Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.

Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."

As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer.

Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence -- priceless and irreplaceable.

We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat.