Mark

“The primacy of acceptance is not intended to condemn man to passivity; it does not mean that man can now sit idle, as Marxism claims. On the contrary, it alone makes it possible to do the things of this world in a spirit of responsibility, yet at the same time in an uncramped, cheerful, free way, and to put them at the service of redemptive love.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction To Christianity

“the whole question of how the Mass is celebrated, from which angle the Mass is celebrated, how much Latin is used in the Mass. All of these questions are important questions but without the proper end in view what happens to the liturgical life? It becomes an aesthetic or ideological battleground; Traditionalists versus Modernists. This is always a risk. The”
― Walter Wagner, Dominican Life

“Thus I do think that the challenge is to recognize that the purpose for which we are gathered is to encounter each other as an asceticism and thereby to recognize that the ‘other’ is present to disabuse me of illusion. Whether the ‘other’ is that sister in the house who drives me nuts just because she exists or whether the ‘other’ is the Chapter of the sisters taking the vote or the ‘other’ is the prioress acting in virtue of her office to make a decision, the other is there to disabuse me of illusion; even when the ‘other’ makes a mistake! The fact of the other’s mistake is still there to show me that I am not God, that I do not have the control over life to simply prevent all errors.”
― Walter Wagner, Dominican Life

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude