GREAT LINES FROM LITERATURE

GREAT LINES FROM LITERATURE

          This is a series of thoughts from great books that have influenced me.  I hope one or two of them will touch you, as well.  Perhaps I’ll get to a more “substantive” bulletin essay next week!

          “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.”  --Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

          “But in reason—haven’t you done all that God could reasonably ask?”  “Well, finally, it isn’t a matter of reason; it’s a matter of love.”  --Robert Bolt,  A Man For All Seasons.

          “It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”  --Antoine de Sant-Exupery, The Little Prince.

          “God, can you…send me off to hell and lock me in forever?”  “No…but if you chose to go there, I could never lock you out.” –Calvin Miller, in The Singer.

          “All endings are also beginnings.  We just don’t know it at the time.” – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven.

          “Purify my heart—make me fit to love, strong to suffer, courageous to persevere.” –Thomas   à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.

          “Most high and glorious God, bring light to the darkness of my heart.  Give me right faith, certain hope, and perfect charity.  Lord, give me insight and wisdom so I might truly discern your holy and true will.”  --St Francis of Assisi, Prayers.

          “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”   --St Augustine, Confessions

          “…in the end the Shadow [itself] was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” –JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King.

          “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.   We are fighting for costly grace.”   --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.

          “To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/

          Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.”  -- William Blake, Auguries of Innocence.