The abuse of a good does not diminish the good of a good

Our culture places a very high premium on self-expression, but is relatively disinterested in producing "selves" that are worth expressing.

Thought determines action. Do not let your whole life be a reaction to the things that happen around you each day. Let your life be an action.

God of hope, I look to you with an open heart and yearning spirit. During this Advent season, I will keep alert and awake, listening for your word and keeping to your precepts. My hope is in you.

Your weaknesses are the key to the unimaginable bigger future that God has envisioned for you. Your strengths are probably already bearing all the fruit they can. They will continue to bear those good fruits in your life, but at some point they will begin to plateau. Your richer, more abundant future is intimately linked to your weaknesses.

The challenge life presents to each of us is to become truly ourselves--not the self we have imagined or fantasized about, not the self that our friends want us to be, not the self our ego would have us be, but the self God has ordained us to be from before we were in our mother's womb.

A mother has a unique perspective. Nobody sees the life of the child the way the child’s mother does—not even the father. This is Mary’s perspective of Jesus life. It seems to me that every genuine Christian, not just Catholics, should be interested in that perspective—and not just interested, but fascinated. In the rosary we ponder the life of Jesus through the eyes of his mother. This is an incredibly powerful experience if we enter into it fully