Ecclesial Quotes & Sayings

In order to develop a pioneering missional spirit, a capacity for genuine ecclesial innovation, let along engender daring discipleship, we are going to need the capacity to take a courageous stand when and where necessary. — Alan Hirsch

We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't a man. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men. — John Steinbeck

I don't have any dark desires. And I think most people don't. A few have dark desires and don't sublimate them. — Ruth Rendell

The Christian religion isn't an ideology, like socialism or libertarianism, tracked by self-identification. The Christian religion is a Body. A lot of people saying to a pollster that they identify as Christians hardly represents a movement. The question is, "Who goes to church?" And, congregationally speaking, Protestant liberalism is deader than Henry VIII. If adapting to the culture were the key to ecclesial success, then where are the Presbyterian Church (USA) church-planting movements, the Unitarian megachurches? — Russell D. Moore

But doesn't love cause too much pain?" she said. "To be worth it?" "It causes pain, indeed," Grumpy said. "But it's worth it. It's a good pain. — Odette Beane

We support each other in the Coppola family. We love the idea of everyone getting his place in the sun. — Francis Ford Coppola

The important thing is the willingness to give back the gift that is you, not the perfection of the gift itself. Can you feel the difference? — Richard Rohr

The ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church. — Pope Benedict XVI

One of the challenges Christians confront is how the politics we helped create has made it difficult to sustain the material practices constitutive of an ecclesial culture to produce Christians. — Stanley Hauerwas

The word 'justification' has itself had a chequered career over the course of many centuries of debate. As the major historian of the doctrine has noted, the word has long since ceased to mean, in ecclesial debates, what it meant for Paul himself - which is confusing, since the debates have gone on referring to Paul as though he was in fact talking about what they want to talk about. It is as though the greengrocer treated you to a long discussion of how onions are grown, and how best to cook with them, when what you had asked was how much he would charge for three of them. — N. T. Wright

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these ... terrible people who rise through the ranks. — Jonathan Meades

evangelism can never be only proclamation or invitation, for it begins logically (even if not always chronologically) in allowing ourselves to be narrated by that story. Apart from our own formation into that story through baptism, worship, and the various practices and patterns of ecclesial life, we do not have the capacity to be faithful "rememberers" of the story, much less narrators or "counternarrators" of the story to others. — Bryan P. Stone

There's something fairy-tale-like about it, which is perfect, because fairy tales are all about innocence and ill will and the inevitability of terrible things. They're all about the moment when a girl is no longer who she once was — Nina LaCour

The Church is not simply an institution. She is a 'mode of existence,' *a way of being*. The mystery of the Church is deeply bound to the being of man, to the being of the world and to the very being of God.
Ecclesial being is bound to the very being of God. From the fact that a human being is a member of the Church, he becomes [participates as/in] an 'image of God', he exists as God Himself exists, takes on God's *way of being*. This way of being is not a moral attainment, something that man *accomplishes*. It is a way of *relationship* with the world, with other people and with God, as an event of *communion*, and that is why it cannot be realized as the achievement of an *individual*, but only as an *ecclesial* fact.
However, for the Church to present this way of existence, she must herself be an image of the way in which God exists. Her entire structure, her ministries etc. must express this way of existence. — John D. Zizioulas

If you have to be a one-hit wonder, then 'San Francisco' is the one to have. — Scott McKenzie

The church lives in a regime of ecclesial authoritarian security and the military elites live in a regime of national authoritarian security. These structures produce the same kind of authoritarian people, with a super defensive stance in their strategies and argumentation.
This is why they understand each other! (Leonardo Boff, p. 178) — Mev Puleo

A woman's greatest and most perduring failure will be her failure to love. It is certainly not without significance that so many women presently pressing for power on the political, sociological or ecclesial scene are unbeautiful in their unsmilling press for dominance. Contorted faces and clenched fists are particularly repellant in woman, who is gifted with unique powers to radiate love and extend healing hands. — Mother Mary Francis P.C.C.

