“You tell me: Can you live crushed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.” LooksProblemPastDesireChurchMemoriesBuildingGoes OnWeightUrgentCrushedPast MemoriesBuilding Something Author:Pope Francis
“When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell.” SaidCountryPastJesusChurchHellInformationFarmersSermonsMeek Author:Vance Havner
“That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith — particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith — places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. Do not spread disease germs!” PastSpiritualChurchLeaderMastersDiseaseWeaknessEternityDelightSpreadFaithfulServingHistorianScholarEmployedRepentPointingGermsFrailtyDestroyersJeopardyGreat Spiritual Author:Boyd K. Packer
“One faith, St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One.” PeopleWritingDifferentWould BePastCertainChurchCenturyUnityDenyCatholicismIdenticalPresent Day Author:Thomas Aquinas
“To accept with unquestioning faith, or to refuse to reconsider any particular view held by the Church in the past, is as unreasonable as it is unsafe. The faith of the Church is a progressive affair.” PastChurchViewsAcceptingParticularAffairRefuseProgressiveUnreasonableUnsafe Author:George Trumbull Ladd
“In South America euphemism appears to be the grisly preserve of violent power. 'Liberty' was the name of the biggest prison in Uruguay under the military dictatorship, while in Chile one of the concentration camps was called 'Dignity.' It was the self-styled 'Peace and Justice' paramilitary group in Chiapas [Mexico] that in 1997 shot 45 peasants in the back, nearly all of them women and children, as they prayed in a church. What have the souls of the south done over the past few decades to deserve quite so much liberty and dignity and peace and justice?” ChildrenSoulSelfDoneAmericaPastNamesLanguageChurchJusticeLibertyViolenceGroupsMilitaryShotsDeserveDignityPrisonSouthDecadesViolentOppressionPreservesConcentrationCampsMexicoDictatorshipPeasantsOver The PastPeace And JusticeChileSouth AmericaConcentration CampEuphemism Author:Isabel Fonseca
“The world may disagree with the Church, but the world knows very definitely with what it is disagreeing. In the future as in the past, the Church will be intolerant about the sanctity of marriage, for what God has joined together no man shall put asunder; she will be intolerant about her creed, and be ready to die for it, for she fears not those who kill the body, but rather those who have the power to cast body and soul into hell.” KnowsMenWorldMaySoulBodyTogetherPastDiesChurchHellReadyCastsDisagreeCreedsFear NotSanctityReady To DieSanctity Of Marriage Author:Fulton J. Sheen
“They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, hay-stacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. Still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming, "Faster! Faster!"” KindStillsWould BePastYoungHouseWaterChurchDarkTreeObjectsGrewShotsPursuitNoiseFasterGatesUnclesFeathersHurricanesSpookyRoaringVelocityYoung LadiesHayDark Trees Book:The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club Source: The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club
“You know the worst: your wills are fickle, Your values blurred, your hearts impure And your past life a ruined church-- But let your poison be your cure.” KnowsHeartPastValuesChurchWorstSuicideCuresPoisonOur PastRuinedYour PastPast LifeFickle Book:Selected poems Source: Selected poems
“Old churches must not simply stand as monuments to the past but as spiritual grandparents that have invested in the future by passing on their life to others and releasing their offspring to form new congregations. Church planting needs to be given priority by old-line denominations.” NeedsPastSpiritualFormGivenChurchLinesPrioritiesPassingPassingsGrandparentMonumentOffspringCongregationDenominationsPassing OnOld Churches Author:Eddie Gibbs
“There's a lot of Republicans who may have in the past been critical of fellow Catholics who they call 'cafeteria Catholics' who don't follow the church's teachings - say, on abortion. But now, are they going to become 'cafeteria Catholics' themselves and not follow the church's teachings on climate change?” MayPastChangeChurchTeachingRepublicanCatholicFellowsClimateClimate ChangeCriticalAbortionCafeteria Author:Bob Inglis
“Orthodox churches, autocracy and national traditions are supposed to form a new national ideology in Russia. This would mean that Russia would be overtaken by its past, and our past would be our future.” MeanWould BePastFormChurchTraditionRussiaIdeologyOrthodoxOur FutureOur PastAutocracyOrthodox Church Author:Vladimir Sorokin
“I think today the church faces a very real challenge in not repeating the errors of the past, in sort of a stand off, a fear of science.” ThinkingRealTodayPastFacesChallengesChurchErrors Author:George Coyne
“For the machine meant the conquest of horizontal space. It also meant a sense of that space which few people had experienced before – the succession and superimposition of views, the unfolding of landscape in flickering surfaces as one was carried swiftly past it, and an exaggerated feeling of relative motion (the poplars nearby seeming to move faster than the church spire across the field) due to parallax. The view from the train was not the view from the horse. It compressed more motifs into the same time. Conversely, it left less time in which to dwell on any one thing.” PeopleFeelingsPastMovingLeftChurchSpaceViewsOne ThingFieldsMachinesHorseTrainDuesSurfaceFasterLandscapeRelativeConquestSuccessionUnfoldingSeemingExaggeratedHorizontalMotifsSpires Author:Robert Hughes
“Today's Catholic church seems to reward authoritarian personalities who are clearly ill, violent, sexually obsessed and unable to remember the past.” SeemsTodayPastRememberReligionChurchPersonalityCatholicRewardsIllViolentObsessedCatholic ChurchSexuallyRemembering The Past Author:Matthew Fox