We...sin not because we want what is evil, but because we want what isn't good enough.

To deny the force of divine judgment, then, is to make God less than God, and to make us less than His children. For every father must discipline His children, and paternal discipline is itself a mercy, a fatherly expression of love.

We...sin not because we want what is evil, but because we want what isn't good enough.

If we do not fill our mind with prayer, it will fill itself with anxieties, worries, temptations, resentments, and unwelcome memories.

Loving difficult people will refine us. Perhaps only in heaven will our love be so perfected that we can actually like these people, too. St. Augustine spoke of a man who, on earth, had chronic gas problems; in heaven, his flatulence became perfect music.

As we grow detached from things, we come (with God's help) to master our desires, and we give the mastery over to God. Discipline and divine grace heal the intellect and the will of the effects of concupiscence. We can begin to see things clearly.

If you complain to someone, you assume that it's someone who really cares about you.