Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 Faith is not so much belief about God as read more

Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 Faith is not so much belief about God as it is total, personal trust in God, rising to a personal fellowship with God that is stronger than anxiety and guilt, loneliness and all manner of disaster. The Christian's faith in Christ is trust in a Living Person, once crucified, dead, and buried, and now living forevermore. Call it, if you will, an assumption that ends as an assurance, or an experiment that ends as an experience, Christian faith is in fact a commitment that ends as a communion.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 That earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 That earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, six days in finishing, Moses sets up in a few syllables, in one line: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. If a Livie or a Guicciardine, or such extensive and voluminous authors had had this story in hand, God must have made another world, to have made them a library to hold their books, of the making of this world. Into what wire would they have drawn out this earth! Into what leaf-gold would they have beat out these heavens! It may assist our conjecture herein, to consider, that amongst those men, who proceed with a sober modesty and limitation in their writing, & make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books, yet the volumes which are written by them, upon the beginning of Genesis, are scarce less than infinite. God did no more but say, Let this & this be done; and Moses doth no more but say, that upon God's saying it was done. God required not Nature to help him to do it; Moses required not Reason to help him believe.

Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and read more

Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay sometimes even shed tears, while you say to Me: 'My Father, give me wealth!' If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance, you would fancy that you had gained something very great. Because you asked for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had it, you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it to you, and I proved you; you have found -- and you have found out! Ask of Me better things than these, greater things than these. Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself!".

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 Christians in their relationships should be the most human people read more

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 Christians in their relationships should be the most human people you will ever see. This speaks for God in an age of inhumanity and impersonality and facelessness. When people look at us, their reaction should be, "These are human people" -- human, because we know that we differ from the animal, the plant, and the machine; and that personality is native to what has always been [human]. If they cannot look upon us and say, "They are real people", nothing else is enough. (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 Some there are who presume so far read more

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 Some there are who presume so far on their wits that they think themselves capable of measuring the whole nature of things by their intellect, in that they esteem all things true which they see, and false which they see not. Accordingly, in order that man's mind might be freed from this presumption, and seek the truth humbly, it was necessary that certain things far surpassing his intellect should be proposed to man by God.

Concluding a short series on authenticity: Think thyself at that Tribunal, that judgment, now: Where thou shalt not read more

Concluding a short series on authenticity: Think thyself at that Tribunal, that judgment, now: Where thou shalt not only hear all thy sinful works, and words, and thoughts repeated, which thou thy self hadst utterly forgot, but thou shalt hear thy good works, thine alms, thy coming to Church, thy hearing of Sermons, given in evidence against thee, because they had hypocrisy mingled in them; yea, thou shalt find even thy repentance to condemn thee, because thou madest that but a door to a relapse.

Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533 Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, read more

Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533 Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, 1897 Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of one whole. If our practical life is centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted by ambitions, passions, wants and worries, beset by a sense of our own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual life will be a contrast to all this. The soul's house is not built on such a convenient plan; there are few soundproof partitions in it. Only when the conviction -- not merely the idea -- that the demand of the Spirit, however inconvenient, rules the whole of it, will those objectionable noises die down which have a way of penetrating into the nicely furnished little oratory and drowning all the quieter voices by their din.

At the resurrection the substance of our bodies, however disintegrated, will be united. We must not fear that the omnipotence read more

At the resurrection the substance of our bodies, however disintegrated, will be united. We must not fear that the omnipotence of God cannot recall all the particles that have been consumed by fire or by beast, or dissolved into dust and ashes, or decomposed into water, or evaporated into air.

The pastoral charge [does not] consist merely in administering the sacraments, chanting the canonical hours, celebrating masses -- though even read more

The pastoral charge [does not] consist merely in administering the sacraments, chanting the canonical hours, celebrating masses -- though even these are not properly done by hirelings --; it consists also in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, covering the naked, receiving guests, visiting the sick and those in prison. By the doing of these things is the people to be instructed in the holy duties of an active life.