Michael D. O'Brien

To love mankind merely in the abstract', he once said, 'is one face of a single coin, and on its other side is hatred of mankind in the abstract. To love in truth is to serve the suffering person before you, and to do wh…

Theophilos, the light of reason that we both reverence is not a god. Neither does the highest development of the human mind confer divinity upon us. We may quote Aristotle one moment and in the next find ourselves betray…

Jednostavno je ratovati,najte'e je odr'ati mir.

Koristiti se drugim ljudskim bicem kao objektom,cak i u privatnosti vlastitih misli,znaci poniziti bice te osobe.To znaci dehumanizirati i samoga sebe i drugoga.

Koliko dugo du'a mo'e biti ku'ana?Koliko dugo mo'e izdr'ati?Covjek sam mira,ali duboko u mojoj du'i drijema ubojica,koji u trenutku ludosti mo'e zgrabiti orude zla u nastojanju da porazi zlo.Tako bih bio dvostruko pora'e…

Our world is drowning in communication, but starving for genuine communio'the union of true communion.

He is interested not so much in imparting information as implanting in us the tools of awareness.

I suspect that I shall be broken; I suspect that I shall finally live. Save me, Emily! Save me from this shattering we are pleased at times to call love.

El hombre es un extra'o y un residente temporal. Su existencia es inefablemente hermosa... y peligrosa. Est' colmada de misterios que suplican ser descifrados.

And there was longing, too, when the man returned down the aisle from the giving of flesh with a live coal of presence radiating in his smaller vessel of presence.

First-class land can be considered that which has good soil, adequate water supply, moderate climate, suitable elevation, and good location. Only 3 percent of Canadian land is considered to be truly first class.

Yes. It is. And I wouldn't want any of the alternatives presently on the planet. But, Maurice, the seeds of tyranny are in every democracy. You mustn't fool yourself. Anyone, any one of us can be seduced into trading awa…

for she recognized an affair with words as a symptom of profound unhappiness with the world.

Under that fat belly and a half-million bucks in the bank is really just a little immigrant boy who's scared of being poor or cold or alone.

When was it he had stopped enjoying the mere doing of things and got into the habit of just trying to get them done?

He remembered that mankind was only one species, but every angel was a unique species.

But they had failed to consider the fact that his solitude was not total'for there was prayer, and grace, and angels.

Social pressure is the fascism of the democracies. Fascism is the democracy of the ruthless. Social engineering is the opiate of romantic intellectuals.

dunno, Gram', he muttered distractedly. She saw that his mind was drifting. Like so many of his generation, he was a creature of impressions, and each generation seemed a little worse in that regard, she thought.

That love is possible only if there is a free gift of the self.' She thought about that.

But he will learn some day that Christianity is not a code of ethics for improving the behavior of humanity. Our faith is much more than that. It is light breaking into darkness. It is salvation. It is fire.

Arrow gave that some serious consideration. 'When you name somebody,' said Colin, 'he's yours forever. You can't ever forget him.' 'Can you give him away?' 'You can give him away, or he can run away, but he always carrie…

The man standing solid behind him, the liquid heaving of the sea, and the waves of hot light that now broke through the last of the overcast and beat upon his back conspired a silence within him that was different from a…

The sensation of motion speaks to the soul. We are no longer bound by the limitations of our flesh. We fly on the wind and the water, toward a destination that promises sanctuary. A living metaphor. A glimmer of transcen…

More like a woman seeing things from the inside out, and a man trying to see from the outside in. It's not a bad combination, you know.

If time was a dimension wholly within the boundaries of material creation, and if God was beyond time, then he could, if he so wished, accept the prayer of a man who lived at the end of the second millennium and apply it…

If it came slowly, with torment, he would try to thank God for that too, begging that the greater sacrifice would merit an increase of grace to countless souls unknown to him.

She was a fullness of years waiting to be emptied. She was an emptiness waiting to be filled.

The Lord has already conquered. These are only the final convulsions.

Why don't you talk to him? You've already done it once, and the Lord seems to take special interest in newly hatched prayer warriors. He wants them to know he's really there. So pray away, Alice, and we just might stumbl…

The Lord wanted trust, above all trust. And this trusting was the foundation of the personal holiness from which right action flowed. By seeking solutions before the foundation was firm, he had been wanting to bypass fai…

But at some point every soul was put to some ultimate test, each must turn and face its eternal foe in a definitive struggle between radical terror and radical faith. And in such combat ordinary human strategies would al…

Father, the only indestructible sanctuary is in the heart.

The archbishop paused. 'Teach your people to give themselves totally to God. Teach them to find his heart.

No. The initial impulse comes from God. We are called by Love himself. Our task is to come to him. He will lead us to the tabernacle of the heart. We need only ask.

Then Mercy itself took flesh and came among them, for he was love, and he felt everything that they had felt. He was love, and their descendants killed him, and to this day there are many who kill him, and also do they k…

He would ask, above all, that his tormenters be forgiven, and more'that the executioner would come to the narrow gate that leads into the Kingdom of God.

Man is a creature of Heaven and earth, but he no longer knows it. He no longer knows himself.

Explain it to me.' 'You want to be a saint, Billy. But you want to be a saint on your own terms. You want glorious victories with your sword; most of all, you want victories over your personal weaknesses and faults.

The second temptation is of a more sinister nature: the temptation to hate yourself because you have not lived up to your ideal. That is pride, and it is very dangerous. It opens the door to much worse things.

Jesus, true Lord of the world, I do not ask for human strength. But I ask for the grace to speak to him only those words that You desire to be spoken. Give me a right heart. Gird me with truth. Armor me with faith. Prote…

a world populated by selfish people can never know peace.

Eat bread and salt, and speak the truth' ', said Father Sergius. 'That is one of our old proverbs.

Father Sergius nodded. 'Yes, but not as a pious form of life that one puts on like an overcoat. Rather, he lives this mystery without thinking about it. It is not something he does; it is something he is.

Charity does not batter down the gates of a wall in the name of love or in the name of a unity that does not yet exist.

He mused on the power of fear, saw its insidious and corrosive qualities, saw as well how extensive had been its control over him. He began to pray. The prayer took the form of stillness, of attention before the presence…

Marija, if we do not play in the dangerous surf, we will drown in puddles.

Joy and sorrow'and especially the areas of your life where there is weakness?

Unless one throws away all weapons, all armor, he cannot learn meekness.

Father Serafim went on: 'A man leaves the safe haven of his familiar world. And even if his home be a difficult place, even though it be a place of slavery, he experiences it as his own. It is knowable, the dangers ident…