QUOTATION: Madness

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, "You are mad; you are not like us."

--St. Anthony of Egypt

QUOTATION: Going with the Flow

Believers today are relentlessly tempted to accept a halfway Christianity, to lead a "double life" — to be one person when we're in church or at prayer and somebody different when we're with our friends or family, or at work, or when we talk about politics.

Part of this temptation comes from normal social pressure. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to seem different, so we keep our religious beliefs to ourselves. It's as if we've internalized the old adage: "Never talk about religion or politics in polite company." I've never accepted that kind of thinking, myself. Religion, politics, social justice — these are precisely the things we should be talking about. Nothing else really matters. Few things could be more important than religious faith, which deals with the ultimate meaning of life, and politics, which deals with how we should organize our lives together for justice and the common good.

--Archbishop Charles J. Chaput