That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, "You are my beloved. You don't have to take an eye for an eye. No, no you're too rich for that."

'How much longer will I live?'... Only one thing seems clear to me. Every day should be well-lived. What a simple truth! Still, it is worthy of my attention.

The beatitudes say, "Blessed are the poor". They don't say, "Blessed are those who care for the poor."

Based or our baptism, all are called to a mystical life, to communion with God. We need to claim that, to taste it and feel it, to trust that the deeper we live this communion, the more our behavior will witness to the truth.

You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

It is not that the university as such is against spiritual formation. It is just that often the university does not know how to integrate spiritual formation within its academic disciplines.

[Praying] demands that you take to the road again and again, leaving your house and looking forward to a new land for yourself and your [fellow human]. This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you always begin afresh.