If in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be 'devout' and to perform my 'religious duties', then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely 'proper', but loveless.
Pope Benedict XviRead
On the one hand, faith is a profoundly personal contact with God, which touches me in my innermost being and places me in front of the living God in absolute immediacy in such a way that I can speak with Him, love Him, and enter into communion with Him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Faith is a personal connection with God that deeply affects one's inner self.
This quote emphasizes the subjective nature of faith as a deeply personal experience that engages an individual with the divine. It highlights the immediacy and intimacy of one's relationship with God, suggesting that through faith, one can directly communicate, love, and establish a profound communion with Him, which goes beyond mere belief or doctrine.
Themes
FaithGodCommunionPersonalRelationship
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing personal spirituality, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of having a direct relationship with God.
More from Pope Benedict Xvi
All quotes →The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.
Pope Benedict XviRead
If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.
Pope Benedict XviRead
I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Faith is above all a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience [His] closeness, [His] friendship, [His] Love; only in this way does one learn to know [Him] ever more, and to love and follow [Him] ever more. May this happen to each one of us.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Do not be afraid of seeming different and being criticized for what might seem to be losing or out of fashion; your peers but adults too, especially those who seem more distant from the mindset and values of the Gospel, are crying out to see someone who dares to live according to the fullness of humanity revealed by Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Similar quotes
There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
Thomas AquinasRead
For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
I am absolutely against positive thinking. You will be surprised that if you don't choose, if you remain in a choiceless awareness, your life will start expressing something which is beyond both positive and negative, which is higher than both. So you are not going to be a loser. It is not going to be negative, it is not going to be positive, it is going to be existential.
RajneeshRead
There is the fear that we shan't prove worthy in the eyes of someone who knows us at least as well as we know ourselves. That is the fear of God. And there is the fear of Man -fear that men won't understand us and we shall be cut of from them.
Robert FrostRead
To wait on God is to live a life of desire toward Him, delight in Him, dependence on Him, and devotedness to Him.
Matthew HenryRead
How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?
Cormac MccarthyRead