Every Sermon Must Contain A Certain Shot

In A World Where Success Is The Measure And Justification Of All Things The Figure Of Him Who Was Sentenced And Crucified Remains A Stranger And Is At Best The Object Of Pity. The World Will Allow Itself To Be Subdued Only By Success. It Is Not Ideas Or Opinions Which Decide, But Deeds. Success Alone Justifies Wrongs Done With A Frankness And Off-handedness Which No Other Earthly Power Could Permit Itself, History Appeals In Its Own Cause To The Dictum That The End Justifies The Means The Figure Of The Crucified Invalidates All Thought Which Takes Success For Its Standard.

Death Is Hell And Night And Cold, If It Is Not Transformed By Our Faith. But That Is Just What Is So Marvelous, That We Can Transform Death.

The Church ... Is Not Just To Bandage The Victims Under The Wheel, But To Put A Spoke In The Wheel Itself.

Each Morning Is A New Beginning Of Our Life. Each Day Is A Finished Whole. The Present Day Marks The Boundary Of Our Cares And Concerns. It Is Long Enough To Find God Or Lose Him, To Keep Faith Or Fall Into Disgrace.

There Is Nothing That Can Replace The Absence Of Someone Dear To Us, And One Should Not Even Attempt To Do So. One Must Simply Hold Out And Endure It. At First That Sounds Very Hard, But At The Same Time It Is Also A Great Comfort. For To The Extent The Emptiness Truly Remains Unfilled One Remains Connected To The Other Person Through It. It Is Wrong To Say That God Fills The Emptiness. God In No Way Fills It But Much More Leaves It Precisely Unfilled And Thus Helps Us Preserve -- Even In Pain -- The Authentic Relationship.