Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.

Day and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze. A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.

"The Holy Spirit . . . wants to flow through us and realize all these wonderful possibilities in the world - if we only open ourselves and allow it to happen."

A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace.

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.

If you learn to respond as if it’s the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.

Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.