Daniel > Daniel's Quotes

“So often when we say "I love you" we say it with a huge "I" and a small "you." We use love as a conjunction instead of it being a verb implying action. It's no good just gazing out into open space hoping to see the Lord; instead we have to look closely at our neighbor, someone whom God has willed into existence, someone whom God has died for.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“The basic thing is that I never ask myself what the result of any action will be--that is God's concern. The only question I keep asking myself in life is: what should I do at this particular moment? What should I say? All you can do is to be at every single moment as true as you can with all the power in your being—and then leave it to God to use you, even despite yourself.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“Whenever I speak I speak with all the conviction and belief which is in me. I stake my life on what I am saying. It's not the words themselves that are important but reaching down to the level of people's convictions. This is the basis of communication, this is where we really meet one another. If people want to ridicule me, that's fine; but if it produces a spark in them and we can talk, then it means we are really talking about something which concerns us deeply.”
― Anthony Bloom

“During the (Russian) Revolution we lost the Christ of the great cathedrals, the Christ of the splendidly architected liturgies; and we discovered the Christ who is vulnerable just as we are vulnerable, we discovered the Christ who was rejected just as we were rejected, and we discovered the Christ who had nothing at his moment of crisis, not even friends, and this was similar to our experience.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“God helps us when there is no one else to help. God is there at the point of greatest tension, at the breaking point, at the center of the storm. In a way despair is at the center of things—if only we are prepared to go through it. We must be prepared for a period when God is not there for us and we must be aware of not trying to substitute a false God.”
― Anthony Bloom, Living Prayer

“The day when God is absent, when He is silent—that is the beginning of prayer. Not when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God, "I can't live without You, why are You so cruel, so silent?" This knowledge that we must find or die—that makes us break through to the place where we are in the Presence.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“And there is that time when there is a longing in the heart for God Himself, not for His gifts, but for God Himself.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“First of all, it is very important to remember that prayer is an encounter and a relationship, a relationship which is deep, and this relationship cannot be forced either on us or on God. The fact that God can make Himself present or can leave us with the sense of His absence is part of this live and real relationship. If we could mechanically draw Him into an encounter, force Him to meet us, simply because we have chosen this moment to meet Him, there would be no relationship and no encounter.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“We want something from Him, not Him at all. Is that a relationship? Do we behave in that way with our friends? Do we aim at what friendship can give us or is it the friend whom we love? Is this true with regard to the Lord?”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“There are other ways too in which God is "absent." As long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and can do something with us. But the moment we try to be what we are not, there is nothing left to say or have; we become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“I would like to remind you of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. The publican comes and stands at the rear of the church. He knows that he stands condemned; he knows that in terms of justice there is no hope for him because he is an outsider to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of righteousness or the kingdom of love, because he belongs neither to the realm of righteousness nor to the realm of love. But in the cruel, the violent, the ugly life he leads, he has learned something of which the righteous Pharisee has no idea. He has learned that in a world of competition, in a world of predatory animals, in a world of cruelty and heartlessness, the only hope one can have is an act of mercy, an act of compassion, a completely unexpected act which is rooted neither in duty nor in natural relationships, which will suspend the action of the cruel, violent, heartless world in which we live. All he knows, for instance, from being himself an extortioner, a moneylender, a thief, and so forth, is that there are moments when for no reason, because it is not part of the world's outlook, he will forgive a debt, because suddenly his heart has become mild and vulnerable; that on another occasion he may not get someone put into prison because a face will have reminded him of something or a voice has gone straight to his heart. There is no logic in this. It is not part of the world's outlook nor is it a way in which he normally behaves. It is something that breaks through, which is completely nonsensical, which he cannot resist; and he knows also, probably, how often he himself was saved from final catastrophe by this intrusion of the unexpected and the impossible, mercy, compassion, forgiveness. So he stands at the rear of the church, knowing that all the realm inside the church is a realm of righteousness and divine love to which he does not belong and into which he cannot enter. But he knows from experience also that the impossible does occur and that is why he says "Have mercy, break the laws of righteousness, break the laws of religion, come down in mercy to us who have no right to be either forgiven or allowed in." And I think this is where we should start continuously all over again.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“The moment you reach rock bottom, the moment you are aware of your utter dispossession of all things, then you are on the fringe of the kingdom of God, you are nearly aware that God is love and that He is upholding you by His love. And at that point you can say two things simultaneously. You can pray out of your utter misery, dereliction and poverty, and you can rejoice that you are so rich with the love of God. But this is only if you have come to the point of discovering it, because as long as you imagine you are rich there is nothing to thank God for, and you cannot be aware of being loved. Too often the kind of thanksgiving we offer is too much a general thanksgiving, and the kind of repentance we bring to God is too much a general repentance.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have, we want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. We address ourselves to the princes and the sons of men, and we say "O God, give them strength to do it for me." Very seldom do we turn away from the princes and sons of men and say "I will not ask anyone for help, I would rather have Your help." If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“A friend said to me: "Don't ask me to waste time praying. Don't ask me to look for God in the solitude of your desert. For me, God is in man, and I will search for rapport with Him by serving man."

What can I reply? "Please God, may you succeed! Please God, may you be capable of so much! You say this to me because you do not yet know man, you do not yet know your weakness in serving man! Keeping an attitude of love and service before the tabernacle of man when you have discovered his egoism, arrogance, and capacity for betrayal, is a frightening and demanding task.”
― Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes

“If, without Christ, without the personal help of God, it was possible for man to love and serve man to the uttermost, up to the final sacrifice of himself, the Incarnation would not have been necessary.

No man is capable of so much. Sooner or later he will discover within himself how heroic it is to love, how immature his own love is; how great a need he has for a "Power from on high" and divine comfort to resist the temptation of hating everybody and escaping into a cave to live out his own isolation.

Yes, I'm saying this bluntly because I have experience of it: only God can help us to love man, only Christ can teach us this difficult lesson.”
― Carlo Carretto

“I do not believe there is a more difficult task in the world than living on faith, hope, and love! We have to make a leap into the darkness or, more precisely, into the Invisible.”
― Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes

“Only very late do we learn the price of the risk of believing, because only very late do we face up to the idea of death.

This is what is difficult. Believing truly means dying. Dying to everything: to our reasoning, to our plans, to our past, to our childhood dreams, to our attachment to earth, and sometimes even to the sunlight, as at the moment of our physical death.”
― Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes

“At the same time he puts him into a state of crisis and makes him weak, because it is so difficult to explain things to someone who is always right, who always wins, who is absolutely sure of himself.”
― Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes

“Christ has freed us from the past with its infinite complexities. In Him we have become "new creatures" and begun a new life, owing nothing to anyone, writing in our book, "Now I am beginning..."

What matter is your past, your sin? Now walk in the newness you have found and sin no more.”
― Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes