20 Quotes by Joan Chittister

We have to learn to hear on every level at once if we are really to become whole. The problem is that most of us are deaf in at least one ear.We have to learn to listen to Scripture. And we have to learn to listen to life around us.

Into the midst of all this indistinguishable cacophony of life, the bell tower of every Benedictine monastery rings "listen." Listen with the heart of Christ. Listen with the lover's ear. Listen for the voice of God. Listen in your own heart for the sound of truth, the kind that comes when a piece of quality crystal is struck by a metal rod.

I have come to understand that the voice of God is all around me. God is not a silent God. God is speaking to me all the time. In everything. Through everyone. I am only now beginning to listen, let alone to hear.

I began to trust the questions themselves to lead me beyond answers to understanding, beyond practice to faith

Real contemplation, in other words, is not for its own sake. It doesn't take us out of reality. On the contrary, it puts us in touch with the world around us by giving us the distance we need to see where we are more clearly. To contemplate the gospel and not respond to the wounded in our own world cannot be contemplation at all. That is prayer used as an excuse for not being Christian. That is spiritual dissipation.

To a nonstop world, the Rule of Benedict brings balance and simplicity. In the face of a complex world with the twenty-four-hour workdays and constant motion, the Rule asks for a life that deals with a little bit of everything in proper measure: work, prayer, solitude, relationships. The Rule, in other words, is an antidote to excess and to human dwarfism. A proverb says, "Wherever there is excess, something is lacking." The Rule of Benedict mandates a measured life.

Benedictine conversion, then, is not an assertion of our strength or character. Benedictine spirituality is based on the simple acknowledgment that God will come to life before us and be reborn in us in unexpected ways day after day throughout our entire lives. We must be ready to respond to this God of woods and highways, of gentle breeze and cataclysm, of privacy and crowds - however this Spirit comes. Response is the essence of Benedictine spirituality.

In the monastic mind, work is not for profit. In the monastic mentality work is for giving, not just for gaining. In monastic spirituality, other people have a claim on what we do. Work is not a private enterprise. Work is not to enable me to get ahead; the purpose of work is to enable me to get more human and to make my world more just.

Humility is not a false rejection of God's gifts. To exaggerate the gifts we have by denying them may be as close to narcissism as we can get in life. No, humility is the admission of God's gifts to me and the acknowledgment that I have been given them for others. Humility is the total continuing surrender to God's power in my life and in the lives of others.