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

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 There is no defect in Scripture, so anyone may "have the light of his natural understanding so completed... that there can be no want of needful instruction" for any good work God would have that person do.

There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented read more

There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented Christians especially tend to think that the barriers to faith should be removed by repackaging the content of the message in a way more congenial to the modern outlook. But it is quite possible that we are dealing not so much with a failure of intellect as with an alienation from the experiential roots of Christianity itself so amply attested in the New Testament.

Mass evangelism undoubtedly has its place; parochial missions can make their contribution; a specially gifted evangelist can proclaim his message; read more

Mass evangelism undoubtedly has its place; parochial missions can make their contribution; a specially gifted evangelist can proclaim his message; the specialist Christian can make his contribution in factory, in politics and in teaching; all these are genuine contributions to the evangelistic activity of the Christian Church: but in the last analysis it is the worshipping community, that part of the Body of Christ that worships, lives and proclaims the Gospel in all its activities in any given neighborhood, which is the real evangelising agent used by the Spirit of God. It is here amongst the people, that the Church must worship and live its life. If it is faithful both to God and to its Gospel, it will be used to hold forth the Word of light to the conversion of those that see and hear. But if its light is hid, then wherewith shall the neighborhood be lighted?

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is read more

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is to take the cup of Providence, and call upon the name of the Lord. What the cup contains is its contents. To get all that is in the cup is the act and art of contentment. Not to drink because one has but half a cup, or because one does not like its flavor, or because somebody else has silver to one's own glass, is to lose the contents; and that is the penalty, if not the meaning, of discontent. No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost what he has. It is high philosophy to say, we can have just what we like if we like what we have; but this much at least can be done, and this is contentment: to have the most and best in life by making the most and best of what we have. ... Maltbie D. Babcock August 7, 2000 Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866 For all the vigour of his polemic, St. Paul does not content himself with the denunciation of error, but finds the best defense against its insidious approaches in a closer adherence to the love of God and faith in Christ.

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 All love in general hath an assimilating efficacy; it casts read more

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 All love in general hath an assimilating efficacy; it casts the mind into the mould of the thing beloved... Every approach unto God by ardent love and delight is transfiguring.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 [In nineteenth-century America] religion read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 [In nineteenth-century America] religion became a matter of conduct, of good deeds, of works, with only a vague background of faith. It became highly functional, highly pragmatic; it became a guarantee of success, moral and material. "The proper study of mankind is man," was the evasion by which many American divines escaped the necessity for thought about God.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 "He cannot deny Himself" [II Tim. 2:13], means at the read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 "He cannot deny Himself" [II Tim. 2:13], means at the same time He cannot deny His grace to the sinful, and He cannot deny the moral order in which alone He can live in fellowship with men; and we see the inviolableness of both asserted in the death of Jesus. Nothing else in the world demonstrates how real is God's love to the sinful, and how real the sin of the world is to God. And the love which comes to us through such an expression, bearing sin in all its reality, yet loving us through and beyond it, is the only love which at once forgives and regenerates the soul.

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 First in a series on read more

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 First in a series on God and the human condition: Suffering is sometimes a mystery. We must affirm both the mystery and God. The paradox remained, but now, at least, Job knew that it belonged there -- that it is built into the moral and physical orders, and into the very nature of God as He has permitted us humans to perceive Him. In a world where the universal principle is cause/effect, the book of Job reminds us that the principle is a reflection of the mysterious, self-revealing God. It is subsumed under Him, however, and He cannot be subsumed under it. The God-speeches remind us that a Person, not a principle, is Lord.