Karen Armstrong Quotes

I didn’t want to be a nun.

I truly believe that God brought this, Dorothy Day script to me, because for a long time up until I was in eight grade - I wanted to be a nun.

While studying at Barcelona, Ignatius was in doubt whether, after completing his studies, he should enter some Religious Order, or go from place to place, according to his custom. He decided to enter upon the religious life.

Religious life is an encounter with the living God. Sometimes that encounter is preceded by a kind of soul-searching agony that tries desperately not to hear, runs in the opposite direction, and frantically tries to reason itself out of answering the invitation.

I have to confess that there have been some times when I was less than glad to be a minister, and some Sundays still when I tremble under the weight of trying to speak a word for God.

I briefly thought of becoming a priest but quickly saw that would be ridiculous.

I'd have made a terrible nun.

For me, I've always wanted to be a nun. I mean, I think about what it's like to be a nun. And I've always been fascinated with nuns, and I have a nun collection, I've been collecting nuns for 20 years. And I have a song that I wrote, 'I Wanna Be a Nun,' when I was 25.

Back when I was 8 or 9 and wanted to be a nun, I would often stop at church on my way home from school.

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to become a priest.

I tried for about two semesters in a preparatory seminary. But I was about 15 and didn't fully understand what a vocation means.

As a matter of fact, I decided in high school that I was going to go to the seminary. And I did study with the Paulist Fathers for two years after high school in full anticipation of becoming a priest.

Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.

I realized during my time as a chaplain that I didn't want to be a minister.

I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith.

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Little by little he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that agitated him, one from the enemy and one from God.

The minister and the priest teach that the organization is greater. No great philosophy has ever come from an organization, but from an individual whose research has been a personal study of God and ITS ways.

The uninitiated have real questions and valid concerns over how the things of God appear to them.

I wrestled with my Catholicism for a long time. It took a long time to escape. It began with a sense that it was repressive, stern, judgmental. It was passionate, but it was terrifying. There were individual priests and nuns who were helpful, but the religion was cold.

There is a Mount Sinai for every child of God if he only knows where to find it.

I did spend a lot of time as a child very confused about whether I had a devil in me, or whether I was in a state of grace. I mean, these ideas are so potent to anybody with half an imagination.

I always believed in God and Christ, but I was in rebellion - trying to make my relationship with God fit into my life instead of making my life fit in with him. I was stubborn.

I trained to be a priest - started to. I went to seminary school when I was 11. I wanted to be a priest, but when they told me I could never have sex, not even on my birthday, I changed my mind.

I was very serious about being a priest, twice in my life. Almost joined the Montfort Seminary after I graduated from high school. Almost went back in the seminary during college.