My current devotional reading is in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book Engagement with God. I can take a paragraph and let it simmer for a day. (Which chafes my flesh because I want to get through books quicker to achieve my reading goals.)

This quote is from a longer section, but can be found on p. 97.

“We plead… for ‘a poor and servant Church’, because only such a Church can be sure of making contact with the world of today, not because she desires to be successful, but because she feels it is her duty so to do. We are looking, in fact, for a Church that so long as she is able to be effective in the world, cooperates with the world in its endeavors, yet which knows for certain from her knowledge of her Master’s fate that when men’s actions cease to be outwardly effective and where suffering, sickness, and evident failure make their entry, there her work does not cease, but rather begins in earnest.”

Now THAT I can chew for days.