The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.

We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.

Remember He is the artist and you are the picture. You can’t see it, you can't see your true self. So quietly submit to be painted.

Father! Can I box him? Please!

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly nothing.

No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.