Mark > Mark's Quotes

“Unless we are willing to pay the price, to sacrifice time and attention and seemingly legitimate or necessary tasks for the sake of the spiritual gifts, we need not look for much power from above in our work.”
― Andrew Murray, The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
― Simone Weil

“Loving You —after Deuteronomy 6:4–9 Loving You with every beat of my heart, with every breath of my mouth, with all I am and all I have, I affirm the truth of Your Being. Teaching Your love to children, I secure knowledge of You for another generation. Speaking of You when sitting at home, I make my dwelling a sanctuary for self and other. Sharing Your wisdom when walking outside, I make my life a message of hope. Affirming You when lying down I forgive and ask for forgiveness. Proclaiming You when rising up, I dedicate my day to Your Will. Living in You I glove my hands with compassion, and my deeds with justice. I open my eyes to Your Wisdom that my vision be daring and true. I mark moments of meeting with knowledge of Your Presence that my going out and my coming home be in peace.”
― Mark S. Burrows, The Paraclete Poetry Anthology: New and Selected Poems

“The worship of God is the heartbeat of the cosmos, even when we humans on earth do not see it, participate in it, or value it.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“. The message of the book of Revelation concerns . . . God’s judgments not only of persons, but also of nations and, in fact, of all principalities and powers—which is to say, all authorities, corporations, institutions, structures, bureaucracies, and the like.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“The place of worship is protected, but the place of witness is not. The court of the gentiles, where witness takes place, is not measured [protected] . . . . Witness takes place in the face of hostility. . . . The witness may be a hero to Christians, but in the world the witness is solitary, suspect, ignored, and occasionally abused.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“[T]his picture of wrath and hell means nothing more or less than the terrible truth that the sufferings of those who persist in rejecting God’s love in Christ are self-imposed and self-perpetuated. The inevitable consequence is that if they eternally persist in such rejection, God will never violate their personality. Whether any soul will in fact eternally resist God, we cannot say.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“Yes, the slaughtered Lamb fights for God and will act on behalf of God to rid the world of evil, but he does so with only his own blood and a sword in his mouth (19:15), not with a sword in his hand to literally shed the blood of his enemies. The integrity and witness of the church depend, in part, on realizing this truth. The war of the Lamb is not what humans have been fighting all these centuries. The”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“[T]here has hardly been a place where the police and the army have not wantonly murdered our children, piling atrocity upon atrocity for the sake of the preservation of apartheid and white privilege. And as they go from funeral to funeral, burying yet another victim of law and order or yet another killed by government-protected death squads, the cry continues to rise to heaven: “How long, Lord?”36 What”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“It is one thing, in other words, to live in an empire or superpower, to live in the shadow of the beast, trying to avoid participating in the evils of idolatry while bearing witness to another empire, the kingdom of God, and thereby working for the good of the world as salt and light. It is quite another to unconditionally endorse that empire—or any culture—or to sacralize it. Yet that is what many Christians and churches have done; they have baptized their country and/or culture into the name of the triune god of political, economic, and military power, wrongly thinking that this is the power of God.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“the “moral strategy of the Apocalypse . . . is to destroy common sense as a guide for life.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“Revelation calls all Christians to refuse participation in acts that express allegiance and devotion to the gods of power and might, whether military, political, social, or economic.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“The call for repentance in Revelation is addressed to the church as much as the world; five of the seven churches received criticism from Jesus. “There are no grounds for complacency—only watchfulness (3:3) and the constant endeavoring to keep one’s robes clean (22:4).”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“Revelation knows that true spiritual existence is warfare, but it defines victory in the cosmic battle as faithfulness. Neither the Lamb nor his followers fight in any other way than faithfulness, even to the point of suffering and death.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“This is the modus operandi of the Lamb: he comes on the white horse of victory bearing his own blood, reminding us that he will defeat the powers of evil as the Lamb, not with a sword in his hand but with a sword in his mouth.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

“Almighty, eternal, just, and merciful God, give us miserable ones the grace to do for you alone what we know you want us to do and always to desire what pleases you. Inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened, and inflamed by the Holy Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footprints of your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and, by your grace alone, may we make our way to you, O Most High, who lives and reigns in perfect Trinity and simple unity, and is glorified as God Almighty, forever and ever. Amen.”
― Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi: A New Biography