Quote

The confessing church of American Ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands.

Brennan Manning

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Brennan Manning
Age: 75 †
Born: 1937
Born: April 27
Died: 2013
Died: April 12
Author
Catholic Priest
Theologian
New York City
New York
Richard Francis Xavier Manning
Moral
Affair
Fists
Church
Rules
Primarily
American
Gift
Receiving
Hands
Christianity
Join
Magdalene
Needs
Mystery
Peter
Clenched
Love
Grace
Essentially
Confessing
Philosophy
Code
Witnessing
Open
Keeping
Laden

More quotes by Brennan Manning

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The most powerful thing that can happen in the place of prayer is that you yourself become the prayer. You leave the prayer room able as Jesus' hands and feet on earth. This is what it means to pray continually (without ceasing), to see with the eyes of Jesus and to hear with His ears with every waking moment.
Brennan Manning
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There is the you that people see and then there is the rest of you. Take some time and craft a picture of the rest of you. This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.
Brennan Manning
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Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable.)
Brennan Manning
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One of my realizations in such an earthy atmosphere was that many of the burning theological issues in the church were neither burning nor theological.
Brennan Manning
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Letting ourselves be loved by God is more important than loving God.
Brennan Manning
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Everybody has a vocation to some form of life-work. However, behind that call (and deeper than any call), everybody has a vocation to be a person to be fully and deeply human in Christ Jesus.
Brennan Manning
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The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.
Brennan Manning
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The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.
Brennan Manning
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Those who have the disease called Jesus will never be cured.
Brennan Manning
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At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.
Brennan Manning
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Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.
Brennan Manning
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Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life--be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others...I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba's child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused
Brennan Manning
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Christianity happens when men and women accept with unwavering trust that their sins have been not only forgiven, but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Thus, my friend archbishop Joe Reia says, A sad Christian is a phony Christian, and a guilty Christian is no Christian at all.
Brennan Manning
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We even refuse to be our true self with God- and then wonder why we lack intimacy with him.
Brennan Manning
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The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.
Brennan Manning
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The love of Christ embraces all without exception. Fire of love, crazy over what You have made. Oh, divine Madman. (Prayer of Catherine Siena) Simply do the next thing in love. I have no sense of myself apart from you. Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable.)
Brennan Manning
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Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith.
Brennan Manning
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My trust in God flows out of the experience of his loving me, day in and day out, whether the day is stormy or fair, whether I'm sick or in good health, whether I'm in a state of grace or disgrace. He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am.
Brennan Manning
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By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.
Brennan Manning
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Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.
Brennan Manning