Called to Life Quotes

“the more we confidently entrust the future to God, without trying to know it or master it, the more secure and peaceful we are.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“Still, self-giving is not always so simple in practice. People sometimes give generously of themselves, without experiencing the happiness promised by the Gospel. Instead they encounter sorrow, fatigue, and frustration. Their own needs are forgotten; they themselves are ignored. We have all heard a generous person explode with anger and exclaim. “I’m fed up with waiting on everyone else, with having to do all the dirty work, with being taken for granted and never so much as hearing ‘thank you’!” Self-giving can end like that when it is not freely chosen or when it is chosen out of some motive other than disinterested love—fear of saying no and not being accepted, emotional dependence, a perfectionist streak rooted in pride, a sense of indebtedness, the notion that to save others we need to please them, or else the desire to teach others a lesson by shaming them. There is even such a thing as calculated generosity that resembles a kind of unconscious bargaining: I will give myself to you, provided you give me the emotional gratification or the ego boost that I crave. It is important to examine our motives and rid ourselves of such imperfect ones, so that our self-giving can become truly free and disinterested.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“The proud person is unable to receive, because pride does not allow it. Only the humble person knows how to receive.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“Often, though, the calls we receive from God bear upon smaller, everyday things: an invitation to pardon, an act of confidence in a difficult situation, a service to render to someone, a moment of prayer…”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“The practice of lectio divina and the experience of being moved by Holy Scripture are excellent instruction in being sensitive to God’s inspiration.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“We have all experienced this. It is good and necessary to receive love; but in the end the love that makes us happy is not so much the love we receive as it is the love we give.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“Excessive dependency on other people’s expectations and demands also is common. Psychological factors like fear or a need for approval, or a distorted understanding of what charity means, drive some individuals to suppose that they must say yes to everyone and everything, and please everybody from morning to night. The result is an eclipse of personality, neglect of their own needs, and bitterness instead of love. True, there can be no happiness without self-giving, but it must be genuine giving—freely chosen, disinterested, and proceeding from a certain healthful abundance on the part of the giver.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“am always ready to do, in the next five minutes, just the opposite of what I had planned!” A”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“without God, humankind must carry on its own the weight of distress, misery, and failings of all kinds.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“If I feel alone and abandoned, Scripture demands: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa 49:15). If I feel that God is absent, it reassures me: “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). If I feel crushed by my sin, it tells me: “Your sins I remember no more!” (Isa 43:25). If I feel I lack what it takes to make progress, the Psalms invite me to make this act of faith: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Ps 23:1).”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“The right measure of love for God is to love him without measure. And in thus losing ourselves, we find ourselves.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“there is no true happiness except in self-giving done out of love.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“We have an urgent need for Holy Scripture as an inexhaustible source of light and strength, illumination and foundation of our lives. Jesus tells us: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“means by which he calls us and communicates the gift of his life.”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life

“God’s Word, transmitted by Holy Scripture, is a fundamental”
― Jacques Philippe, Called to Life