“We may find ourselves wondering from whence light will come in this troubled world, with its long nights and short and sometimes gray days. Lucy is a turning point, toward a time when the light will overcome the darkness in hours of daylight, but also when the Light will overcome darkness in giving new understanding of God.”

“Spiritual growth requires patience and self-compassion. Whether we are picking up an instrument or reading the Bible for the first time, trying something new is never easy. It won’t go the way we want it to. Progress will be slower than we hoped.”

“She spoke out as a pacifist, as an advocate for those who suffered oppression, as a passionate interpreter of the Gospel of Jesus who cares deeply for the poor.”

“I believe there are leaders in the church, in classrooms, in the halls of political power, and in our homes, who emulate Jesus (and Saint Edmund) and sacrifice on behalf of their people. They choose the path of peace instead of the path of violence, and in so doing reject and undermine the promise of empire that might makes right.”

“They had their suspicions, the Twelve, I am sure. They witnessed miracles and heard teaching unlike any other, but an itinerant, zealous, son of a carpenter telling them to love everyone was not what the Jews of the first century were expecting. They were expecting a Warrior-Prince, come to kick Roman butt out of Jerusalem.”

“It was an era when only the educated few could read and understand the Bible; ordinary folk depended on the clergy to interpret the Bible for them. Wyclif held that believers should have a direct, unmediated relationship with God, not requiring the intervention of the church or its priesthood.”