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The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of them, we become impossible to live with.

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
Ideals
Trouble
Impossible
Become
Live

More quotes by 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.
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Do you honestly believe God likes you, not just loves you because theologically God has to love you?
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Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.
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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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Anyone we come in contact with, we either offer them life, or we drain them.
Brennan Manning
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Those who have the disease called Jesus will never be cured.
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Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, WE HAVE BEEN RESTORED to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of Grace
Brennan Manning
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We are not cowed into timidity by death and life. Were we forced to rely on our own shabby resources we would be pitiful people in deed. But the awareness of Christ's present risenness persuades us that we are buoyed up and carried on by a life greater than our own.
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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I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me.
Brennan Manning
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Faith will become vision, hope will become possession, but the love of Jesus Christ that is stronger than death endures forever. In the end, it is the only thing you can hang onto.
Brennan Manning
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The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust
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 way you are with others every day, regardless of their status, is the true test of faith.
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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Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.
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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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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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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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