I'm learning that the blessing is located in our poor people, in people who are weak; they are the ones we should stay close to, not because they need us but because we need to receive from them the blessing.

Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours.

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.

I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: "Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear."

The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.

When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.