Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn read more

Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 It is a Gospel to men who read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 It is a Gospel to men who are without God, sinful, bewildered, anxious, discouraged, self-sufficient and proud yet destroying themselves and others, caught in a desperate plight from which they cannot extricate themselves. The Bible characterizes men in such a state as "lost", and as being "without hope in the world"... And let no one suppose that such a term as "lost" is merely a bit of conventional theological jargon. It stands for a terrible reality, a reality which modern man in his modern predicament knows only too well from his own bitter experience. It gives rise to the voices of despair which haunt our radios, our newspapers, our fiction and poetry, our stage and screen, our doctors' offices, our hospital wards, our grisly nightmare of atomic war, and the conversation of common people who no sooner meet than they begin to bemoan the fate that has overtaken the world.

Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Equador, 1956 Oh, the fullness, read more

Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Equador, 1956 Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes -- ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.

True prayer is something more than desire. It is no mere subjective instinct, ... no blind outreach. If it met read more

True prayer is something more than desire. It is no mere subjective instinct, ... no blind outreach. If it met no response, no answer, it would soon be weeded out of the race. Prayer has stood the test of experience. In fact, the very desire to pray is in itself prophetic of a heavenly Friend. So this native need of the soul rose out of the divine origin of the soul, and it has steadily verified itself as a safe guide to reality. In the first instance it is not asking for anything, it is not petition; all it seeks is God Himself: Let me find Thee, let me know Thee, then I will ask of Thee.

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. All that I have written appears to me as much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.

Feast of the Holy Cross When scientists are honest, as most of them are, they are well aware read more

Feast of the Holy Cross When scientists are honest, as most of them are, they are well aware of the fact that their competence in science does not give them a clue to the problem of how their science should be used in the service of man. The sensitive visitor to the mesas of Los Alamos is almost sure to meditate on the experience of that gifted man, Klaus Fuchs. Though his work in the laboratories was outstanding, his decision concerning the use of what he knew was disastrous. What if, in addition to his scientific competence, the younger Fuchs had shared something of the Christian conviction of his father, Emil Fuchs? Much of the subsequent history of our earth might then have been different.

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. read more

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened.

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 Wherever we turn in the church of God, read more

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 Wherever we turn in the church of God, there is Jesus. He is the beginning, middle, and end of everything to us... There is nothing good, nothing holy, nothing beautiful, nothing joyous, which He is not to His servants. No one need be poor, because, if he chooses, he can have Jesus for his own property and possession. No one need be downcast, for Jesus is the joy of heaven, and it is His joy to enter into sorrowful hearts. We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus., or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that night be said of Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done -- but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more.

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 It is further objected that he hath left to us no example read more

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 It is further objected that he hath left to us no example of that which by many is esteemed the only religious state of life, viz. perfect retirement from the world, for the more devout serving of God and freeing us from the temptations of the world -- such as is that of monks and hermits. This perhaps may seem to some a great oversight and omission. But our Lord in great wisdom thought fit to give us a pattern of a quite different sort of life, which was, not to fly the conversation of men and to live in a monastery or a wilderness, but to do good among men, to live in the world with great freedom and with great innocence. He did indeed sometimes retire himself for the more free and private exercise of devotion, as we ought to do; but he passed his life chiefly in the conversation of men, that they might have all the benefit that was possible of his instruction and example We read that "he was carried into the wilderness to be tempted," but not that he lived there to avoid temptation. He hath given us an example of denying the world without leaving it.