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Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

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
People
Centers
Tragedy
Attention
Rather
Become
Might

More quotes by Brennan Manning

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In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
Brennan Manning
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Do you honestly believe God likes you, not just loves you because theologically God has to love you?
Brennan Manning
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Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.
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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The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.' 'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.
Brennan Manning
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My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
Brennan Manning
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There is an extraordinary power in storytelling that stirs the imagination and makes an indelible impression on the mind.
Brennan Manning
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Reality, truth, and Jesus Christ are incredibly open-ended
Brennan Manning
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Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.
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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We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt.
Brennan Manning
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As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.
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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No man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words
Brennan Manning
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A ragamuffin knows he's only a beggar at the door of God's mercy.
Brennan Manning
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Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.
Brennan Manning
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May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is the Father, Son and Spirit.
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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I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, nor between Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.
Brennan Manning