Ash Wednesday Is Full Of Joy...the Source

We Too Often Forget That Faith Is A Matter Of Questioning And Struggle Before It Becomes One Of Certitude And Peace. You Have To Doubt And Reject Everything Else In Order To Believe Firmly In Christ, And After You Have Begun To Believe, Your Faith Itself Must Be Tested And Purified. Christianity Is Not Merely A Set Of Forgone Conclusions. Faith Tends To Be Defeated By The Burning Presence Of God In Mystery, And Seeks Refuge From Him, Flying To Comfortable Social Forms And Safe Convictions In Which Purification Is No Longer An Inner Battle But A Matter Of Outward Gesture.

Our Real Journey In Life Is Interior; It Is A Matter Of Growth, Deepening, And Of An Ever Greater Surrender To The Creative Action Of Love And Grace In Our Hearts. Never Was It More Necessary To Respond To That Action.

In An Age Where There Is Much Talk About "being Yourself," I Reserve To Myself The Right To Forget About Being Myself, Since In Any Case There Is Very Little Chance Of My Being Anybody Else.

If We Are To Love Sincerely, And With Simplicity, We Must First Of All Overcome The Fear Of Not Being Loved.

There Is A Pervasive Form Of Contemporary Violence To Which The Idealist Fighting For Peace By Nonviolent Methods Most Easily Succumbs; Activism And Overwork.