Feast of Charles, King & Martyr, 1649 Whatever task God is calling us to, if it is yours, it read more

Feast of Charles, King & Martyr, 1649 Whatever task God is calling us to, if it is yours, it is mine, and if it is mine, it is yours. We must do it together -- or be cast aside together, and God in his absolute freedom goes on by other means to use His Church in hastening His Kingdom. ...Howard Hewlett Clark January 31, 1998 Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 The axioms of reason are non-demonstrable assumptions. Why should faith not be granted the same privilege? The denial of the truths of faith is, in the last analysis, no less a faith than faith itself, for it rests on personal assumptions which are apart from scientific necessity. In other words, as the truth of reason carries its own evidence, so also with faith. To the mind to whom the axioms of reason are not self-evident, they cannot be proven. So also in the case of faith: for the mind that is not enlightened by faith, the evidence of faith is ridiculous. But for the man whose eyes have been enlightened by the Spirit, faith has its proper evidence, though different from that of reason. The only sufficient ground of faith is the authority of God Himself as he addresses me in His Word.

Feast of Stephen, Deacon, First Martyr Joy to the world! the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; read more

Feast of Stephen, Deacon, First Martyr Joy to the world! the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heav'n and nature sing. Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ, While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, Repeat the sounding joy. No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found. He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of his righteousness, And wonders of his love.

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 You have your season, and you have but your season; neither read more

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 You have your season, and you have but your season; neither can you lie down in peace, until you have some persuasion that your work as well as your life is at an end.

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one read more

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship.

Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Continuing a short series on authenticity: There is one growing read more

Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Continuing a short series on authenticity: There is one growing persuasion of the present age which I hope this book may somewhat serve to stem -- not by any argument, but by... a healthy up stirring ... of the imagination and the conscience. In these days, when men are so gladly hearing afresh that "in Him there is no darkness at all"; that God, therefore could not have created any man if He knew that he must live in torture to all eternity; and that His hatred to evil cannot be expressed by injustice, itself the one essence of evil, -- for certainly it would be nothing less than injustice to punish infinitely what was finitely committed, no sinner being capable of understanding the abstract enormity of what he does, -- in these days has a arisen another falsehood, less, yet very perilous: thousands of half-thinkers imagine that, since it is declared with such authority that hell is not everlasting, there is then no hell at all. To such folly, I, for one, have never given enticement or shelter. I see no hope for many, no way for the divine love to reach them, save through a very ghastly hell. Men have got to repent; there is no other escape for them, and no escape from that.

Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus There is a stream, whose gentle flow Supplies the city of our read more

Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus There is a stream, whose gentle flow Supplies the city of our God; Life, love, and joy still gliding through, And watering our divine abode: That sacred stream, thine holy word, That all our raging fear controls; Sweet peace thy promises afford, And give new strength to fainting souls.

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devotion signifies a life given, read more

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.

If we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto Him read more

If we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto Him at all times and all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as His gift.

Whatever may be our differences of colour, culture, and class, the unity that is ours in Christ is given visible read more

Whatever may be our differences of colour, culture, and class, the unity that is ours in Christ is given visible expression at every Synod. Here we all gather around the one Altar, here we all share in shaping the policy of the Church in this diocese; here we all take part in making provision for carrying on the work of the Church during the coming year. At this time, year by year, we are specially conscious of our unity in Christ, and are made aware afresh that we are members of this new race of human beings which is made up of all those of every ethnic group who have been added to Christ. We are members of that Kingdom in which all human antagonisms are transcended. Yet we shall not interpret aright this unity which is ours in Christ Jesus unless we continually remind ourselves that it has its origin in His death and resurrection. The Church springs out of the deeds of Jesus done in the flesh, and we can only fulfill our destiny in the Church as we learn that we are utterly dependent upon the whole Body of Christ. . . . Whatever gifts we possess belong to the Body, and are useful only as they are used in the common life of the Church. All this is made very plain in the New Testament Epistles, for in them we are taught that each local Christian community is a fellowship in which every member is to live in humility and in love to the brethren. Yet no local church is to live to it self. Again and again, local churches are reminded of their close relationship to one another, in life, work, worship, pain, and death. Not that such a relationship is to be regarded either as a matter of convenience or as a question of organization. On the contrary, this intimate relationship is seen as the direct outcome of the saving work of Christ. This unity with one another, and of local churches with each other, is the unity which belongs to the Body of Christ, arising from the unity of God Himself, uttered in the dying and rising again of Jesus, and now expressed in the order and structure of the Church.