David M. Knight > Quotes

“God doesn’t ask the impossible. He sees our weakness and our struggles. He looks at our heart more than at our behavior. If he sees that we want to love him, want to believe in him, and want to follow his way — but are just unable right now to do it — he has patience with us. He encourages us to do whatever we can, and to keep trying.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“Great scientists are Peter Pans, still anxious to classify and explain at an age when most people are concerned with money, power and sex.”
― David M. Knight, Ordering the World: A History of Classifying Man

“Since it is so difficult in the concrete to judge what is and is not “mortal sin,” and who is and is not subjectively guilty of it, we should choose pastorally not to make that judgment except in extreme and obvious cases. Then Eucharist would be recognized again as what it really is: not just the “bread of angels,” but on this earth the strengthening food and sacrament of sinners.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“As “stewards of the kingship of Christ” we have an explicit obligation — and therefore an implicit right — to do this. This includes, with special necessity in our day, the obligation the laity have to call the clergy, including bishops, to account. Paul opposed Peter “to his face” when Peter was too cowardly to stand up against the “Pharisee party” in the Church (Galatians 2:11–14). In today’s Pharisee party the same legalistic, carping mentality is putting up all sorts of stumbling blocks against effective pastoral ministry, and too often Church authorities or ministers are reluctant or afraid to oppose it.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“Basically, Church law only bans from Communion those who “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin.”[3] Since what is “grave sin” (or whether someone is “obstinately persisting” in it) is not always “manifest,” we should recognize that the law allows room for pastoral judgment. John Paul II himself espoused the time-honored principle: “In what is doubtful, freedom; in what is necessary, unity; in all things, charity.”[4] We should lean toward leniency. What should be most “manifest” to our minds is the “first and greatest commandment” of pastoral ministry, which Jesus gave to Peter: “If you love me, feed my sheep” (John 21:17).”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“Rather, we stand before the infinite holiness of God, all presumption annihilated in his presence. We are deeply conscious that we do not know him enough to praise him adequately, appreciate him enough to love him as we should, or reverence him enough to serve him as we ought.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“To preach conservative heresy — making the rules stricter than they are, distorting doctrines through ignorance or narrowness, denying the Eucharist to those who have a right to receive it — is pretty safe. No one will complain to the bishop. But anyone who leans to the left is in danger of instant denunciation. There is a saying in the Vatican, “The right writes.” The left fumes in silence. That is a sin against stewardship.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul

“Jesus is the only one who can show us without distortion the way to live and the truth to live by which lead us to life.”
― David M. Knight, Reaching Jesus: Five Steps Into the Fullness of Life

“If we don’t get to the roots of our sins, we will just keep confessing the same old things unproductively forever.”
― David M. Knight, A Fresh Look at Confession...why it really is good for the soul