Basil Hume

On the whole, monks do not become famous - and that is a good thing - but monasteries do - and that is an excellent thing. In other words, it is the community that matters.

It is axiomatic that the Cross we get is the one we most dislike: we would choose any other. But it is equally true that the Cross which is ours is the one Christ wants us to bear.

The experience of prayer when there is no awareness of God and no apparent response from ourselves should not lead us to escape from prayer or give it up.

Know how to 'cling' to him in prayer, and then you will see the face of Christ more clearly in those whom you are called to serve.

In my opinion, it is a mistake to expect in prayer a response from God. Often, God's response is outside prayer. And often, we do not link up an outside response with the effort we put into prayer.

It is not because we are drawn to prayer that we first begin to pray; more often, we have to begin prayer, and then the taste and the desire for it come.

Death remains about the one certain fact in the lives of each one of us, and there will be suffering, sorrow, and sadness next week as there was last week.

Most of the early monks were not ordained. It was the pastoral work they undertook with the faithful that, over the centuries, gradually led to the present situation in which most monks are ordained priests.

I believe that we have a duty to look frankly at the social conditions around us and to work to do what we can to address the specific needs which we find.

Moral choices do not depend on personal preference and private decision but on right reason and, I would add, divine order.