Imagine how happy, how holy, life would be if we ever really learn to see beauty.

Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the stamina to yes to its twists and turns with faith and hope. Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.

All of us wrestle with the angels of our inabilities all the time. We live in fear that our incapacities will be exposed. We posture and evaluate and assess and criticize mercilessly.

The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us. The harvest of youth is achievement; the harvest of middle-age is perspective; the harvest of age is wisdom; the harvest of life is serenity.

The vision of a culture lies in what becomes its major institutions, in what it remembers as its most impacting events, in who it sees as its heroes.

Temptations are part of life, part of growing up. We grapple with them often - in some instances for our lifetime - before we come to realize that it is not so much the victory as it is the struggle that is holy.

Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world.