People instinctively know the difference between something done with a profit motive and something done with a love motive.

Prayer may seem at first like disengagement, a reflective time to consider God's point of view. But that vantage presses us back to accomplish God's will, the work of the kingdom. We are God's fellow workers, and as such we turn to prayer to equip us for the partnership.

Christ bears the wounds of the church, his body, just as he bore the wounds of crucifixion. I sometimes wonder which have hurt worse.

Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

By focusing too myopically on what we want God to do on our behalf, we may miss the significance of what he has already done.

The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.

Jesus never tried to hide his loneliness and dependence on other people. He chose his disciples not as servants but as friends. He shared moments of joy and grief with them, and asked for them in times of need. They became his family, his substitute mother and brothers and sisters. They gave up everything for him, as he had given up everything for them. He loved them, plain and simple.