In 1984, Jean Vanier invited me me to visit L'Arche community in Trosly, France. He didn't say "We need a priest" or "We could use you." He said, "Maybe our community can offer you a home." I visited several times, then resigned from Harvard and went to live with the community for a year. I loved it! I didn't have much to do. I wasn't pastor or anything. I was just a friend of the Community.

We just have to recognize life for what it is: a gift to be grateful for, not a property to cling to, hoard, or defend.

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.

The university has become a place that prepares you for the fights in the world.

Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.

There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.