The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything Quotes

“When John O’Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you’re not God. Second, this isn’t heaven. Third, don’t be an ass.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“One joke has a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit celebrating Mass together when the lights suddenly go out in the church. The Franciscan praises the chance to live more simply. The Dominican gives a learned homily on how God brings light to the world. The Jesuit goes to the basement to fix the fuses.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Overall, being spiritual and being religious are both part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without the other. Religion without spirituality can become a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community. That’s what I’m warning against. For St. Ignatius”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Finding God often happens in the midst of a community—with a “we” as often as an “I.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“All work has dignity. No job, when done freely, is ignoble.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“define Ignatian spirituality in a few words, you could say that it is: Finding God in all things Becoming a contemplative in action Looking at the world in an incarnational way Seeking freedom and detachment”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Religion can provide a check to my tendency to think that I am the center of the universe, that I know better than anyone about God, and that God speaks most clearly through me.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Before you begin, as in all prayer, remind yourself that you’re in God’s presence, and ask God to help you with your prayer. Gratitude: Recall anything from the day for which you are especially grateful, and give thanks. Review: Recall the events of the day, from start to finish, noticing where you felt God’s presence, and where you accepted or turned away from any invitations to grow in love. Sorrow: Recall any actions for which you are sorry. Forgiveness: Ask for God’s forgiveness. Decide whether you want to reconcile with anyone you have hurt. Grace: Ask God for the grace you need for the next day and an ability to see God’s presence more clearly.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Often we are tempted to think that loving someone—a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even just a friend— means clinging to them, which is a subtle form of ownership. But love means embracing the poverty of not owning the other. So chastity might be able to teach the world about a free way to love and a loving way to be free.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“What kind of relationship do you have if you never carve out time for the other person? One that is superficial and unsatisfying for both parties. That’s why prayer, or intentional time with God, is important if you want a relationship, a friendship, with God.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“In Ignatian spirituality there is nothing that you have to put in a box and hide. Nothing has to be feared. Nothing has to be hidden away. Everything can be opened up”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“First, you’re not God. Second, this isn’t heaven. Third, don’t be an ass”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Great works are often quiet works.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“This is the greatest challenge of faith, says Polish, “to live with a God we cannot fully understand, whose actions we explain at our own peril.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Gratitude, peace, and joy are ways that God communicates with us. During these times, we are feeling a real connection with God, though we might not initially identify it as such. The key insight is accepting that these are ways that God is communicating with us. That is, the first step involves a bit of trust.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Noticing helps you realize that your life is already suffused with the presence of God. Once you begin to look around and allow yourself to take a chance to believe in God, you will easily see God at work in your life.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“So if anyone asks you to define Ignatian spirituality in a few words, you could say that it is: Finding God in all things Becoming a contemplative in action Looking at the world in an incarnational way Seeking freedom and detachment”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love. The more a soul loves, the more it longs, the more it hopes, the more it finds. —Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (1675–1751), The Sacrament of the Present Moment”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Be grateful for your sins. They are carriers of grace.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Vocation is different from work or a job or even a career. You could say that work is the labor required to do a task. A job is the situation in which you do it. A career is the long-term trajectory or pattern of many jobs. But vocation is deeper than each of those concepts.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Let me end our discussion of the examen with a story from the Indian Jesuit Anthony de Mello. His book The Song of the Bird includes several marvelous parables about the awareness of God. This one is called “The Little Fish.” “Excuse me,” said an ocean fish. “You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?” “The ocean,” said the older fish, “is the thing you are in now.” “Oh, this? But this is water. What I’m seeking is the ocean,” said the disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere. “Stop searching, little fish,” says de Mello. “There isn’t anything to look for. All you have to do is look.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Father Kolvenbach recounted the story of an abbot in the Middle Ages who would speak to his monks every day “on finding God, on searching for God, on encountering God.” One day a monk asked the abbot if he ever encountered God. Had he ever had a vision or seen God face-to-face? After a long silence the abbot answered frankly: no, he hadn’t. But, said the abbot, there wasn’t anything surprising in this because even to Moses in the Book of Exodus (33:19–20) God said, “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” God says that Moses will see his back as he passed by him. “Thus,” Father Kolvenbach wrote, “looking back over the length and breadth of his life the abbot could see for himself the passage of God.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Father Keenan observed that, in the New Testament, when Jesus condemns people for sinful behavior, he typically does not condemn weak people who are trying to do better, that is, public sinners struggling to make amends. Time and again Jesus reaches out to people who are ready to change and invites them to conversion. More often, Jesus condemns the “strong” who could help if they wanted, but don’t bother to do so. In the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, those who pass by the poor man along the road are fully able to help him, but simply don’t bother. Sin, in Father Keenan’s words, is often a “failure to bother.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“The reading for the day was a story from the Old Testament, 2 Kings 5:1–19, about Naaman the Syrian. Naaman, commander of the Syrian king’s army, is suffering from leprosy and is sent by the king to ask the prophet Elisha for healing. In response Elisha tells him to do something simple: bathe in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman is furious. He thought that he would be asked to wash in some other river, some more important river. His servants say, “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?” (v. 13). In other words, why are you looking for some spectacular task? Do the simple thing. Naaman does it and is healed. Mike said that our search for God is often like Naaman’s. We’re searching for something spectacular to convince us of God’s presence. Yet it is in the simple things, common events and common longings, where God may be found.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Paradoxically, admitting your own powerlessness can free you from the need to fix everything and allow us to be truly present to the other person, and to listen. A cartoon in The New Yorker had one woman saying testily to her friend, 'There's no point in our being friends if you won't let me fix you.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Without the Jesuits you wouldn’t be enjoying your gin and tonic.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Every state of life, every decision, includes some pain that must be accepted if you are to enter fully into those decisions, and into new life. “All symphonies remain unfinished,” said Karl Rahner. There is no perfect decision, perfect outcome, or perfect life. Embracing imperfection helps us relax into reality. When we accept that all choices are conditional, limited, and imperfect, our lives become, paradoxically, more satisfying, joyful, and peaceful.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“Here’s a joke about discernment: A woman asks her local priest for advice. “Father,” she says, “I have a little boy who is six months old. And I’m curious to know what he will be when he grows up.” The priest says, “Place before him three things: a bottle of whiskey, a dollar bill, and a Bible. If he picks the bottle of whiskey, he’ll be a bartender. If he picks the dollar bill, a business man. And if he picks the Bible, a priest.” So the mother thanks him and goes home. The next week she returns. “Well,” said the priest, “which one did he pick: the whiskey, the dollar bill, or the Bible?” She says, “He picked all three!” “Ah,” says the priest, “a Jesuit!”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“God wants to be with you. God desires to be with you. What’s more, God desires a relationship with you.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

“What would St. Ignatius say about all this? Most likely he would furrow his brow and say (in Basque, Spanish, or Latin, of course) that while you need to earn a living, you have to be careful not to let your career become a “disordered affection” that prevents you from being free to meet new people, spending time with those you love, and viewing people as ends rather than means. It’s an “affection” since it’s something that appeals to you. It’s “disordered” because it’s not ordered toward something life-giving.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life