He Was Not Only A Bore; He

It Is Only Possible To Succeed At Second-rate Pursuits - Like Becoming A Millionaire Or A Prime Minister, Winning A War, Seducing Beautiful Women, Flying Through The Stratosphere, Or Landing On The Moon. First-rate Pursuits - Involving, As They Must, Trying To Understand What Life Is About And Trying To Convey That Understanding - Inevitably Result In A Sense Of Failure. A Napoleon, A Churchill, Or A Roosevelt Can Feel Himself To Be Successful, But Never A Socrates, A Pascal, Or A Blake. Understanding Is Forever Unattainable.

When St. Teresa Of Avila Says, 'our Life In This World Is Like A Night In A Second Class Hotel' I Agree With Her Absolutely; And I Think It's Almost Insulting To God And Man To Suggest That Trivial Events Should Give Rise To Deep Concern On His Part.

In The End, Coming To Faith Remains For All A Sense Of Homecoming, Of Picking Up The Threads Of A Lost Life, Of Responding To A Bell That Had Long Been Ringing, Of Taking A Place At A Table That Had Long Been Vacant.

When The Devil Makes His Offer (always Open Incidentally) Of The Kingdoms Of The Earth, It Is The Bordellos Which Glow So Alluringly To Most Of Us, Not The Banks And The Counting-houses And The Snow-swept Corridors Of Power . . . Sex Is The Mysticism Of A Materialistic Society - In The Beginning Was The Flesh, And The Flesh Became Word; With Its Own Mysteries - This Is My Birth Pill; Swallow It In Remembrance Of Me! - And Its Own Sacred Texts And Scriptures - The Erotica Which Fall Like Black Atomic Rain On The Just And Unjust Alike, Drenching Us, Stupefying Us. To Be Carnally Minded Is Life!

People Think Of Faith As Being Something That You Don't Really Believe, A Device In Helping You Believe Simply It. Of Course That Is Quite Wrong. As Pascal Says, Faith Is A Gift Of God. It Is Different From The Proof Of It. It Is The Kind Of Faith God Himself Places In The Heart, Of Which The Proof Is Often The Instrument... He Says Of It, Too, That It Is The Heart Which Is Aware Of God, And Not Reason. That Is What Faith Is: God Perceived By The Heart, Not Be Reason.