Spiritual Formation Quotes

A great part of the disaster of contemporary life lies in the fact that it is organized around feelings. People nearly always act on their feelings, and think it only right. The will is then left at the mercy of circumstances that evoke feelings. Christian spiritual formation today must squarely confront this fact and overcome it.

Spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.

My moral and spiritual formation does not allow me to be a dictator.

.. If I were a dictator, You can be sure that many things have happened.

Spiritual formation cannot, in the nature of the case, be a 'private' thing, because it is a matter of whole-life transformation. You need to seek out others in your community who are pursuing the renovation of the heart.

...Be holy men and women! Do not forget that the fruits of the apostolate depend on the depth of the spiritual life, on the intensity of prayer, of continual formation and sincere adhesion to the directives of the Church.

Spiritual formation in Christ moves us toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his.

The packaging for music has become a sort of King James Bible, where it elevates the contents to something more spiritual. This is something else that drove me to a newspaper format. I thought, "Let's put it in a newspaper, to get away from that spiritual thing."

In Spiritual formation we are aiming at a character and life that is so shaped that the deeds of Christ routinely and easily come from what is inside.

Everyone gets a spiritual formation. It's like education. Everyone gets an education; it's just a matter of which one you get.

One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.

Many Christians were suddenly prepared to look at traditional methods of spiritual formation. They could not help but see that spiritual growth and vitality stem from what we actually do with our lives, from the habits we form, and from the character that results.

For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation.

I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.

If we can't even spend a short amount of time each day with God in solitude, our spiritual formation will be seriously stunted.

You really can't justify anything else but giving your whole attention to spiritual formation in Christ.

The spiritual master can instruct the disciple though many different formats.

The real issue relating to exclusiveness is whether or not the Christian actually has a relationship with God, a presence of God, which non-Christians do not have. Apart from Christian spiritual formation as described here, I believe there is little value in claiming exclusiveness for the Christian way.

Everyone receives spiritual formation, just as everyone gets an education.

The only question is whether it is a good one or a bad one. We need to take a conscious, intentional hand in the developmental process. We need to understand what the formation of the human spirit is, and how it can best be done as Christ would have it done. This is an indispensable aspect of developing a psychology that is adequate to human life.

It is not that the university as such is against spiritual formation.

It is just that often the university does not know how to integrate spiritual formation within its academic disciplines.

I look at the bird in the cage and see the air, not only the air that is around the bird when it flies, but I see and feel the formative tendency of air in its form. When I do all this, then what lives in the forms becomes enlivened and spiritualized for me.