quite literally up to us and our immediate descendants, if any. It is up to us to decide whether we are going to give in to hatred, terror and blind love of power for its own sake, and thus plunge the world into the abyss, or whether, restraining our savagery, we can patiently, and humanely work together for interests which transcend the limits of any national or ideological community.”—Thomas Merton, Peace in the Post-Christian Era, p. 25
“They want you to feel powerless and surrender and let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.”—Rebecca Solnit
Too many religious people make faith their aim. They thing “the greatest of these” is faith, and faith defined as all but infallible doctrine. These are the dogmatic, divisive Christians, more concerned with freezing the doctrine than warming the heart. If faith can be exclusive, love can only be inclusive.” — Credo, p. 25
There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country. — William Sloane Coffin
Verse of the day
But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.
– Luke 6:27-28
Voice of the day
If we love just those who love us, where’s the giving? Where’s the grace?
– Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, “A Hymn for Loving Those Who Hate Us”
Prayer of the day
God of love, teach us to love beyond what is easy, extending grace to those who oppose us, and reflecting your radical love in a world that desperately needs it.
“To be compassionate, one need first to have empathy.”—Fr. Harry Bury
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 