If the Word truly became flesh, then God had not only a mother, but also a grandmother, cousins, great-aunts, and weird uncles. If the Word truly dwelt among us, then he was part of a family that, like most, was fairly dysfunctional, a mix of the good and bad, the saintly and the sinful, the glorious and the not so glorious. And this is such good news for us.

I don't think we'll understand Advent correctly until we see it as a preparation for a revolution.

Love without truth devolves into sentimentality. Truth without love becomes cold and calculated.

Turn your car into a monastery.

We have laws against polluting our rivers but not against polluting our minds.

Love is not a sentiment or feeling. Love is actively willing the good of the other.

In a way, fasting is like the "calming of the monkey mind" effected by the rosary prayer: both are means of stilling the effervescence of relatively superficial preoccupations.