“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the Glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marianne Williamson
From A Return to Love

Quotes from Henri Nouwen´s book ¡Gracias!:
Fr. Henri Nouwen is a renowned theologian and scholar who spent time at the Maryknoll Institute studying spanish for three months (same as me) and worked in Peru after his time at the institute. ¡Gracias! is a famous book that details his life, feelings, and remarkable insights about his experiences in both the institute and Peru as a volunteer. The book is highly recommended reading for all who are students at the institute.

"Latin America: impressive wealth and degrading poverty, spendid flowers and dusty broken roads, loving people and cruel torturers, smiling children and soldiers who kill. It is here that we have to search for God´s treasure."

"We decide to commit ourselves to the poor, that is, to those who form the oppressed class, those who depend on their work but do not have the means to have a dignified life, since they are exploited by others who deny them their rights. Our work is to search with the poor for the treasure hidden in the ground on which they stand."

"The more we give, the more we support, guide, counsel, and visit, the more we receive, not just similar gifts, but the Lord [itself]. To go to the poor is to go to the Lord. Living this truth in our daily life makes it possible to care for people without conditions, without hesitation, without suspicion, or without the need for immediate rewards. With this sacred knowledge, we can avoid becoming burned out."

"It´s hard for me to accept that the best I can do here is probably not to give but to receive. By receiving in a true and open way, those who give to me can become aware of their own gifts in the eyes of those who receive them gratefully. Gratitude thus becomes the virtue of a missionary. And what else Eucharististic life than a life of gratitude?"

"We are one in [God] and this unity allow us to be free, courageous, and full of hope. Whatever my experience in Latin America will bring to me, it will be a part of my body formed in love and will reverberate in all its members. The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are indeed food for eternal life, a life that liberates us to live without fear and to travel without apprehension."

"A true spirituality cannot be constructed, built, or put together; it has to be recognized in the daily life of people who search together to do God´s will in the world."

"Presidents, mayors, and bishops come and go but God continues to enter into our lives."

"True liberation is freeing people from the bonds that prevented them from giving their gifts to others."

"True prayer always includes becoming poor. When we pray we stand naked and vulnerable in front of our Lord and show [God] our true condition. If one were to do this not just for oneself, but in the name of the thousands of surrounding poor, wouldnt that be "mission" in the true sense of being sent into the world as Jesus himself was sent into the world?"

"Latin America offers us the image of the suffering Christ. The poor we see every day, the stories of deportation, torture, and murder we hear every day, and the undernourished children we touch every day, reveal to us the suffering Christ hidden within us. When we allow this image of the suffering Christ within us to grow into its full maturity, then ministry to the poor and oppressed becomes a real possibility because then we can indeed hear, see, and touch [God] within us as well as among us. Thus, prayer becomes ministry and ministry becomes prayer. Once we have seen the suffering Christ among us, we will recognize him in our innermost self. Thus we come to experience that the first commandment to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, resembles indeed the second: You must love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:39-40)"

***My favorite for this quote entry*** "As the days and weeks pass by and I come to know the students of the language school better, I realize more and more how insecure, fearful, and often lonely many of us are. Not only do we continue to hope for mail from "home," but we also continue to be submerged by thousands around us. At home we at least had our own niche in life, our own place in the world where we could feel useful and admired. Here none of that is present. Here we are in a world that did not invite us, in which we cannot express ourselves and which constantly reminds us of our powerlessness. And still, we know that we are sent here, that God wants us here, and that it is here that we have to work out our salvation."

