Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Abraham Joshua HeschelRead
Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.
Interpretation
True awareness of the divine starts with a sense of awe and curiosity about the world.
Abraham Joshua Heschel's quote emphasizes that recognizing the divine presence requires a sense of wonder. This sense of wonder is essential to develop an understanding of the profound mysteries of life and existence, suggesting that an open mind and heart are crucial for spiritual awakening and deeper connection to the divine.
In practice
This quote can inspire a discussion in a spiritual gathering about the importance of wonder in faith.
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls.
Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
We worship God through our questions.
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.
Let gratitude for the past inspire us with trust for the future.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.