The Light of Christ Quotes

“The Church is a place where human beings have the conviction to patiently seek the truth together, in a shared life of charity, one that is both cosmopolitan and personal, both reasonable and religious, both philosophical and theological. This communion in the truth is made possible, however, only because people have first accepted to be apprenticed to revelation through a common effort of learning the truth from another (i.e., God), who is the author of truth, and from one another.”
― Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism

“The Christian is free because he lives for the one thing necessary.”
― Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism

“God’s transcendent mystery is distinct from the finite world, but not antithetical to it. In fact, it is precisely because God is the cause of all that exists that he can be intimately present to all that is. By contrast, the idea of an intrinsic antithesis between God and the finite world implies a paradoxical limit on God, as if he were somehow excluded from his creation. The Church Fathers recognized that the mystery of God is present all around us. God is “He Who Is,” the hidden transcendent source who gives existence to all things, and that accounts for their being, goodness, and beauty. This transcendence is not only consistent with God being immanently present in all things as creator, but even entails that it is so. It is God in whom we live, and move, and have our being, because there is nothing he does not sustain in existence. Therefore, God can become human without changing in himself. He can reveal who he truly is to us in a singular human life without diminishing himself in any way. God can become intimately present to humanity by grace and make himself known to us personally, while remaining incomprehensible, transcendent, and omnipotent.”
― Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism

“if someone should refuse to enter the Church as through a door . . . [he] could not be saved.”46 Invincible ignorance may excuse many who cooperate with God’s grace sincerely in their conscience and action, but all human beings have an obligation to seek the truth in all things, including especially the truth about God, whose existence can be known imperfectly even from natural reason. Religious indifference and intellectual sloth, then, are never good precedents for claiming innocence in the face of the calling of Christ.”
― Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism