David Steindl-Rast Quotes

I compare tradition to a water main: the church suffers from the syndrome of rusty piping. If we could look into our subterranean water systems we would never drink water again. And yet they bring us clean water, even when they are rusty.

In the continuous flow of blessing our heart finds meaning and rest.

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy — because we will always want to have something else or something more.

If we say thank you and really mean it, we have said yes to our belonging together. We have said yes to the fact that we are receiving something which under no circumstances can we give ourselves-a present. It’s always another from whom I receive. When we cultivate that gratefulness to life, we not only cultivate trust in life and openness for surprise, we practice again and again saying yes to our limitless belonging to this great Earth household. That roots us and makes us at home; it gives us that great at-homeness.

The you must be there for the I to find itself. Trust in you gives me trust in myself. In the encounter between the you and the I, faith is born. I am so truly I because I have faith in you. Only the I that comes about through faith can have faith.

A minute of “waiting” in computer time is no longer than a moment spent “waiting” on a magnificent rocky beach for the sun to rise over the ocean; my perception is what makes them seem different. And how I perceive such things is a matter of spiritual discipline.

Now when I say that this has something to do with the child in us, I mean that there is in the child a longing to find a meaning, an openness to meaning which tends to be lost or at least overshadowed by our preoccupation with purposefulness. I should say right at the outset that when I use these two terms, purpose and meaning, I’m by no means playing off purpose against meaning or meaning against purpose. However, in our time and in our culture we are so preoccupied with purpose that one really has to bend backward and overemphasize the dimension of meaning; otherwise we will be lopsided. So if you find an extraordinary amount of emphasis on meaning, it is only to redress the balance.

Volite cijelim srcem,
Budite iznenađeni,
Zahvaljujte se i hvalite -
Tad ćete otkriti
Ispunjenost svog života.

Times that challenge us physically, emotionally, and spiritually may make it almost impossible for us to feel grateful. Yet, we can decide to live gratefully, courageously open to life in all its fullness. By living in a gratefulness that we don’t feel, we begin to feel the gratefulness we live.