Fulfillment does not lie in comfort, ease, and following one's inclinations, but precisely in allowing demands to be made upon you, in taking the harder path. Everything else turns out somehow boring, anyway. Only the person who recognizes an ideal he must satisfy, who takes on real responsibility, will find fulfillment. It is not in taking, not on the path of comfort, that we become right, but only in giving.


Pope Benedict XVI

Making the decision to have a child -- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone

You must keep your eyes on the risen Christ at all times, or life will seem to be just a bitter joke.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

Pearl S. Buck

“At a Christian table, everyone must be supplied with a weapon. “Any of you who do not have a sword must sell his cloak and buy one,” we are told on Holy Thursday. There is also the arrangement of the table, following rigid hierarchical rules, with a head and foot, and places between these. The head is reserved for the father, and within this hierarchy, those at table pass bowls of food following a formal ritual of “please pass” and “thank you.” The centerpiece is the cooked carcass of a dead animal. After grace, the father carves the meat – not to be served, but to serve – and each person is singled out and given individual recognition.”

From David Bereford’s, “Suppertime” in Gilbert Magazine

“Lay this body anywhere and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you. That you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”

Saint Monica

That does not mean we shouldn't enjoy ourselves. But rather that the universe has put us here for higher purposes than watching television reruns."

Duane Elgin

“That’s the thing about dogs. There isn’t a human being in the world worthy of a dog’s welcome.”

From Richard Power’s, “The Echo Maker”

"Sometimes we must give up the life we planned in order to live the life we have."

Donna Shaw