Quotes by Francis Bond

“So much in this world needs our attention. So much is threatened and clinging perilously to the edge of existence. We know this is true. Grief is our witness to these painful realities. Grief is also our response that confirms our intimate bond with all creation. When we leave here, it is essential that we feel that we did all we could for the generations to come, for this sweet earth, for all we loved. When we leave here, let us pray that life will continue after we are gone. Let us hope that whales will continue the migrations they have made for millions of years. Snow geese will still follow their instincts from the arctic to their winter grounds and back again. Monarch butterflies will swarm and fill the sky with their beauty. And whether we are in this world or have entered the vast realm of the ancestors, there will still be much for us to care for. As Rumi said, “This night will pass, then we have work to do.”95””

“Life is far too complex to rely solely on our intellect. We need the invisible hands of Spirit to shelter us, to support us, and to offer us the nourishing comfort that comes from that Other World. This concert between the human and the sacred is ancient; it is held in the bones. Trust this bond. It is our healing ground.””

“The problem of the origin of life is, at bottom, a problem in organic chemistry”

“God wants more than kin loving kin. He wants more than the natural bonds. He wants more than biology. He wants our love to do more than run around the tight circle of our self-interest; more, even, than that it should run around the wider circle of our altruism, if altruism means we get some kind of round-about payback for love in the end. God, he says, wants us to love wildly and without calculation. God wants us to love people we don’t even like; people we hate; people who hate us. He says this, and he looks away from the familiar faces who’re bobbing up and down behind the wall of shoulders in the doorway, calling to him, trying to be heard.””

“Men become attached to certain particular sciences and speculations, either because they fancy themselves the authors and inventors thereof, or because they have bestowed the greatest pains upon them and become most habituated to them. But men of this kind, if they betake themselves to philosophy and contemplation of a general character, distort and color them in obedience to their former fancies; a thing especially to be noticed in Aristotle, who made his natural philosophy a mere bond servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well-nigh useless.””

“167. Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis).129 Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism130 which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful,131 the incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love. So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular Church should encourage the use of the arts in evangelization, building on the treasures of the past but also drawing upon the wide variety of contemporary expressions so as to transmit the faith in a new “language of parables.”132 We must be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others. 168.””

“Max.”It was a sharp whisper to reinstate the silence and Max did not know what kind ofacerbic retort waited on the other side of his stilted pause. Kevin had never snapped athim before, but there was a part of him that thought it would happen today.His brother turned to face him, his deep blue eyes lined with tears and burning withanguish. “You’re my brother,” he said, his voice low and unsteady. “You alreadyknow how I feel…and I know how you feel…so there’s no need to talk about this.And if you mention his name again, I’m gonna ask you leave.”Max nodded. That wasn’t the verbal lashing he was expecting but it made himunderstand his role in the situation. Kevin hadn’t played video games all day for theentertainment. He had done it for the distraction. And he hadn’t allowed Max to sit inhis room for so long because he intended to open up. He had kept Max there becausehe wanted the silent comfort, the pillar of strength only a brother could provide. - Kevin to Max””

“Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion. True, it engages our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail leading away from self-centredness and towards another person, in order to build a lasting relationship; love aims at union with the beloved. Here we begin to see how love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.””

“Morgan had described customary property owned by tightly bonded kin groups; real-world Communist regimes in the former USSR and China forced millions of unrelated peasants into collective farms. By breaking the link between individual effort and reward, collectivization undermined incentives to work, leading to mass famines in Russia and China, and severely reducing agricultural productivity. In the former USSR, the 4 percent of land that remained privately owned accounted for almost one-quarter of total agricultural output. In China, once collective farms were disbanded in 1978 under the leadership of the reformer Deng Xiaoping, agricultural output doubled in the space of just four years.””

“Two clasped hands. A simple bond that spoke volumes.””