Joan D. Chittister Quotes
We punish the body and strip the earth. And we do it in pursuit of a so-called holiness that smacks of the bogus, that denies the gifts of God, that makes us marauders on the earth.
The message we have internalized is clear - we are what we do and what we own, not what we are inside ourselves. Where it counts!
Failure is the foundation of truth. It teaches us what isn't true, and that is a great beginning. To fear failure is to fear the possibility of truth.
Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people and new ideas, we are imprisoned inside ourselves.
There is always new life trying to emerge in each of us. Too often we ignore the signs of resurrection and cling to part of life that have died for us.
Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary. This is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday.
Persistence may not solve everything - at least in our lifetime - but it is truer to the meaning of life for us to wait for another plowing, another seeding, another harvest, then not.
Never confuse desire with vision. Desire has to do with what we want. Vision has to do with what we need.
To be a presence of perpetual thanksgiving may be the ultimate goal of life. The thankful person is the one for whom life is simply one long exercise in the sacred.
Indifference is the acid of life. It erodes all the spirit that's in us and makes us useless to anyone else. We all have to stand for something, or our souls cease to breathe.
Beware of your definition of success: If it has more to do with what other people think of you than it does with what you know of your own abilities, you may be confusing applause with achievement.
Precisely because of the greatness of God, we don't have to be great at all. Just in awe.
Prophets are so dangerous because they cry in season and out of season, politely and impolitely, loud and long.
The spiritual response is too often a simplistic one: we abandon God or we blame God for abandoning us.
All of us wrestle with the angels of our inabilities all the time. We live in fear that our incapacities will be exposed. We posture and evaluate and assess and criticize mercilessly.
Humility is authenticity. It comes from the Latin word humus, meaning "earth." As the church has taught, we're made of dust, and unto dust we shall return.
To be contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God.
Hope grows in us, despite our moments of darkness, regardless of our regular bouts of depression.
A hard heart makes for hard judgments; a compassionate heart understands the humanity of the one we presume to judge.
We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again.
"When we do not know what harbor we are making for," the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote, "no wind is the right wind." Persons have vision only when they have a dream that drives them on.
When I know and accept myself-all my strengths and all my limitations- I am immediately respectful of everyone else because I know they have something beautiful within them that I do not have.
Hope is what sits by the window and waits for one more dawn, despite the fact that there isn't an ounce of proof in tonight's black, black sky that it can possible come.
Goodness is a process of becoming, not of being. What we do over and over again is what we become in the end.
We fail to move beyond what is safe, we abandon our dreams in favor of what is sure rather than strive for what is best for us.
Benedict sets up a community, a family. And families, the honest among us will admit, are risky places to be if perfection is what y ou are expecting in life.
Benedict sets up a community, a family. And families, the honest among us will admit, are risky places to be if perfection is what you are expecting in life.
