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Tony Hendra

Tony Hendra Quotes

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Famous Tony Hendra Quotes

“The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness.”

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Book:Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
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“But does contemptus mean 'contempt,' dear? Of course not. That would imply arrogance, superiority, pride. So much that we call worldly is actually just flawed or being seen through a cracked lens. Imperfect or imperfectly understood. Who are we to judge as contemptible a thing or person whose existence God sustains? Everything, however imperfect, has its purpose. No, Tony dear, contemptus mundi means 'detachment from the world,' seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis. Enduring or celebrating it, but never forgetting—even when it seems perfect and forever—that as the Bible says: 'all this shall pass like grass before the wind.”

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Book:Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
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“The other day Father Prior was telling me about a French writer, Jean-Paul Sartre. An existentialist. ... One phrase of his particularly struck me: 'L'enfer c'est les autres.' Do you think he meant that as a joke?" "I don't think humor's a strong point with existentialists." "I think it's p-p-poppycock. How can Hell be others? God is manifested in others. God is the Other. That's why the self must lose itself in love for the other. It's the self we must leave behind. Better to say Hell is the Self. L'enfer c'est moi.”

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Book:Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
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“Feelings trap us in the self, Tony dear. Doing a thing because you feel wonderful about it—even a work of charity—is in the end a selfish act. We perform the work not to feel wonderful but to know and love the other. It's the same with your romance. You may not feel your love, but God is still your loved one, your other.”

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Book:Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
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“Remember: God's grief at the unspeakable things we do to one another is beyond measuring, but so is His mercy. It might seem a terrible thing to say to people who've lost and suffered so much at the hands of hatred and violence. But true courage is not to hate our enemy, any more than to fight and kill him. To love him, to love in the teeth of his hate—that is real bravery. That ought to earn people m-m-medals.”

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Book:Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
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