Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 We may suffer the sins of our brother; we read more

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 We may suffer the sins of our brother; we do not need to judge. This is a mercy for the Christian; for when does sin ever occur in the community that he must not examine and blame himself for his own unfaithfulness in prayer and intercession, his lack of brotherly service, of fraternal reproof and encouragement -- indeed, for his own personal sin and spiritual laxity, by which he has done injury to himself, the fellowship, and the brethren? Since every sin of a member burdens and indicts the whole community, the congregation rejoices, in the midst of all the pain and the burden that the brother's sin inflicts, that it has the privilege of bearing and forgiving.

"What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt." I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart in read more

"What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt." I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart in my mother tongue than be master of all the languages in Europe.

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us -- as, indeed, without this mercy read more

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us -- as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.

The world will not be saved merely because people go to church, ours or any other's. If we seem to read more

The world will not be saved merely because people go to church, ours or any other's. If we seem to say [that the world will be so saved] to the tormented nations, this is only a measure of our failure to see that the Anglican Communion is not an end in itself. And what an impertinence it is when we fail to see that -- when we seem to say to the world that their only hope is in the tepid conventions of our club.

Anyone can believe that Jesus was a god: what is so hard to credit is that He who hung upon read more

Anyone can believe that Jesus was a god: what is so hard to credit is that He who hung upon the cross was the God. That is what you are asked as Christians to believe. And it is the sword, glittering but fearful. It must cut your life away from the standards of this world, away from its thought and its measures, no less than its aims and hopes. Hard and bitter is the separation, and you will be parted from many great and noble men, some perhaps your own teachers, who can accept about Jesus everything but the one thing needful. The Christian faith, if accepted, drives a wedge between its own adherents and the disciples of every other philosophy or religion, however lofty or soaring. And they will not see this; they will tell you that really your views and theirs are the same thing, and only differ in words, which, if only you were a little more highly trained, you would understand. Even among Christ's nominal servants there are many who think a little good-will is all that is needed to bridge the gulf -- a little amiability and mutual explanation, a more careful use of phrases, would soon accommodate Christianity to fashionable modes of speaking and thinking, and destroy all causes of provocation. So they would. But they would destroy also its one inalienable attraction: that of being... a wonder, and a beauty, and a terror -- no dull and drab system of thought, no mere symbolic idealism.

Every day the church here (in Antioch] feeds 3000 people. Besides this, the church daily helps provide food and clothes read more

Every day the church here (in Antioch] feeds 3000 people. Besides this, the church daily helps provide food and clothes for prisoners, the hospitalized, pilgrims, cripples, churchmen, and others. If only ten [other groups of] people were willing to do this, there wouldn't be a single poor man left in town.

The union of a sect within itself is a pitiful charity; it's no concord of Christians, but a conspiracy against read more

The union of a sect within itself is a pitiful charity; it's no concord of Christians, but a conspiracy against Christ; and they that love one another for their opinionative concurrence, love for their own sakes, not their Lord's.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 Why should men love the Church? read more

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws? She tells them of Life and Death, and of all they would forget. She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft. She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts. They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.

[In a] natural fear of lowering the Divine dignity of Christ, we often forget His true humanity. We think of read more

[In a] natural fear of lowering the Divine dignity of Christ, we often forget His true humanity. We think of His earthly life as moving on a plane so different from ours that no parallel can be drawn between them. What we forget is, that He too needed to walk by faith, needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, needed the sympathy of loving friends, needed the strengthening that is gained by private prayer. His strong and beautiful, serene and holy life so fills the eye that we lose sight of His secret intercourse with the Father, out of which came all its beauty, all its power.