Only God may be adored, because only God is unlimited goodness, truth, and beauty, and thus only God deserves unlimited love.

Love gives you eyes.

I guarantee you that after you die you will not say ‘I spent too much time praying; I wish I had watched more TV instead.

Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.

Nothing but prayer can make saints because nothing but God can make saints, and we meet God in prayer. Prayer is the hospital for souls where we meet Doctor God.

But that is all prayer requires: faith, hope, and love. Great holiness, or piety, or sanctity are not required. Prayer is a road to holiness.

Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces “nice” people, not...

We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God’s Book tells us to “try.” Now count the times it tells us to “trust.

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

It is just as crazy not to be crazy about Christ as it is to be crazy about anything else.

One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world.

An argument in apologetics, when actually used in dialogue, is an extension of the arguer. The arguer’s tone, sincerity, care, concern, listening, and respect matter as much as his or her logic – probably more....

Cats don’t need to be possessed; they’re evil on their own.

Only is a bird doesn’t swim in the ocean but flies in the air can it enter the ocean from above; only because God is not temporal can he enter into time.

God makes it easy to begin: just do it! God also makes it easy to progress in prayer, for he rewards our efforts with peace and joy. And he makes it easiest of all at...

The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life―until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.

But if he had come down from the Cross, he would have made it impossible for them to believe in him, for he would have substituted sight for faith. That is why he does not...

Perhaps even atheism versus theism is an example of this principle that an apparent either/or can really be a both/and. For I suspect that the God you insist does not exist is probably a God...

It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively.

Praying anywhere” can easily become “praying nowhere”, just as “praying anytime” can easily become “praying at no time”. Everything in general becomes nothing in particular”.

I find my data first in myself, not first in the poets. For if I did not find it in myself, I would not be able to find it in the poets.

One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.

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There is something in us that fears prayer as a maggot fears light. We must do violence to this voice, for it is not ourselves. It is our Enemy.

By the way, if you get mad at your Mac laptop and wonder who designed this demonic device, notice the manufacturer’s icon on top: an apple with a bite out of it.

What our Heavenly Father wants us to do about our spiritual failures is like what our earthly father wants us to do about our earthly failures. When we fall off the horse, or the bike,...

Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the...

Violence is spiritual junk food, and boredom is spiritual anorexia.

It’s the most essential thing of all just because it’s not a matter of how you do it at all, but of whether you do it. Like being born, or cooking: how you do it...

We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.

Music is more powerful than reason in the soul. That is also why Plato made music the very first step in his long educational curriculum: good music was to create the harmony of soul that...

High and holy ambition–to be a saint–is not opposed to holy humility–total reliance on God’s grace. Exactly the opposite. Ambition without humility is ambition that fails. It is pride, which goes before a fall (Prov...

Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like...

We are not free to love God insofar as we are enslaved to creatures. And we all are. We are addicted to whatever we cannot part with that is less than God, our true good....

Feelings, like waves, look more substantial than they are.

Stand in the divine rain, and seeds of wisdom will grow in your soul.

God wants us to worry about our sins before we sin; the devil wants us to worry after we sin. God wants us to feel free after we repent (for we really are free then);...

We can’t believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can’t love what we believe to be unreal.

It is the Godfather, not God the Father, who makes you an offer you can’t refuse.

We pray to obey God, not to ‘play God’. We pray, not to change God’s mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let God command us. We pray to ‘let...

Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, “I am.” We are ontological oxymorons.

Prayer is essentially the practice of the presence of God, and that is the road to Heaven. There is no alternative. God is the only game in town. All other roads are dead ends. Since...

Feelings are wonderful decorations, but they are not a foundation to build on.

The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son.

When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God’s love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off...

America does not know the difference between money and sex. It treats sex like money because it treats sex as a medium of exchange, and it treats money like sex because it expects its money...

One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility.

Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked.

You do not have to wait until you become a saint. [Prayer] is the way to become a saint.

Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God’s grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all.