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Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers QUOTES

Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers QUOTES

1 " [T]here is no goodness that is not bodily and realistic and local. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

2 " Only the body saves the soul. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

3 " I have, by God’s grace, learned as a member of the Christian community what is the nature of God’s mercy, which does not leave me to overcome my sin by my own effort, so I have something to say to the fellow-sufferer who does not know where to look for hope. And what I have to say depends utterly on my willingness not to let go of that awareness of myself that reminds me where I start each day—not as a finished saint but as a needy person still struggling to grow. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

4 " Two hermits lived together for many years without a quarrel. One said to the other, “Let’s have a quarrel with each other, as other men do.” The other answered, “I don’t know how a quarrel happens.” The first said, “Look here, I put a brick between us, and I say, ‘That’s mine.’ Then you say, ‘No, it’s mine.’ That is how you begin a quarrel.” So they put a brick between them and one of them said, “That’s mine.” The other said, “No, it’s mine.” He answered, “Yes, it’s yours. Take it away.” They were unable to argue with each other. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

5 " A hermit said, “Do not judge an adulterer if you are chaste or you will break the law of God just as much as he does. For he who said ‘Do not commit adultery’ also said ‘Do not judge. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

6 " Silence is letting what there is be what it is. In that sense it has to do profoundly with God: the silence of simply being. We experience that at times when there is nothing we can say or do that would not intrude on the integrity and the beauty of that being. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers

7 " Henri de Lubac, one of the most outstanding Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, put it with a clarity and brevity very hard to improve upon: ‘It is not sincerity, it is truth which frees us… To seek sincerity above all things is perhaps, at bottom, not to want to be transformed. "

― Rowan Williams , Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers