There's no way up but down.

The minute you walk outside of your church on Sunday you're in mission territory.

The human race is one big dysfunctional family.

Your faith will grow only in the measure that you give it away.

The long nights that Pier Giorgio Frassati spent on his knees in front of the Blessed Sacrament had something to do with the long days spent in service of the poor.

Again, I hear almost everyday from atheists who write off religion as primitive, premodern nonsense. I summon Aquinas, Augustine, Paul [of Tarsus], Teresa of Avila, Joseph Ratzinger, and Edith Stein-in all their intellectual rigor-as allies in the the struggle against this dismissive atheism.

The Bible constantly warns against a merely mercenary relationship with God - a friendship of convenience or self-interest. We should not love God simply because doing so will produce many consolations in our life. We must enter a true relationship, were we fall in love not with His benefits, but with Him.