Our human hungers are seeds of hope. Robert Durback Being human is about being hopeful. But because we are incomplete, unfinished, hopelessness is also part of the deal. To ensure that we keep this hopelessness out of our hoping, we need to live out of our deepest desires. For when we stop wanting, we stop […]
Hope: the native land of the Spirit Emily Dickinson Sir Ninian Stephen, in his eulogy at “Weary” Dunlop’s State funeral, said that “Weary” inspired his men “through sheer nobility of character, strength of purpose and strength of body….with hope when hope was faint”. This capacity to inspire hope in others was central to Jesus of […]
We thank you for your continued support of the Spirit matters blog and are glad that we have been able to bring you a time of reflection and refreshment each week. We will be back in January 2021, ready to start a new year with a new series from Fr Philip Carter on Hope.
Faith necessarily refers us to something beyond ourselves. CH Dodd Faith “is the confidence that reality is not the same as what is being felt at any given moment”. Rowan Williams The act of faith is not a leap from darkness into light. It is an affirmation that light exists beyond the darkness …..Morris West It […]
Faith releases in us a power that is beyond us. Albert Nolan The great tragedy for Christianity (it’s been said) is the transfer of faith from the dimension of personal encounter into the dimension of formal instruction. Faith then is reduced to assent, believing that a statement or claim is true. Marcus Borg says we […]
The opposite of faith is not doubt, but the closed mind. True faith can only grow and mature if it includes the elements of paradox and creative doubt. Such doubt is not the enemy of faith but an essential element of it. For faith in God does not bring the false peace of answered questions […]
I shall not understand unless I believe. Anselm The Masai people of Africa, speaking to Vincent Donovan said “to have faith is to be sought out by God. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end the lion is God”. Think about times, […]
Faith is not an opinion, it is an attitude. Brother Roger of Taizé. So I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night, which light is God, our endless day. Julian of Norwich. Faith is a God-given way of imagining existence, not a cold truth, easily captured in concepts. Michael Paul Gallagher […]
To have faith in God is to revive what is concealed. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Archbishop Jean Marie Lustiger speaks of discovering God by situating ourselves differently in relation to ourselves, the world and “the One [we] do not know”. This suggests a radical kind of openness, a new kind of appreciating – not seeing […]
the touching of a mystery Alexander Schmemann Faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process than a possession. Frederick Beuchner Catherina de Hueck Doherty talks of the gift we bring when we listen a person’s soul into existence”. Jesus – in his “openness and availability to others” – aroused in […]