Making Sense out of Suffering

Here are some tidbits from my latest reading assignment. Peter Kreeft is the author.

"Solitude, the thing which ancient sages longed for as the greatest gift, is the very thing we give to our most desperate criminals as the greatest punishment we can imagine."

"...our faith is often a largely intellectual thing. We talk a good game of God, but really God makes a pretty unspectacular and non-total difference to our lives most of the time."

"We doubt. Doubt is glorious. Only one who can doubt, can believe..."

"Calvary is Judo. The enemy's own power is used to defeat him."

"The only hearts that do not break are the ones that are busily constructing little hells of loveless control, cocoons of safe, respectable selfishness to insulate themselves from the tidal waves of tears that come sooner or later."

"That is the deepest source of unbelief: not the intellect but the will."

"Paradoxically, the essence of suffering (death to self-will) can become its opposite (perfect joy) when it is undertaken freely for love of God."

There is a lot more where that came from. Keep in mind these are out of context. I only had to read 3 chapters, and don't even have the complete book, just fotocopies of these chapters.