d153b23
|
Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.
|
|
care
christ
christianity
christmas
clothe
enemies
feed
forgive
golden-rule
guilty
hungry
ill
inspirational
jesus
life
love
motivational
naked
service
unwanted
welcome
|
Steve Maraboli |
eebf9f3
|
Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).
|
|
christ
christianity
cross
enemies
inspirational
love
luther
|
Dietrich Bonhoeffer |
41dedd0
|
The world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, and as we watch, the world says, "This is love." God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, "This is love.
|
|
christ
christian
cross
god
inspirational
jesus
love
passion
romance
world
|
Joshua Harris |
ac05bdb
|
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. 'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom? 'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
|
|
christ
christian
christianity
jesus
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
e8d20b6
|
"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves." --
|
|
christ
cross
god
love
|
C.S. Lewis |
db72469
|
I held my heart back from positively accepting anything, since I was afraid of another fall, and in this condition of suspense I was being all the more killed.
|
|
christianity
inspirational
religion
christ
|
St. Augustine of Hippo |
b30bf1f
|
We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.
|
|
christ
christianity
cross
excess-love
god
inspirational
jesus
jesus-shock
love
philosophy
salvation
saved
saved-souls
sin
spirituality
the-cross
theology
|
Peter Kreeft |
b496bf2
|
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
|
|
christ
faith
god
jesus
religion
religious
|
Anonymous |
a815f87
|
But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver. No, said Tolkien, they are not. ...just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth. We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? In that case, he said, I begin to understand.
|
|
christ
myth
myths
splintered-light
sub-creator
tolkien
true-myth
|
Humphrey Carpenter |
e33d581
|
If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.
|
|
christ
christianity
christlessness
christology
fundamentalism
jesus
jesus-christ
jesus-shock
philosophy
spirituality
theology
|
Peter Kreeft |
9d49af8
|
The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.
|
|
christ
christianity
god
kindness
life
purpose
treasure
|
John Piper |
25f6771
|
Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone accept, His Lordship. The Cross, as it enters the love life, will reveal the heart's truth.
|
|
christ
christian
god
inspirational
jesus
lord
lordship
love
will
|
Elisabeth Elliot |
8718c3b
|
Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked.
|
|
christ
christianity
heaven
hell
jesus
jesus-christ
jesus-shock
meeting-jesus
philosophy
shock
spirituality
theology
|
peter kreeft |
6e3d889
|
"Pilate's skeptical sneer "What is truth?" was addressed to Truth Himself, standing there right in front of his face. The world's stupidest question was three words; God's profoundest answer was one Word."
|
|
christ
christianity
god
jesus
jesus-christ
jesus-shock
philosophy
pontius-pilate
theology
truth
|
Peter Kreeft |
db935bb
|
The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son.
|
|
catholicism
christ
christianity
god
jesus
jesus-christ
jesus-shock
philosophy
son-of-god
sonlight
spirituality
sun
sunlight
theology
|
Peter Kreeft |
0ecf402
|
It is just as crazy to be crazy about Christ as it is to be crazy about anything else.
|
|
christ
christianity
crazy
crazy-in-love
crazy-love
god
inspirational
jesus
jesus-christ
jesus-shock
philosophy
spirituality
theology
|
Peter Kreeft |
1e345c8
|
"The difference between the "natural" individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light which shines in the darkness is not only comprehended by the darkness, but comprehends it. The filius solis et lunae (the son of the Sun and Moon) is the possible result as well as the symbol of this union of opposites. It is the alpha and omega of the process, the mediator and intermedius. "It has a thousand names," say the alchemists, meaning that the source from which the individuation process rises and the goal toward which it aims is nameless, ineffable."
|
|
christ
coniunctio-oppositorum
enlightenment
individuation
psychoanalysis
religion
the-meaning-of-life
|
C.G. Jung |
d4c5590
|
"You know how it goes: at some point in your life, you fell in love with someone and had a glimpse of God. Then you abandoned life and lover
|
|
beloved
celebrate
celebrating
celebration
christ
divine
divinity
glimpse
god
goes
hafez
hafiz
in-love
jesus
kamand
kamand-kojouri
know
kojouri
life
love
love-is-love
love-movement
love-revolution
love-wins
lover
point
religion
rumi
someone
spiritual
spirituality
sufi
sufism
universe
worship
worshipping
|
Kamand Kojouri |
344d837
|
The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life--until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.
|
|
catholicism
christ
christianity
francis-of-assisi
jesus-shock
lady-poverty
philosophy
saint-francis
st-francis-of-assisi
theology
troubadour
|
Peter Kreeft |
26b7d12
|
A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer: 'I promise thee, this day thou shalt be With Me in Paradise' (Luke 23:43) It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.
|
|
christ
forgiveness
heaven
jesus
paradise
penitent-thief
repentance
salvation
the-cross
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
d56a178
|
But simple as the Sign of the Cross is, it carries a brave weight: it names the Trinity, celebrates the Creator, and brings home all the power of faith to the brush of fingers on skin and bone and belly. So do we, sometimes well and sometimes ill, labor to bring home our belief in God's love to the stuff of our daily lives, the skin and bone of this world -- and the Sign of the Cross helps us to remember that we have a Companion on the road.
|
|
catholic
catholicism
christ
christian
christianity
creator
cross
faith
god
god-s-love
holy-trinity
jesus
jesus-christ
love
prayer
religion
sacramental
sign-of-the-cross
trinity
|
Brian Doyle |
3a16c34
|
Only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.
|
|
christ
christian
done
faith
god
jesus
last
life
one
past
soon
|
Elizabeth George |
0b579c5
|
The two of us in that room. No past, no future. All intense deep that-time-only. A feeling that everything must end, the music, ourselves, the moon, everything. That if you get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere; but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face.
|
|
beauty
christ
deep
end
ending
ever
everywhere
feeling
future
heart
intense
moon
music
ourselves
past
sad
sadness
silver
|
John Fowles |
60461e5
|
"She was silent; the great wings almost stopped moving; only a delicate stirring seemed to keep them aloft. "Listen, then," Mrs. Whatsit said. The resonant voice rose and the words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that she could almost reach out and touch them: "Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that there is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord!"
|
|
christ
god
love
worship
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
8aa736e
|
We are fascinated by Ramses as Renaissance Christians were by the American Indians, those (human?) beings who had never known the word of Christ.
|
|
christ
god
indians
ramses
renaissance
|
Jean Baudrillard |
11b6adb
|
She had to strive to make every thought obedient to the love of Christ whatever violent feelings churned within her. She had to take her every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and leave no room for anger and jealousy and thoughts of revenge.
|
|
christ
jealousy
love
obedient
revenge
thought
|
Francine Rivers |
ed9c075
|
I don't want to be doomed to mediocrity in my feeling for Christ. I want to feel. I want to love. Take me, dear Lord, and set me in the direction I am to go
|
|
christ
life-lessons
love
|
Flannery O'Connor |
a40e587
|
Christ wasn't only a yogi; he was an activist, carrying his message to those who most needed it.
|
|
christ
energy-healing
|
Jonathan Talat Phillips |
fc5385d
|
Christ is, then, the perfect art work in the sense of that reality in whom is realised those goals that all artistic making has as its explicit or implicit ends. Because he is infinite meaning, life and being perfectly synthesised with finite form, the cave painters at Lascaux, or Hesiod penning his hymns, or Beethoven working on his last quartets, were all gesturing towards him though they realised it not.
|
|
beauty
christ
incarnation
theology-of-art
|
Aidan Nichols O.P. |