"May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be."
- St. Theresa's Prayer

"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to appreciate beauty and find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child or a garden patch... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I am only one, but I am one, I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do, and with the help of God, I will do."
- Everett Hale

"Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another."
- Emma Goldman

"The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order... the continuous thread of revelation."
- Eudora Welty

"Giving to others selflessly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the world and illuminating your own darkness, your virtue becomes a sanctuary for your self and for all beings."
- Lao Tzu

"Never give up until you have released your unused capacities for service and shared your gifts with others. One enkindled spirit can set hundreds on fire."
- William Danforth

"There is a simple, clean-cut vivid challenge to those who live in freedom. This challenge demands that to those in need we give some of our time, some of our humanity, some of our life, and some of whatever light we may have to give."
- Thomas Dooley


MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"


"Let go and let God"
- Natalie Nathan


"To live and serve God and our brothers and sisters in the tangles of our minds demands infinite patience with ourselves and our brothers and sisters."
- Fr. Michael Himes


"It is not about solving the problem, but about managing the dilemma."
- Maureen R. Connors, Ph.D.


"Don't envy the martyr, be one!"
- Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shots Card #1943


"The only way to be sure of surviving is never to do anything for the last time."
- Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shots Card #3418


"The greatest wonder is how little time it takes before any new wonder no longer seems wonderful."
- Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shots Card #2761


"Never say always, but don't always say never."
- Ashleigh Brilliant, Pot-Shots Card #1058

"With the eyes of faith, consider the greatness of your mission and the wonderful amount of good you can accomplish. And also consider the great reward promised to those who have taught the truth to others and have helped form them into justice: 'they will shine eternally in the skies like the stars of the heavens.' With the hope of this glory, we must generously complete the Lords work"
- Fr. Basil Moreau, CSC
Founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross


"We can only survive when we have a goal - a passionate purpose which bears upon the public interest."
- Margaret E. Kuhn


"I want to be present. I want to share what I have - my life, my laughter, my love, my joy. I want to give to you as I receive from you. I want to learn from you so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, so that we can grow together and walk together and talk together and live together in love, in joy, in peace forever"
- author unknown


"Spirituality is more than just religion and other streotypes we are fed so much. For some, the traditional ways work, and that's good. For me, my relationship with God is found in my willingness to be in relation and kinship to others, particularly those who are most often forgotten in our society. It has and I hope will contine to be defined through my service for AND with others. My spiritual life has always been chaotic and perhaps sometimes fluid and undefined. But in the end, through all the mud and the muck, it's been something to call uniquely my own. And so I bring myself: the struggles, questions, and passion for social teaching and liberation theology to this group of volunteers, and we interact as an "intentional community" in an attempt to find God in our own lives, and our own ways. And I won't always agree with their theology. They most certainly will not always agree with mine, but we will learn and grow. Ultimatley we'll be challenged to understand our own lives better through attempts to understand the lives of others."
- Patrick Furlong


"The word 'compassion,' helps us to understand the quality of the 'approach,' for it is important in the biblical text as well. To have compassion etymologically, means 'to suffer with.' It means to suffer along side, to enter fully into the situation of the other, sharing what ever comes. The initiative is not taken to fulfill some formal religious obligation but to act out of concern for the other...[thus,] 'compassion' really means 'interhuman justice.'
- Unexpected News (Changing the Question, Jesus' Story: From Head Trips to Foot Trips)


The neighbor is the one from afar whom I approach...When this begins to happens, the world will change, along with our ways of acting with it. All those things that create barriers between neighbors, thus understood, must be challenged, smashed if necessary, and rebuilt.
- Unexpected News (Changing the Question, Jesus' Story: From Head Trips to Foot Trips)


"Holy One of Blessing
Giver of all life and beauty
You love us into being.
We come before you in gratitude
for your call to us - alone and together -
into a journey of love and service.

Bless us with the gift of vision
To see your beauty around us and within us,
To delight in the lavish gifts of your
gracious creation. Bless us with vision!

Bless us with the gift of courage...
To embrace the darkness and pain on our journey,
To stand in love with those who suffer and are in
pain. Carve into our hearts your faithful love.
Bless us with courage.

Bless us with the gift of gentleness
To walk through our joys and pains with gentle love.
Teach us to be gentle with our sisters and brothers
as we share in the wonder of your call to unity.
Bless us with gentleness!

Bless us with the gift of compassion...
To see the interconnectedness of all life,
To celebrate your healing presence to others
in and through us.
Bless us with compassion! "
- author unknown