Holiness ... is nothing we can *do* ... It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received. We do not have to be qualified to be holy. We do not have to be qualified to be whole, or healed.Made

As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.

Dare I? Of course I don't. But I'm going to anyhow because I have no choice.

Stories have a richness that goes way beyond fact. My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is listen to her book. It might take you where you don't expect to go.

When a bride insists on telling her lover everything, I suspect she is looking for a father, not a husband.

Be aware that rigidity imprisons.