Quote of the Day (Steven Yeun, on ‘Compassion and Grace’)

“Judgment and shame is a lonely place, but compassion and grace is where we can all meet.”—American actor Steven Yeun quoted by Jonathan Abrams, “Steven Yeun Wins His First Emmy,” The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2024

The image accompanying this post, of Steven Yeun speaking on The Walking Dead, at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International in that city’s convention center, was taken July 10, 2015, by Gage Skidmore of Peoria, AZ.

Quote of the Day (Celeste Ng, on Fiction and Grace)

“Fiction makes you aware of complications. I'm interested in the times that things go wrong, but I'm also interested in trying to make some kind of meaning from that. Fiction should show you more dimensions. When you start to connect with other people, that's when that kind of humility that allows you to have grace comes in. Grace is something that you do after you've tripped: You're catching yourself and taking something that could have been a negative or a wrongdoing or a shortcoming and moving past it. Grace is about how you handle things when you are wrong or when you have done wrong. It's admitting that everyone, including you, is fallible.”—Author Celeste Ng quoted in “Soapbox—The Columnists; WSJ Asks Six Luminaries to Weigh in on a Single Topic; This Month: Grace,” WSJ. Magazine, December 2019/January 2020

The image accompanying this post, showing Celeste Ng at the 2018 National Book Festival, was taken Sept. 1, 2018, by Avery Jensen.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Paul Tillich, on How Grace Overcomes Sin)

“In grace something is overcome; grace occurs ‘in spite of’ something; grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement. Grace is the reunion of life with life, the reconciliation with self with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace transforms fate into a meaningful destiny; it changes guilt into confidence and courage. There is something triumphant in the word ‘grace’; in spite of the abounding of sin grace abounds much more."—German-born American existentialist theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965), “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (1948)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Blaise Pascal, on Grace)

"In the Christian religion, we find attributed to man, neither a debasement which renders him incapable of excellence, nor a holiness exempt from imperfection. No doctrine can be more suitable for man, than that which informs him of his twofold capability of receiving and losing grace, on account of the two extremes into which he is always in danger of falling—despair and pride.” —French philosopher, mathematician and logician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), Pensees, translated by Isaac Taylor (1670)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Pope Francis, on the Church ‘With Doors Always Wide Open’)

“The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door. There are other doors that should not be closed either. Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason. This is especially true of the sacrament which is itself ‘the door’: baptism. The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness. Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.” —Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (“Joy of the Gospel”), Nov. 24, 2013

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Flannery O'Connor, on Change and Grace)

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful."— Southern novelist and short-story writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald (1979)

Quote of the Day (Martin Luther, on Grace)

“Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes.”—Protestant theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546), “Heidelberg Disputation,” Apr. 26, 1518

Quote of the Day (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, on Grace and Free Will)

"Grace is necessary to salvation, free will is equally so; but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.” —St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) quoted in Rev. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964), Christian Perfection and Contemplation (1937)

Quote of the Day (Pope John Paul II, on Life and Love as a ‘Gift of God Who Heals’)

“Love and life according to the Gospel cannot be thought of first and foremost as a kind of precept, because what they demand is beyond man’s abilities. They are possible only as a result of a gift of God who heals, restores, and transforms the human heart by his grace.”—Pope St. John Paul II, in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor (“The Splendor of Truth”) (Aug. 6, 1993)

Quote of the Day (Paul Tillich, on Grace’s Transformative Power)

“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’ If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.”—Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (1955)