Of course the world of work begins to become - threatens to become - our only world, to the exclusion of all else. The demands of the working world grow ever more total, grasping ever more completely the whole of human existence.
Josef PieperRead
The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average man and the average Christian are not yet opened.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True friendship with God offers a profound understanding of reality that most people do not perceive.
In this quote, Josef Pieper emphasizes the idea that genuine friendship with God allows individuals to gain insights and awareness into a deeper level of reality that is often inaccessible to those who lack such a relationship. This perspective encourages a spiritual connection that reveals truths and dimensions beyond ordinary human understanding.
Themes
FriendshipGodAwarenessRealitySpirituality
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about deepening our relationship with God, this quote can highlight the transformative power of spiritual friendship.
More from Josef Pieper
All quotes βBeing precedes Truth, and ... Truth precedes the Good.
Josef PieperRead
Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.
Josef PieperRead
The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward that happiness which is the same as God Himself, and which is the aim and purpose of all that happens in the world.
Josef PieperRead
The happy man needs nothing and no one. Not that he holds himself aloof, for indeed he is in harmony with everything and everyone; everything is "in him"; nothing can happen to him. The same may also be said for the contemplative person; he needs himself alone; he lacks nothing.
Josef PieperRead
To celebrate a festival means: to live out, for some special occasion and in an uncommon manner, the universal assent to the world as a whole.
Josef PieperRead
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Oh, Eeyore, you are wet!β said Piglet, feeling him. Eeyore shook himself, and asked somebody to explain to Piglet what happened when you had been inside a river for quite a long time.
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I dedicate the merit of the occasion to all beings. This gesture of universal friendship has been likened to a drop of fresh spring water. If we put it on a rock in the sunshine, it will soon evaporate. If we put it in the ocean, however, it will never be lost. Thus the wish is made that we not keep the teachings to ourselves but to use them to benefit others.
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You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.
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He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.
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Winning friends begins with friendliness.
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If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever.
Milan KunderaRead