Into Your Hands, Father Quotes

“Those very traumatic events in our lives give us a privileged opportunity to let God's love become concrete for us. What the psychoanaylyst strives to do by bringing traumatic experiences to consciousness often comes about much quicker and more completely by the action of the Holy Spirit. "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his inermost parts" (Prov. 20:27) We can ask him to illuminate our past and lead us to those incidents that we have still not accepted wholeheartedly. We can save a lot of time if we go into analysis with the Holy Spirit...who is our true and ultimate therapist. Nothing is hidden from him.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Perhaps you believe that if a certain enemy who persecutes you disappeared, you would find peace and finally be able to pray. But God uses just this person to deepen your peace, so it is no longer dependent on external circumstances, but finds its foundation in God.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Those who trust that God is guiding everything can never be frustrated. If they do not get a certain thing, they know they do not need it. If something they have waited for does not happen, they conclude that it is not meant for them. They are not disappointed, because everything is just as it should be; not in itself; far from it, but as the environment they are to live in, a “divine environment”.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“For everyone one of us there is a chalice that the Father offers us to drink. We have difficulty recognizing it as coming from him, since a great deal of its contents comes from other people. Nevertheless, it is the Father who asks us to drink the bitter cup. It was so for Jesus, and it is the same for us.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“In the Bible we are dealing with the first cause, not the second. The most dramatic event in Joseph’s life, when his brothers sold him, was God’s greatest grace. “God sent me before you”, he says to his brothers who came to Egypt to buy grain, “to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:7-8). “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen 50:20).”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“I am with you.” He can truly say this, for he has gone through all of it himself. He has experienced the indifference, hardness, and cruelty of mankind. He has suffered through all your anguish, loneliness, and despair. Everything that wounds you has wounded him first. He has freely taken all of it upon himself, so that you should never have to say that you are alone.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Everything that happens is a message to us from God, which we receive and integrate into our lives. We look toward the future without worry, for we have only to walk in the good works prepared for us (Eph 2:10); everything is arranged by God.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“In a person who is content with God and all that he does, there is an inner music, a song, which is sung of itself.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“That is one of the miracles of surrender. What appears as something monotonous and hopeless to an outsider and to one who stubbornly resists God’s guidance becomes glorious to the one who trusts God and lets him decide.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“A God whom I meet only within myself, but not in people and events, is not really incarnate. A dangerous dualism arises from this: contact with God is reduced to a few special moments, while life in general is “godless”.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“It is important and even necessary to interrupt our work now and then throughout the day and turn to God within us, to speak a few “words of light and love” to him. My faith teaches me that Christ lives in my heart (Eph 3:17) and that I can find him there.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“We have been given new eyes to discover the divine reality, namely, our faith. Faith sees through the outer shell and penetrates to the substance of things.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“As long as we want to decide for ourselves where we will find God, we need not fear that we shall meet him! We will meet only ourselves, a touched-up version of ourselves. Genuine spirituality begins when we are prepared to die. Could there be a quicker way to die than to let God form our lives from moment to moment and continually to consent to his action?”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“How can you know that you are living in God’s will? This is the sign: If you are troubled about anything, that means you are not completely abandoned to God’s will. The one who lives according to God’s will is not troubled about anything. If he needs something, he surrenders it and even himself to the Lord. He places it in his hands. If he does not get what he needs, he remains calm, as though he had received it. He is not afraid, whatever happens, for he knows that it is God’s will. When he is afflicted with illness, he thinks: I need this sickness, otherwise God would not have sent it. He thus preserves peace in body and soul.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“If God is the creator of heaven and earth and the great director guiding the drama of the world and mankind, then I can encounter him everywhere. He pours out his love upon me in and through all that happens.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“There is indeed much done against God’s will by evil men,” Augustine writes, “but his wisdom and power are so great that everything seemingly contrary to it, in reality, works toward the good outcome or end that he has preordained.”3 In other words: “God accomplishes his good will through the evil will of others. In this way the Father’s loving plan was realized . . . and Jesus suffered death for our sake.”4”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Saint Paul assures us that even the greatest catastrophe, namely, sin, contributes to the revelation of love. Nothing falls outside of God’s plan. That is why the tragedy of the world, despite all its terror, has no definitive character.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Now it is no longer I who do God’s will, but God who accomplishes his will through me. In Saint Thérèse’s words: “For a long time, I have no longer belonged to myself, I am totally surrendered to Jesus, so He is free to do with me as He wills.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“Abandonment is truly the alpha and omega in his life.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us

“can no longer ask for anything with fervor except the accomplishment of God’s will in my soul.”
― Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us