Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 But the word 'temple' read more

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 But the word 'temple' took on a deeper significance when Jesus referred to His own body as 'this temple.' He thus definitely declared Himself to be the personal embodiment of the living God. Later the Apostle Paul applied this term to Christians... "Ye are God's building... Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" And again, "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and that ye are not your own?" Paul taught that it is God's people who constitute the true church of God, and wherever they have fellowship in the Gospel, God is there. Moreover, he emphasized that as members of this true church it is our privilege to be "laborers together with God." It is our privilege to build upon the one foundation, Jesus Christ, with gold, silver, precious stones -- the kind of Christian service which abides for recognition at the judgment seat of Christ. Again, it is our responsibility to be consecrated for holy living and faithful service, "for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; so we must shun evil, and, since we have been bought with a price, we must glorify God in body and spirit.

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 read more

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 Commemoration of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, tractarian, 1882 As St. Cyprian well said, we may judge how ready He is to give us those good things which He Himself solicits us to ask of Him. Let us pray then with faith, and not lose the fruits of our prayers by a wavering uncertainty which, as St. James testifies, hinders the success of them. The same apostle advises us to pray when we are in trouble because thereby we should find consolation; yet we are so wretched that this heavenly employment is often a burden instead of a comfort to us. The lukewarmness of our prayers is the source of all our other infidelities.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 It is by affliction chiefly read more

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honors forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or quiet, and how justly we may inscribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy and courage.

Feast of Pentecost Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 It was something more than a glorified Jesus read more

Feast of Pentecost Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 It was something more than a glorified Jesus Christ in the heavens in which [the Apostles] believed. In the beginning, John the Baptist had taught his disciples to expect from Christ the baptism -- not of water only, as in his baptism -- but of the Spirit. Before His death, Jesus had sought to fill His disciples' minds with the expectation of this gift... And that Spirit had come in sensible power upon them some ten days after Jesus disappeared for the last time from their eyes... And this Spirit was the Spirit of God, but also, and therefore, the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus was not then merely a past example, or a remote Lord, but an inward presence and power. A mere example in past history becomes in experience a feebler and feebler power... But the example of Jesus was something much more than a memory. For He who had taught them in the past how to live was alive in the heavenly places and was working within them by His Spirit.

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance. But the spirit of prayer is for all times and occasions; it is a lamp that is to be always burning, a light to be ever shining: everything calls for it; everything is to be done in it and governed by it, because it is and means and wills nothing else but the totality of the soul -- not doing this or that, but wholly ... given up to God to be where and what and how He pleases.

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 The [Christian] "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of read more

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 The [Christian] "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Continuing a short series on authenticity: There, right in the read more

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Continuing a short series on authenticity: There, right in the middle of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked"; but watch the faces, mark well the accents, of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach -- men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

If a poet or an artist puts himself into his Productions he is criticized. But that is exactly what God read more

If a poet or an artist puts himself into his Productions he is criticized. But that is exactly what God does, he does so in Christ. And precisely that is Christianity. The creation was really only completed when God included himself in it. Before the coming of Christ, God was certainly in the creation, but as an invisible sign, like the watermark in paper. But the creation was completed by the Incarnation because God thereby included himself in it.