Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day Quotes

“Each of us needs an opportunity to be alone and silent, or even, indeed, to find space in the day or in the week, just to reflect and to listen to the voice of God that speaks deep within us. . . . In fact, our search for God is only our response to his search for us. He knocks at our door, but for many people, their lives are too preoccupied for them to be able to hear. — Cardinal Basil Hume”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Cuando yo era joven, quería cambiar al mundo. Pocos años más tarde, me di cuenta de que aquello era demasiado ambicioso, así que me conformé con cambiar mi estado. También esto, según me di cuenta con el pasar de los años, resultaba demasiado ambicioso, así que me dispuse a cambiar mi pueblo. Cuando me di cuenta de que ni siquiera podía hacer esto, traté de cambiar a mi familia. Ahora, que ya soy un hombre de edad, sé que habría debido comenzar por cambiarme a mí mismo. Si hubiera comenzado conmigo mismo, tal vez entonces habría logrado cambiar mi familia, el pueblo, o incluso el estado… Y quién sabe; ¡tal vez el mundo!”
― Peter Scazzero, Espiritualidad emocionalmente sana - Día a día: Un peregrinar de cuarenta días con el Oficio Diario (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“Prayer Lord, you say your yoke is easy and your burden is light (Matthew 11:30), yet the life I live often feels hard and heavy to me. Show me the activities, decisions, priorities, and relationships that are not what you want for me today. I submit my life to your lordship and ways this day. In your name, amen.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“The Sabbath teaches us grace because it connects us experientially to the basic truth that nothing we do will earn God’s love. As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, experiencing joy in our work along with the toil, we are always in danger of believing that our actions trigger God’s love for us. Only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“drawn from the tax collector’s desperate plea for mercy: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Each phrase of the prayer is prayed under the breath on an inhale or exhale.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“For the early church, the Daily Office— praying at fixed times throughout the day—was always the first “work of God” to be done. Nothing was to interfere with that priority. But this practice of fixed-hour prayer is one that actually long predates the early church. Three thousand years ago, King David practiced set times of prayer seven times a day (Psalm 119:164). The prophet Daniel prayed three times a day (Daniel 6:10). Devout Jews in Jesus’ time prayed at morning, afternoon, and evening. Such set times of prayer were one of the Israelites’ great spiritual and cultural treasures, a practical way to keep their lives centered on loving God at all times. Even after the resurrection, Jesus’ disciples continued to pray at certain hours of the day (Acts 3:1; 10:2–23).”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“True freedom comes when we no longer need to be special in other people’s eyes because we know we are loveable and good enough in Christ.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless — a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be cared for. . . . One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess — the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place. — Parker Palmer”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence. . . . Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself. . . . More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this “something” that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence . . . after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence. — Isaac of Nineveh”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“By the Holy Spirit within me, empower me”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

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― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“The long painful history of the Church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“I asked God for strength that I might achieve, I was made weak that I might learn to obey. I asked for health that I might do great things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power when I was young that I might
have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel the need for God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all people, most richly blessed.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“God never discards any of our past for his future when we surrender ourselves to him. He is the Lord! Every mistake, sin, and detour we take in the journey of life is taken by God and becomes his gift for a future of blessing when we surrender ourselves to him.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Mantengan sus posiciones, que hoy mismo serán testigos de la salvación que el SEÑOR realizará en favor de ustedes. A esos egipcios que hoy ven, ¡jamás volverán a verlos! Ustedes quédense quietos, que el SEÑOR presentará batalla por ustedes.”
― Peter Scazzero, Espiritualidad emocionalmente sana - Día a día: Un peregrinar de cuarenta días con el Oficio Diario (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“Lord, forgive me for the arrogance that sees interruptions to my plans as alien invasions. Forgive me for constantly trying to do more than you intend with my life. Help me to be like John the Baptist, embracing my losses and respecting my limits. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time — how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the “road closed” sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meanings I needed to know. On the surface it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always being sown. — Parker Palmer50”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Lord, you know my world can be nonstop and complex. Help me to balance the demands coming at me today, remembering you while I work, and keeping you at the center of all I do. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place. — Parker Palmer21”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“The Deuteronomy reason for Sabbath-keeping is that our ancestors in Egypt went for four hundred years without a vacation (Deuteronomy 5:15). Never a day off. The consequence: they were no longer considered persons but slaves. Hands. Work units. Not persons created in the image of God but equipment for making brick and building pyramids. Humanity was defaced. — Eugene Peterson”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“We don’t become mature human beings by getting lucky or cleverly circumventing loss, and certainly not by avoidance and distraction. Learn to lament. Learn this lamentation. We’re mortals, after all. We and everyone around are scheduled for death (mortis). Get used to it. Take up your cross. It prepares us and those around us for resurrection. — Eugene Peterson”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Now, believe it or not, we are threatened by such a free God because it takes away all of our ability to control or engineer the process. It leaves us powerless, and changes the language from any language of performance or achievement to that of surrender, trust and vulnerability. . . . That is the so-called “wildness” of God. We cannot control God by any means whatsoever, not even by our good behavior, which tends to be our first and natural instinct. . . . That utter and absolute freedom of God is fortunately used totally in our favor, even though we are still afraid of it. It is called providence, forgiveness, free election or mercy. . . . But to us, it feels like wildness — precisely because we cannot control it, manipulate it, direct it, earn it or lose it. Anyone into controlling God by his or her actions will feel very useless, impotent and ineffective. — Richard Rohr”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“Everyone who draws breath “takes the lead” many times a day. We lead with actions that range from a smile to a frown; with words that range from blessing to curse; with decisions that range from faithful to fearful. . . . When I resist thinking of myself as a leader, it is neither because of modesty nor a clear-eyed look at the reality of my life. . . . I am responsible for my impact on the world whether I acknowledge it or not. So, what does it take to qualify as a leader? Being human and being here. As long as I am here, doing whatever I am doing, I am leading, for better or for worse. And, if I may say so, so are you. — Parker Palmer33”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“loving well is the essence of true spirituality.”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“most of our human problems come because we don’t know how to sit still in our room for an hour. — Leighton Ford”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office

“When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little older, I perceived that this was too ambitious, so I set out to change my state. This too, I realized as I grew older, was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state — and who knows, maybe even the world!”
― Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office