Quotes From "The Living Gospel" By Luke Timothy Johnson

1
If we are called to attention by God’s Life and Holy Spirit, then the ‘spiritual life’ is not a pleasant option we might like to pursue when we have space and time; it is that which is now creating its own space and time within us, and to neglect it is to lose ourselves. Luke Timothy Johnson
2
Those who are in pain — most of the world’s populations at any given moment — do not do a lot of thinking, speaking, or writing about suffering. All their energy goes into surviving. That is why a lot of what is said and written about suffering seems hollow to those actually in pain. Luke Timothy Johnson
3
It is our contemporary culture’s tragedy to have lost any sense of suffering as a positive dimension of human existence. Beginning with the premise that life ought to be without pain, we make suffering something to be avoided at all cost. We consider the equation between evil and suffering so self-evident that we make avoiding suffering the equal of fighting evil. No wonder we are the most narcotized generation ever to inhabit the earth, searching for ever more effective addictive patterns to anaesthetize our existence. . Luke Timothy Johnson
4
We all know that parents do not make children but that children make parents… Authentic parenting is one long sacrificial act…parenting reveals the way that sacrifice at once diminishes our life as we knew it…while at the same time revealing to us larger and infinitely more fascinating forms of life… Parents know experientially that the very process which makes them suffer also makes them grow. Luke Timothy Johnson