The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

I wrote to my bishop, the Archbishop of Utrecht, Holland, and explained that I wanted not just permission to stay longer, but a mission. He met me at the Trosly L'Arche community and we spent a few days together . . . I wanted him to get to know L'Arche, to understand what I was doing there. Afterward he said, "I understand now, Henri. You have found a home for your self."

The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin is more than the poor, that the rich find it easier to call sin a virtue.

We want to prove we are good writers or good business, good parents or good teachers. The world is very competitive and catches us in this frenzy. It wants us to go here, be there, and be part of this or that.

Fundraising is a very rich and beautiful activity. It is a confident, joyful and hope-filled expression of ministry. In ministering to each other, each from the riches that he or she possesses, we work together for the full coming of God's Kingdom.

The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.

I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.