When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us.
–Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
Be the Church – that is, be an evangelical movement that tells the world of God’s passionate love for humanity. That, not institutional maintenance, is what the Church is for. When the Church is that, and does that, it flourishes…
–George Weigel (1951-
God gathered a people to himself in the Old Testament and in the fullness of time sent his Son to establish the Church as the sacrament of unity for all humanity. God calls each of us to belong to this great family. None of us become Christians on our own; we owe our relationship with God to so many others who passed on the faith, who brought us for Baptism, who taught us to pray and showed us the beauty of the Christian life: our parents and grandparents, our priests, religious and teachers. But we are Christians not only because of others, but together with others. Our relationship with Christ is personal, but not private; it is born of, and enriched by, the communion of the Church. Our shared pilgrimage is not always easy: at times, we encounter human weakness, limitations, and even scandal in the life of the Church. Yet God has called us to know him and to love him precisely by loving our brothers and sisters, by persevering in the fellowship of the Church and by seeking in all things to grow in faith and holiness as members of the one body of Christ.
–Pope Francis (1936- June 25, 2014
I have often imagined the Church as a large tree with one branch at one extreme and another branch at the other extreme. The branches do not know one another but are receiving sap from the same trunk and they share the same life.
–Oscar Romero (1917-1980) (30 September 1979)
When we part from one another, let us not depart from Him.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
Faith is the womb that conceives this new life, baptism the rebirth by which it is brought forth into the light of day. The Church is its nurse; her teachings are its milk, the bread from heaven is its food. It is brought to maturity by the practice of virtue; it is wedded to wisdom; it gives birth to hope. Its home is the kingdom; its rich inheritance the joys of paradise; its end, not death, but the blessed and everlasting life prepared for those who are worthy.
–Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395)
