Autumn W

“The joy of the Lord is not a ticket to be purchased by our fasts. He is always good.”
― Esau McCaulley, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal

“One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in the modern church is to reimagine spiritual maturity as the need to confess less. The unspoken assumption is, “As I ascend in relationship with God, I confess less because I have less to confess.” True spiritual maturity, though, is the opposite. It’s not an ascension; it’s an archaeological dig as we discover layer after layer of what was in us all along. Spiritual maturity means more confession, not less. Maturity is discovering the depths of my personal brand of fallenness and the depths to which God’s grace has really penetrated, even without me knowing it.”
― Tyler Staton, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer

“As Christians, we wake each morning as those who are baptized. We are united with Christ and the approval of the Father is spoken over us. We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“We ought to give ourselves to God in both mundane and spiritual matters. We should seek our satisfaction only in fulfilling His will, whether that leads to suffering or comfort. All things are equal to a soul truly surrendered to God.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God In Modern English