Joe Cisneros

“The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out practically all references to anything like 'religion,' to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

“Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.”
― Brennan Manning, All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir

“Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one’s core identity as Abba’s child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags.
Abba’s children find a third option. They are guided by God’s Word and by it alone. All religious and political systems , Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba’s children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative and liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel—uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisy of bullying religion”
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
― St Francis of Assisi