Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.

Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.

Feast of John, Apostle & Evangelist [Eternal life is] naught else than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest read more

Feast of John, Apostle & Evangelist [Eternal life is] naught else than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life: It is unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure.

The real presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but read more

The real presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament.

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained read more

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.

The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is read more

The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea-bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 The type read more

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 The type of Judaism in which Paul had grown up had become largely traditional: the word of the Lord, the Rabbis held, came to the prophets of old, but we can only preserve and interpret the truth they handed down. Jesus Christ, with a confidence that to the timid traditionalism of His time appeared blasphemous, asserted that He knew the Father and was prepared to let others into that knowledge. He did so, not by handing down a new tradition about God, but by making others sharers in His own attitude to God. This is what Paul means by "having the mind of Christ." It was this clear, unquestioning conviction that gave Paul his power as a missionary: but he expected it also in his converts. To them too "the world of knowledge" came "by the same Spirit". He prayed that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Such knowledge is, as Paul freely grants, only partial, but, so far as it goes, it is real, personal knowledge. In friendship between men there is a mutual knowledge which is never complete or free from mystery: yet you can know with a certainty nothing could shake, that your friend is "not the man to do such a thing", or that such-and-such a thing that you have heard is "just like him." You have a real knowledge which gives you a criterion. Such is the knowledge the Christian has of his Father.

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century Pentecost From his baptism until his return to Galilee, Jesus read more

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century Pentecost From his baptism until his return to Galilee, Jesus lived in the company of the disciples of the Baptist. It was there that he received the first public witness of his Messianic role and found his first followers. The gospel was to be rooted in John's teaching of asceticism and regeneration. But we see from the start that the gospel of Jesus was to be quite different. To the baptism of water would be added the baptism of the Spirit, and the new message was to be addressed to all. The widening of the circle of hearers and converts, which had preoccupied John, was to expand still further with the gospel of Jesus. Of the hundreds of thousands of Jews, the Essenes only regarded as saved a few thousand elect. Jesus was soon to offer the Covenant of God to all men.

The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His read more

The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His words, and of which His followers saw in His voluntary death a crowning manifestation? And remember that even belief in the love of God will do us no good unless it awakes answering love in ourselves -- unless it adds to our hatred of the sin which separates us from God and increases our love of other men.

[The Church] sees that human life must be lived in the quite fearless recognition of this insecurity of relationship between read more

[The Church] sees that human life must be lived in the quite fearless recognition of this insecurity of relationship between one man and another. Now, once again may I ask you the question, Is the Church cruel when she points this out, and demands that men should see it and take account of it in all the arrangements of this life? Surely the cruelty lies with those who talk glibly about the brotherhood of man, and superficially about peace, and romantically about marriage, as though the disturbances in Church and state and family were introduced into human life by a few evil-minded men. This is the real cruelty. How will you face up later to your married life, to your administration of affairs, to your life in the Church, in fact to any real part of your lives, if you are taught to think that your neighbour will or ought to agree with you in all points, will accept your solutions of his problems, will in fact be a reflection of your image? Once we get this stuff and nonsense into our heads, we shall never be able to live with anyone or with any group of men. We shall sulk when we are crossed, or run away from the Other -- for Other they are. We shall certainly remove ourselves from the Church when we find it full of friction and yet proclaiming the love of God.