Strangers to the City Quotes

“If we intend merely to coast along the low roads, maybe we can do it alone. If we are heading for the mountains, the support of others is indispensable.”
― Michael Casey O. C. S. O., Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of St. Benedict

“As he makes progress, invisible though it is to himself, he connects more completely with the most purifying power of them all, the inward action of the Holy Spirit. By this peculiar conjunction of divine grace and human struggle, transformation occurs.”
― Michael Casey, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict

“The monk aims, above all, for the kingdom of God. But his more immediate ambition is to rid his heart of complexity so that he seeks that goal in simplicity and without mixed motives.”
― Michael Casey, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict

“The crucial issue for people involved in the monastic enterprise is finality.”
― Michael Casey, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict

“We live and mostly die with our imperfections intact.”
― Michael Casey, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict

“The experience of many monks and nuns is that their awareness of the closeness of God occurs as often outside formal prayer as inside it: at work, in caring for others, in admiring the scenery, even in sleep. God will not be organized. If our expectations of prayer are built on the hypothesis of God’s predictability, our only certainty is that we will be disappointed.”
― Michael Casey, Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of St. Benedict