Quotes about Suffering

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

There is far too much of divorce, wherein hearts are broken, and sometimes lives are destroyed.

When watching 'The Passion,' Jews and Christians are watching two entirely different films. For two hours, Christians watch their Savior tortured and killed. For the same two hours, Jews watch Jews arrange the killing and torture of the Christians' Savior.

There's design, and there's art. Good design is total harmony. There's no better designer than nature - if you look at a branch or a leaf, it's perfect. It's all function. Art is different. It's about emotion. It's about suffering and beauty - but mostly suffering!

Lord, in our work for justice, let us not seek after martyrdom for its own sake, but neither let us turn away from your truth because we fear suffering. Give us grace to live faithfully whatever the cost. Amen.

But Jesus answered me with these words and said: Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.

We really do see the pattern Jesus warns us about: "Pick up the sword and you will die by the sword." Not only do innocent children suffer as collateral damage, but the one who picks up the sword also suffers. We've learned that lesson all too well. We are not made to kill. So when we do, it kills a part of us.

If we remove the cross, we are in danger of promoting a very cheap grace. Perhaps it should make us uncomfortable.

Today we can hear the whisper where we least expect it: in a baby refugee and in a homeless rabbi, in crack addicts and displaced children, in a groaning creation.

There are two ways to submit to authority, then. One is by obeying the good laws; the other is by openly suffering the consequences of disobeying the bad laws—that is

Augustine of Hippo: "In affliction, then, we do not know what it is right to pray for. Because affliction is difficult, troublesome and against the grain for us, weak as we are, we do what every human would do. We pray that it may be taken away from us. However, if he does not take it away, we must not imagine that he has forgotten us. In this way, power shines forth more perfectly in weakness.

As I left Calcutta, it occurred to me that I was returning to a land of lepers, a land of people who had forgotten how to feel, to laugh, to cry, a land haunted by numbness. Could we learn to feel again?