Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or "Don't try to keep the rules and regulations in order to earn your salvation." He looked around at nearly slumbering collections of utterly casual Christians and wondered, "Who's trying?

Even the cry from the depths is an affirmation: Why cry if there is no hint of hope of hearing?

There is no reason to make the search for friendship sound like an animal instinct. Friendship does not always come as a result of a search; it can come when we least look for it, just as it denies itself when we pursue it too earnestly and with pathetic eagerness.

Each conquest of distance reveals greater distance.

Not only do we cheat ourselves and those around us if we are only glum or always wary when it comes time to respond to divine stirrings. No, we are then also being simply unfaithful to the surrounding reality. The one who purges gloom has given occasions and reasons, in the midst of life's sadness, to be joyful.

Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or "Don't try to keep the rules and regulations in order to earn your salvation." He looked around at nearly slumbering collections of utterly casual Christians and wondered, "Who's trying?

A saint has to be a misfit. A person who embodies what his culture considers typical or normal cannot be exemplary.