We have descended into the garden and caught three hundred slugs. How I love the mixture of the beautiful and the squalid in gardening. It makes it so lifelike.

Never let yourself think that because God has given you many things to do for Himpressing routine jobs, a life full up with duties and demands of a very practical sort---that all these need separate you from communion with Him. God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament; however unexpected its outward form may be receive Him in every sight and sound, joy, pain, opportunity and sacrifice.

Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience -- one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge.

Love makes the whole difference between an execution and a martyrdom.

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.

The London streets are paths of loveliness; the very omnibuses look like colored archangels, their laps filled full of little trustful souls.

The life of prayer is so great and various there is something in it for everyone. It is like a garden which grows everything, from alpines to potatoes.