Poets & Saints

John 17:21 (NIV)

"…that all of them may be one,

Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

May they also be in us

so that the world may believe

that you have sent me."

We are all in this together.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

When we carry our small suffering in solidarity with the one universal longing of all humanity, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together, and it is just as hard for everybody else.

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Colossians 1:24 (NIV)

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you,

and I fill up in my flesh

what is still lacking

in regard to Christ's afflictions,

for the sake of his body,

which is the church.

My suffering is held within something larger.

Etty Hillesum, from An Interrupted Life

"Living and dying, sorrow and joy...

it is all as one in me,

and I accept it all as one mighty whole...

I wish I could live for a long time

so that one day I may know how to explain it...

And that is why I must try to live

a good and faithful life to my last breath:

so that those who come after me

do not have to start all over again,

need not face the same difficulties.

Isn't that doing something for future generations?"

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Ephesians 4:4, 7 (NIV)

There is one body and one Spirit,

just as you were called

to one hope when you were called.

But to each one of us

grace has been given

as Christ apportioned it.

I am because we are.

Desmond Tutu, from Ubuntu: On the Nature of Human Community

"A person is a person through other persons.

None of us comes into the world fully formed.

We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak,

or behave as human beings

unless we learned it from other human beings.

We need other human beings in order to be human.

I am because of other people."

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Galatians 6:15 (NIV)

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.

God saves by loving and including.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

"God is the ultimate nonviolent one, so we dare not accept any theory of salvation that is based on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion. When we do, these are legitimated as a proper way of life. God saves by loving and including, not by excluding or punishing."

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Philippians 3:10 (NIV)

I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

I love God as much as I love the person I love the least.

Dorothy Day

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

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Ephesians 3:8–10 (NIV)

8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of Godshould be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms

I hold what cannot yet be resolved.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

"Following Jesus is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world. To allow what God for some reason allows — and uses. And to suffer ever so slightly what God suffers eternally."

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John 1:29 (NIV)

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

Love takes away what I cannot carry alone.

Flannery O'Connor, from The Habit of Being

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful."

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Luke 23:34 (NIV)

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

Lord, show me what I cannot yet see in myself.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from The Gulag Archipelago

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil."

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John 12:47 (NIV)

"If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world."

God is not violent. God is love.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

"It is not God who is violent. We are. 

It is not that God demands suffering of humans. We do. 

God does not need or want suffering — neither in Jesus nor in us."

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John 10:10 (NIV)

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

I am fully alive in the presence of God.

Irenaeus of Lyon, from Against Heresies (4.20.7)

"For the glory of God is a living human being; and the life of the human consists in beholding God."

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