Joseph
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“You know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different.”
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“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”
― Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
― Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
― The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
― The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
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“At its heart, biblical faith is a creed of the antihero. It is the story of men and women who come to the end of themselves and must discover God.”
― Facing Leviathan: Leadership, Influence, and Creating in a Cultural Storm
― Facing Leviathan: Leadership, Influence, and Creating in a Cultural Storm
Joseph’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Joseph’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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