Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith.

The love of Christ embraces all without exception. Fire of love, crazy over what You have made. Oh, divine Madman. (Prayer of Catherine Siena) Simply do the next thing in love. I have no sense of myself apart from you. Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable.)

The life of Jesus suggests that to be like Abba is to show compassion. Donald Gray expresses this: "Jesus reveals in an exceptionally human life what it is to live a divine life, a compassionate life.

When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God's gift of grace.

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

Authentic Christianity should lead to maturity, personality, and reality. It should fashion whole men and women living lives of love and communion

The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of them, we become impossible to live with.