"Leaving home is, then, much more than an historical event bound to time and place. It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palms of God's hands and hidden in their shadows."
— Henri Nouwen
Source: The Return of the Prodigal Son, Part I, "Leaving Home"
life
Views: 509
"The cross is like a walnut whose outer rind is bitter, but the inner kernel is pleasant and invigorating. So the cross does not offer any charm of outward appearance, but to the cross-bearer its true character is revealed, and he finds in it the choicest sweets of spiritual peace."
— Sadhu Sundar Singh
Source: At the Master's Feet, ch. V "The Cross and the Mystery of Suffering" (tr. Arthur Parker)
Life, the Cross
Views: 469
"It is in every way a land full of perils, and especially to be dreaded by strangers on account of the great ferocity of the natives and the many kinds of poison which it is there common to give in what is eaten and drunk. The fear of this has deterred priests from abroad from going there to help the islanders. I have considered in what great necessity they are, with no one to instruct them or give them the sacraments, and I have come to think that I ought to provide for their salvation even at the risk of my life. I have resolved to go thither as soon as possible, and to offer my life to the risk."
— Francis Xavier
Source: Letter from Amboyna to the Society at Rome, May 1546 (H. J. Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, vol. 1)
Life, adventure, soul
Views: 386
"The Italian Jesuit Lodovico Buglio (1606-1682) was the first Catholic missionary to reach Sichuan. After Zhang Xianzhong conquered Sichuan in 1644, Buglio and Gabriel de Magalhães were pressed into his service; after Zhang's death Buglio was taken to Beijing in 1648, where after a short captivity he was left free to exercise his ministry, and he later suffered in the persecution under the Kangxi Emperor. He wrote and translated more than eighty works in Chinese, including Parts I and III of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the Roman Missal, the Breviary and the Ritual. He died in Beijing in 1682, was given a state funeral, and was buried in the Zhalan Cemetery."
— Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia, "Lodovico Buglio" (from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
Life, Faith, Hope, Love
Views: 384
"Rather burn out than rust out."
— George Leslie Mackay
Source: Motto traditionally attributed to Mackay (original source unconfirmed)
life
Views: 383
"On December 6, 1934, the China Inland Mission missionaries John and Betty Stam were seized by Red Army troops at Jingde, Anhui, and made to write to the CIM headquarters in Shanghai. John wrote that all their possessions had been taken, yet their hearts were at peace; he asked God to grant them courage and peace, and wrote that, whether by life or by death, God might be glorified. Two days later the couple were killed at Miaoshou; their baby daughter Helen, left on a bed, was found about 36 hours later and rescued by the evangelist Mr. Lo."
— Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
Source: bdcconline.net, "Stam, Betty" (including John Stam's letter to the CIM, December 6, 1934)
Life, prayer, plan, will, peace
Views: 339