The protestant martyrs and their monuments testify to the fact that they died, not on account of ecclesial differences, but because the issue was the way of salvation. — Alistair Begg

You have to trust yourself, not research. Not testing. Testing helps, but you have to trust your own taste. If your taste says something isn't any good, don't let research rationalize that out of its own truth. — Brian Grazer

Without prolonged moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the word, of sincere conversation with the Lord, our work easily becomes meaningless; we lose energy as a result of weariness and difficulties, and our fervor dies out. The Church urgently needs the deep breath of prayer, and to my great joy groups devoted to prayer and intercession, the prayerful reading of God's word and the perpetual adoration of the Eucharist are growing at every level of ecclesial life. — Pope Francis

When man loves as a biological hypostasis, he inevitably excludes others: the family has priority in love over "strangers," the husband lays exclusive claim to the love of his wife - facts altogether understandable and "natural" for the biological hypostasis. For a man to love someone who is not a member of his family more than his own relations constitutes a transcendence of the exclusiveness which is present in the biological hypostasis. Thus a characteristic of the ecclesial hypostasis is the capacity of the person to love without exclusiveness, and to do this not out of conformity with a moral commandment ("Love thy neighbor," etc.), but out of his "hypostatic constitution," out of the fact that his new birth from the womb of the Church has made him part of a network of relationships which transcends every exclusiveness. — John D. Zizioulas

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize. — Alexander Pope

Hey, it's your chance... climb the balcony... give me a plastic rose... and we'll pretend that we're actually beautiful people. — Stephen Karam

When you say Yes to God unconditionally, you have no idea how far this Yes is going to take you. Certainly farther than you can guess and calculate beforehand ... but just how far and in what form? At the same time, this Yes is the sole, non-negotiable prerequisite of all Christian understanding, of all theology and ecclesial wisdom. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries. — Henri Nouwen

I went to Brigham Young University on a football scholarship. I wasn't a football player; I was a place kicker. — Jason Chaffetz

When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of ecclesial power in the hands of monarchial bishops and others; (2) in response to the rise of heretical movements such as the Gnostics; (3) in regard to the social context of the Lord's Supper, namely, the agape, or thanksgiving, meal, due to the rise to prominence of asceticism in the church; and (4) because the increasingly Gentile majority in the church was to change how second-century Christian thinkers would reflect on the meal. Thus, issues of power and purity and even ethnicity were to change the views of the Lord's Supper and the way it would be practiced. — Ben Witherington III

"Do you love me?"; "Are you my friend?". The One who scrutinizes hearts (cf. Rom 8:27), makes himself a beggar of love and questions us on the one truly essential issue, a premiss and condition for feeding his sheep, his lambs, his Church. May every ministry be based on this intimacy with the Lord; living from him is the measure of our ecclesial service which is expressed in the readiness to obey, to humble ourselves, as we heard in the Letter to the Philippians, and for the total gift of self. — Pope Francis

Scriptural interpretation is properly an ecclesial activity whose goal is to participate in the reality of which the text speaks by bending the knee to worship the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Through Scripture the church receives the good news of the inbreaking kingdom of God and, in turn, proclaims the message of reconciliation. Scripture is like a musical score that must be played or sung in order to be understood; therefore, the church interprets Scripture by forming communities of prayer, service, and faithful witness. — Ellen F. Davis

It is imperative that the entire Christian community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church's public moral witness presented by a militant atheism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. — Pope Benedict XVI

The great tasks facing the ecclesial community in the modern world - and among the many I particularly stress evangelization and ecumenism - are centered on the Word of God and, at the same time, draw therefrom their justification and support. — Pope Benedict XVI

I think in particular of our need to speak to the hearts of young people, who, despite their constant exposure to messages contrary to the Gospel, continue to thirst for authenticity, goodness and truth. Much remains to be done, particularly on the level of preaching and catechesis in parishes and schools, if the new evangelization is to bear fruit for the renewal of ecclesial life in America. — Pope Benedict XVI

No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. While it is quite true that the essential vocation and mission of the lay faithful is to strive that earthly realities and all human activity may be transformed by the Gospel, none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice — Pope Francis