Category: Commonplace book

Today’s One-Liner (#277)

We are to keep our eyes on Him (and on our neighbors’ needs) rather than on ourselves.  –Peter Kreeft, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas

Simplify!

Simplify your life by throwing out all the things you have that you don’t need, all that’s not virtuous, useful, or pleasant. Don’t do anything for any other reason, e.g., because “everybody’s doing it” or…

One-Pointed Attention

Make an orderly series of your different studies, so as to throw yourself into them completely. Let each task take entire hold of you, as if it were the only one. That was Napoleon’s secret;…

Today’s One-Liner (#275)

Though meditation you can learn to stand back from the heat of mental processes that are raging out of control.  –Sri Eknath Easwaran, Seeing with the Eyes of Love: Reflections on a Classic of Christian…

Resurrecting the Frozen Heart

“Brother, in these past two months I’ve sensed a new man in me, a new man has arisen in me! He was shut up inside me, but if it weren’t for this thunderbolt, he never…

Today’s One-Liner (#273)

I looked with deep tenderness, and for the first time in my  life I consciously received the first seed of the word of God in my soul.  ––Starets Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Liturgical Impermanence

Much of the excitement of guitar Masses, living-room Masses, sport-shirted celebrants, readings from Eldridge Cleaver, coffee-and-donut Eucharists, and post-communion dancing has depended on the dramatic clash of the old and new, the unexpectedness of it…

Today’s One-Liner (#271)

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinion, because we very often differ from ourselves. –Samuel Johnson, Adventurer 107, cited in Paul Fussell, Samuel Johnson…