The Grace of Enough Quotes

“Life is an adventure orchestrated by God, and our attempts to be in the driver’s seat will always result in mere frustration. Why? Because this is not the way of authentic love, which involves the total surrender of self. Authentic love calls for sacrifice. That is true of all of us. Whether it’s being up with a baby all night, caring for an aging parent, giving a hurting friend a landing place in your home for a while, or becoming a foster parent, we will be called on to sacrifice. That is the way of the Cross, and we are not offered anything else. It’s easy to think of parenthood as a season of sacrifice that ends so we can move on with our lives. But neither Christ nor the saints ever model living for ourselves. God never tells us, “Wow, thanks for your service. You’ve done your time and please enjoy the next four decades of your life living just for yourself. You’ve been serving others for awhile so grab your sunscreen and enjoy your remaining years drinking cocktails in Aruba.” Can you imagine that being the final chapter of a saint’s life? We are called to live out generous love in whatever opportunities present themselves to us.”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“the Catechism highlights that the doors of our homes and churches must remain open to all: “No one is without a family in this world: the Church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who ‘labor and are heavy laden’” (CCC, 1658).”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“Hospitality is a call to stop being insular. Life often pushes us into friend groups that are all in the same life stage and circumstances. It makes perfect sense to need relationships with people who can understand what you’re going through and support you. I need mom friends I can vent to about never getting a chance to go into the bathroom alone, for instance. (How old do my kids have to be for me to enter that promised land?) But this natural need for commonality can often turn into creating your own little tribe or bubble and missing out on relationships with your brothers and sisters whose lives look very different. Even church programming can cause this by sorting everyone into “young professionals,” “families,” “singles,” “seniors,” and so forth. The truth is that we need one another—everybody.”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“Even Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta, who spent her life ministering in the world and truly changed the world through her service, believed this. When she received the Nobel Peace Prize and was asked what people can do to promote world peace, she answered, “Go home and love your family.”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“Pope Francis reminds us in his papal encyclical Laudato Si’, “When people become self-centered and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume” (LS 204).”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture

“Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a queasy feeling in the stomach. —Mother Angelica”
― Haley Stewart, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture