Christian Mystics Quotes

O Love, divine Love, why do You lay siege to me?
In a frenzy of love for me, You find no rest.

From five sides You move against me,
Hearing, sight, taste, touch, and scent.
To come out is to be caught; I cannot hide from You.

If I come out through sight I see Love
Painted in every form and color,
Inviting me to come to You, to dwell in You.

If I leave through the door of hearing,
What I hear points only to You, Lord;
I cannot escape Love through this gage.

If I come out through taste, every flavor proclaims:
"Love, divine Love, hungering Love!
You have caught me on Your hook, for you want to reign in me."

If I leave through the door of scent
I sense You in all creation; You have caught me
And wounded me through that fragrance.

If I come out through the sense of touch
I find Your lineaments in every creature;
To try to flee from You is madness.

Love, I flee from You, afraid to give You my heart:
I see that You make me one with You,
I cease to be me and can no longer find myself.

If I see evil in a man or defect or temptation,
You fuse me with him, and make me suffer;
O Love without limits, who is it You love?

It is You, O Crucified Christ,
Who take possession of me,
Drawing me out of the sea to the shore;

There I suffer to see Your wounded heart.
Why did You endure the p ~ Jacopone Da Todi

Jesus always existed. At the same time Jesus was begotten (made human). This is the perplexing and elusive mystic core of Christian faith. ~ Amos Smith

God is mystery, surpassing the senses and all knowledge, and yet God is at the core of our being. ~ Amos Smith

Theology at its best doesn't seek to solve, but to behold. ~ Amos Smith

Silence, is the mother of prayer, a return from the captivity of sin, unconscious success in virtue, a continuous ascension to heaven. ~ St. John Climacus

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction ~ Jarett Sabirsh

I believe in kindness and karma - which could make me a Buddhist. I believe in mystic healing and crystals' powers - which could make me a witch. I believe in truth, honor, and forgiveness - which could make me a Christian. I even believe in the existence of past lives and that each and every one of us is watched over by guides from the other side - which, to some, would make me totally woo-woo squared. ~ Emma Mildon

There is no prayer or good work so great, so pleasing to God, so useful to us as the Mass. ~ Lawrence Giustiniani

You can never control a wild heart no matter how hard you try. ~ Christian Coma

We ask, 'Why the need for God?' Maybe the better question is 'Why the need not to need Him?' And could it be that that question in fact evidences our need for Him? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

We usually speak of the Jewish-Christian civilization perhaps, the time has come, especially with regard to the Middle East conflict, to talk about the Jewish-Muslim civilization as an axis opposed to Christianity. ~ Slavoj Zizek

They imprisoned Joseph to cage his abilities but God empowered him to manifest his potentials ~ Ikechukwu Joseph

The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt - the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did. ~ Gore Vidal

One thing, however, is sure: unless Christians fulfill their prophetic role, unless they become the advocates and defenders of the truly poor, witness to their misery, then, infallibly, violence will suddenly break out. In one way or another 'their blood cries to heaven,' and violence will seem the only way out. It will be too late to try to calm them and create harmony. ~ Jacques Ellul

I actually do not believe that there are any collisions between what I believe as a Christian, and what I know and have learned about as a scientist. I think there's a broad perception that that's the case, and that's what scares many scientists away from a serious consideration of faith. ~ Francis Collins

In the final analysis, the only available options are either to reject the cross and with it the core of the Christian faith or to take up one's cross, follow the Crucified-and be scandalized ever anew by the challenge. ~ Miroslav Volf

The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience. ~ Augustus Hare

I'm more interested in lookin' forward than back. The past is done and there's no changin' it. ~ Heather Blanton

Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The Christian-Judaic God does not exist, and if He did exist as described in the Bible, He would certainly not be a good role model. ~ Robert Sherrill

Joy is that paradox where a man so trusts, is so enraptured, as to be caught up and lost in the other, while at the same time, being utterly known by the other, thus utterly himself. ~ Geoffrey Wood

As you help men to grow, as you work for peace, understanding and good will, your influence will merge, with the good influences of men of every age, into the eternal golden stream of God's goodness. ~ Wilferd Peterson

RELIGIONS BECOME INSTITUTIONS when the myths and rituals that once shaped their sacred histories are transformed into authoritative models of orthodoxy (the correct interpretation of myths) and orthopraxy (the correct interpretation of rituals), though one is often emphasized over the other. Christianity may be the supreme example of an "orthodoxic" religion; it is principally one's beliefs - expressed through creed - that make one a faithful Christian. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Judaism, a quintessentially "orthopraxic" religion, where it is principally one's actions - expressed through the Law - that make one an observant Jew. It is not that beliefs are irrelevant in Judaism, or actions unimportant in Christianity. Rather, it is that of the two religions, Judaism places far greater emphasis on orthopraxic behavior than does Christianity. ~ Reza Aslan

Did the Abrahamic God know that, by "divinely inspiring" the book of Genesis and other tales in the Bible, that He would cause millions to impede scientific understandings of our origins and push for myth to be taught in schools? Shouldn't he have left out the bit about humans being made from dust and ribs, knowing that fact? ~ David G. McAfee

I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. ~ Ignatius Of Antioch

Men like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic or class barriers ~ Donald McGavran

If you want to be an honorable man, then be what you pretend to be. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Their glee was greater glee in the fact that he was a good man, than he was any off-the-street kind of a guy who did this sort of thing without needing temptation...They delighted in the pain in the pain this would cause his wife and family.. ~ John Pontius

John Frame's magnificent work on the Christian life fully endorses the authority of Scripture and practically addresses the need to consider the situations and people involved in ethical decisions. ~ Richard L. Pratt, Jr.

I have hope, therefore, I am happy ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil's fools. ~ Martin Luther

God had certainly not abandoned her."
(Finding Margo) ~ Jen Turano

Nothing so clears the vision and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord. ~ John Gibson Paton

To ascend the mountain, we must descend to our knees. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The love of God is the first love. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

'Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends' (Jn. 15:13). In truth if someone hears an evil saying, that is, one which harms him, and in his turn, he wants to repeat it, he must fight in order not to say it. Or if someone is taken advantage of and he bears it, without retaliation at all, then he is giving his life for his neighbor. ~ Poemen

God loves you and created you in His own image. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord's wounds at arm's length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people's lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people. ~ Pope Francis

There's obviously always danger in making music or art for art's sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift. ~ Steven Curtis Chapman

Out of the will of God is a place God cannot go with you ~ Bukky Agboola

this consciousness I'm describing is gendered (and I think it is), it is clearly feminine. The single most damaging and distorting thing that religion has done to faith involves overlooking, undervaluing, and even outright suppressing this interior, ulterior kind of consciousness. So much Western theology has been constructed on a fundamental disfigurement of the mind and reality. In neglecting the voices of women, who are more attuned to the immanent nature of divinity, who feel that eruption in their very bodies, theology has silenced a powerful - perhaps the most powerful - side of God. ~ Christian Wiman

Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken
He is our Father, and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later. ~ Brigham Young

Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Every great accomplishments requires great grace and great enthusiasm. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

In The Bloudy Tenent, Williams points out that Constantine "did more to hurt Christ Jesus than the raging fury of the most bloody Neroes." at least under the Christian persecutor Nero, who was rumored to have had the Apostle Paul beheaded and Saint Peter crucified upside down, Christianity was a pure (if hazardous) way of life. But when Constantine himself converted to Christianity, that's when the Church was corrupted and perverted by the state. Williams explains that under Constantine, "the gardens of Christ's churches turned into the wildernesss of national religion, and the world (under Constantine's dominion) to the most unchristian Christendom." Legalizing, legitimizing the Church turned Christianity into just another branch of government enforced by "the sword of civil power," i.e., through state-sponsored violence. ~ Sarah Vowell

God, the Master Weaver. He stretches the yarn and intertwines the colors, the ragged twine with the velvet strings, the pains with the pleasures. Nothing escapes his reach. ~ Max Lucado

His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God's love, they cannot escape the cross. ~ D. A. Carson