“And so I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the Kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the Kingdom of God. Let go of all distractions until you are driven into the Core. Allow God to reshuffle your priorities and eliminate unnecessary froth. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, 'Pray for me that I not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor.' That is our first task: to grip the hands of Jesus with such tenacity that we are obliged to follow his lead, to seek first his Kingdom.”

“Discipline is to present us before grace, it does not produce grace to make sense.”

“Freedom from anxiety is characterized by three inner attitudes. If what we have we received as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety.”

“Worship may produce an outward change, but our inner condition will eventually be revealed”

“Spiritual disciplines answer the shallow world.”

“Restriction often enhances clarity.”

“Confession is a difficult discipline for us, because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin.”

“True service is a lifestyle. It acts from the ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need.”

“Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service, we must experience the many little death of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial”

“Meditation sends us into our ordinary world with greater perspective and balance.”

“Thomas Merton writes that if we have meditated on the events of the Passion but have not meditated on Dachau and Auschwitz, our perception of God at work in present times is incomplete.”