It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.

Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focussed on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a savior.

The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward, written precepts of the moral and divine laws, but above all lives God's law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will.

The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.

Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust.

Love is...like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths. "I am gift." All that I am is something that's given, and given freely. Being doesn't cost anything. There's no price tag, no strings attached.

For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very well be darkness