A Quote by Karl Rahner
In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all.
Related Quotes
It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said to have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy--a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all.
Learn, he says, that there will be hours, days and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible and nothing can change that; neither new girlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, or God.
I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.
The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is real. To those who have experienced its workings, the knowledge so gained is as real as that received through the operation of the five senses. I testify of this. . . . I urge you to continue throughout your lives to cultivate a heart in tune with the Spirit. If you do so, your lives will be enriched. You will feel a kinship with God our Eternal Father. You will taste the sweetness of joy that can be had in no other way.
The best part is still ahead of me - I haven't experienced my 'good old days' yet.
Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is myticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial-at once full of hope and full of fear-of the vastitude of human ignorance.
God wants to be our partner throughout life. Too often we are tempted to either carry the entire load ourselves or give everything to God and do nothing. God doesn't like either strategy. Sometimes He moves before us and sometimes after us - but He doesn't move without us. Without God... we cannot. Without us... God will not.
If we insist on visible proofs from God, we may well prepare the way for a permanent state of disappointment. True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will. As I searched through the Bible for models of great faith, I was struck by how few saints experienced anything like Job's dramatic encounter with God. The rest responded to the hiddenness not by demanding that he show himself, but by going ahead and believing him though he stayed hidden.
Mammograms are really sort of a gift. You can either catch something early or count your lucky stars because nothing was discovered. Either way, you're ahead of the game.
I've always been a step ahead. A lot of people haven't experienced the things I've experienced, and made me a stronger person. The life I've been exposed to has let me know what step to take and how not to go back a step. I take life one day at a time, and I prepare myself for each one of those days.
May nothing wind you up, nothing affright you; everything comes and goes. God, still, just there; through patience all will be achieved. If you have God, you lack nothing: God alone will do.
Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.
There is nothing that we can see on earth which does not either show the wretchedness of man or the mercy of God. One either sees the powerlessness of man without God, or the strength of man with God.
And I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will fold into the mystic
Those who wait for God are pilgrim souls that have no tie that will hold them when the definite command is issued; no prejudices that will paralyze their effort when in some strange coming of the light they are commanded to take a pathway entirely different to that which was theirs before; having no interests either temporal or eternal, either material or mental or spiritual, that will conflict with the will of God when that will is made known.
Whether you play or whether you're on the bench, or however it may be, at some point in your career you will be one of those three roles. You will either be a young, up-and-coming goalkeeper watching the experienced one, you'll either be on the bench or you'll be in goal yourself.
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