One of the disconcerting facts about the spiritual life is that God takes you at your word.

Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.

The holy man was the whole man, the man of integrity, who not only tried to change the world, but to live in it as it was.

Voluntary poverty isn't going around with some burlap bag around you and imitating the poor. It means being indifferent to the material, doing as Christ said. He went and sat down with the rich and Zachaeus and publicans and sinners.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

Turn off your radio. Put away your daily paper. Read one review of events a week and spend some time reading good books. They tell too of days of striving and of strife. They are of other centuries and also of our own. They make us realize that all times are perilous, that men live in a dangerous world, in peril constantly of losing or maiming soul and body. We get some sense of perspective reading such books. Renewed courage and faith and even joy to live.

The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures.