Salvation is not a divine transaction that takes place because you are morally perfect, but much more is an organic unfolding, a becoming who you already are, an inborn sympathy with and capacity for the very One who created you.

The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.

When you look at the dominance of Notre Dame, the love of Mary in almost every European country, psychologically, had to come from this recognition of the feminine mediating divine love. And for many people in history, it was clearly the preferred way because women raised most people, not men, so their first experience of unconditional love, of touch, of caring, of nurturing very often came from a woman - that got easily transferred to Mary.

Nature religions, for example, speak of summer, fall, winter, and spring. They see the downward path as the necessary prelude to any kind of upward path again. Our vocabulary is different. We Christians speak of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But unfortunately, we've projected it all onto Jesus and it didn't become a life agenda for the rest of us.

The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.

The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.

Jesus is the very concrete truth revealing and standing in for the universal truth.