A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that only God determines the ultimate purpose and value of life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's quote reflects the belief that the end of life and its significance are under God's sovereign control. It delves into the idea that humans cannot fully understand the purpose of life, as it is divinely orchestrated, and suggests that God alone has the authority to judge the worth of a life based on His divine plan.
In practice
This quote could be used in a sermon to emphasize faith in God's plan for our lives.
A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then let’s see something to prove it.
It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
We have to see that the human person needs the infinite. If God's not there, if the infinite isn't available, the human person creates its own paradises, giving the appearance of 'infinitude' that can only be a lie.
In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.
Take faith, for example. For many people in our world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt aren't opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites, they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners.
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
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