If you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid.
Interpretation
Withdrawing inward can lead to selfishness and stagnation.
This quote by Pope Francis suggests that isolating oneself can foster a self-centered mindset and hinder personal growth. Just as stagnant water becomes foul due to lack of movement and interaction, humans too can become corrupted by turning inward and neglecting external relationships and experiences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about mental health and the importance of community.
We are a church of sinners but we must not be afraid of holiness. Do not be afraid to aim for holiness and turn yourselves over to the love of God. Holiness does not mean performing extraordinary things but carrying out daily things in an extraordinary way that is with love, joy and faith.
I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.
No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. While it is quite true that the essential vocation and mission of the lay faithful is to strive that earthly realities and all human activity may be transformed by the Gospel, none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice
We face so many challenges in life: poverty, distress, humiliation, the struggle for justice, persecutions, the difficulty of daily conversion, the effort to remain faithful to our call to holiness, and many others. But if we open the door to Jesus and allow him to be part of our lives, if we share our joys and sorrows with him, then we will experience the peace and joy that only God, who is infinite love, can give.
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
This Christmas may we be consistent in living the Gospel, welcoming Jesus into the centre of our lives.
Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?
Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.
We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.
Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Ask yourself constantly, "What is the right thing to do?" Behave toward everyone as if receiving a great guest.
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