Pope Francis Quotes

We live in an age of technology and science that demands proof, and yet we desire mystery. But when God gives us mystery, we seek to destroy it by gross indifference or childish reasoning.

Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence.

Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

If God is the mystery of the universe, these mysteries, we're tackling these mysteries one by one. If you're going to stay religious at the end of the conversation, God has to mean more to you than just where science has yet to tread.

When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility.

This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything.

Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God

We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.

my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.

I have DECIDED to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. GOD is love.

For me, the massiveness of what I don't know is one way I experience God. It creates in me a feeling of humility and a sense of gratitude.

And she would say, "Today you believe in God?" And he would say, "Today I believe in love".

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)

And I really suspect that of all the things we think we want to know, the only thing we really want to know is that we are loved. And if Jesus means anything, he means that you are loved. I hope you know that. And I hope you stop worrying about all the stuff you don't know, because I don't think it amounts to a hill of beans.

If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, and He packs our life with surprises all the time.... Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come.

I dont think that we're meant to understand it all the time. I think that sometimes we just have to have faith.

God shows up with surprises.

Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love.

We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.

It is true that the unknown is the largest need of the intellect, though for it, no one thinks to thank God.

To be wise use three languages: think well, feel well and do well. And to be wise allow yourselves to be surprised by the love of God. That will guarantee a good life.

You have to say, whatever it is that I say or do or think or teach must be something that will be consistent with who Jesus Christ was. So that is your ultimate litmus test, not that you've got specific words to say, whatever they may be saying. It is what is being said. They're consistent with the revelation of God that we encounter in Jesus.