Some Quotes

"Here we might also note something that otherwise devout folks sometimes forget, that embracing the Cross in this way also excludes turning the violence of the world in on ourselves in the seemingly safe and pious turning of anger and scorn inside so that they become depression, anxiety, self-hate, and the sort of embrace of victimhood and misfortune that becomes a kind of rotten vanity. Jesus died and rose so that we could be free and happy, not so that we could sit around savoring the rotten luxury of our own misery, so long as we're not being hurtful to anyone else (even though we probably are hurting others by our attachment to our misery, but because we have become vainly focused on ourselves we fail to notice.)" --Brother Charles of minor friar in his post Immaculate Heart.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." --C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (I have come across this from Lewis several times before, but happened on it the other day at Homeless in America and it struck me anew, particularly this: You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.)

"When the dark shadow at the Gate withdrew Gandalf still sat motionless. But Pippin rose to his feet, as if a great weight had been lifted from him; and he stood listening to the horns, and it seemed to him that they would break his heart with joy. And never in after years could he hear a horn blown in the distance without tears starting in his eyes." --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King