Quote

Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father's active goodness and unrestricted love.

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
Trust
Destroys
Risk
Craving
Path
Clarity
Fear
Unknown
Unrestricted
Father
Attempt
Childlike
Love
Ahead
Stretching
Active
Trusting
Goodness
Eliminate

More quotes by Brennan Manning

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To be alive is to be broken to be broken is to stand in need of grace.
Brennan Manning
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Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father.
Brennan Manning
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The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
Brennan Manning
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Whatever we have done in the past, be it good or evil, great or small, is irrelevant to our stance before God today. It is only NOW that we are in the presence of God.
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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Christianity doesn’t deny the reality of suffering and evil… Our hope… is not based on the idea that we are going to be free of pain and suffering. Rather, it is based on the conviction that we will triumph over suffering.
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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Jesus was victorious not because he never flinched, talked back, or questioned, but having flinched, talked back, and questioned, he remained faithful.
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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To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Brennan Manning
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We are enveloped in peace, whether or not we feel ourselves to be at peace. By that I mean the peace that passes understanding is not a subjective sensation of peace if we are in Christ, we are in peace even when we feel no peace.
Brennan Manning
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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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While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life.
Brennan Manning
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The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.
Brennan Manning
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When absolute control and rigid obedience pose as love within the family and the local faith-community , we produce trained cowards rather than Christian persons.
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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Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as Abba, I belong to you. . . . Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.
Brennan Manning
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The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.
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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Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives.
Brennan Manning