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To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God.

Joan D. Chittister

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Joan D. Chittister
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More quotes by Joan D. Chittister

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Ideals are like stars, Carl Schurz wrote. You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like seafarers on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny. Ideals do not determine what we do to make a living in life They govern what we become as we do it.
Joan D. Chittister
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Life always comes out of death. The present rises from the ashes of the past. The future is always possible for those who are willing to re-create it.
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Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside.
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The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually we become what we say we are - followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God
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A life of value is not a series of great things well done it is a series of small things consciously done.
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There is no amount of darkness that can extinguish the inner light. The important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us. The task is to control the environment within us.
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We are living in a period of commerical globalization. What we really need is spiritual globalization.
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We have learned that the things we amassed to prove to ourselves how valuable, how important, how successful we were, didn't prove it at all. In fact, they have very little to do with it. It's what's inside of us, not what's outside of us that counts.
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To insist on living until we die may be one of life's greatest virtues.
Joan D. Chittister
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Imagine how happy, how holy, life would be if we ever really learn to see beauty.
Joan D. Chittister
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Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.
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If anything diminishes a person, it is the cancer of constant complaining.
Joan D. Chittister
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prayer can be an easy substitute for real spirituality. It would be impossible to have spirituality without prayer, of course, but it is certainly possible to pray without having a spirituality at all. How do you know? 'Am I becoming kinder?' is a good place to start.
Joan D. Chittister
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Humility is authenticity. It comes from the Latin word humus, meaning earth. As the church has taught, we're made of dust, and unto dust we shall return.
Joan D. Chittister
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The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us. The harvest of youth is achievement the harvest of middle-age is perspective the harvest of age is wisdom the harvest of life is serenity.
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The question is not, do we go to church the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor.
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To be a presence of perpetual thanksgiving may be the ultimate goal of life. The thankful person is the one for whom life is simply one long exercise in the sacred.
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June is the time for being in the world in new ways, for throwing off the cold and dark spots of life.
Joan D. Chittister
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We must learn to pray out of our weaknesses so that God can become our strength.
Joan D. Chittister
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To be contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God.
Joan D. Chittister