[The Church] sees that human life must be lived in the quite fearless recognition of this insecurity of relationship between read more

[The Church] sees that human life must be lived in the quite fearless recognition of this insecurity of relationship between one man and another. Now, once again may I ask you the question, Is the Church cruel when she points this out, and demands that men should see it and take account of it in all the arrangements of this life? Surely the cruelty lies with those who talk glibly about the brotherhood of man, and superficially about peace, and romantically about marriage, as though the disturbances in Church and state and family were introduced into human life by a few evil-minded men. This is the real cruelty. How will you face up later to your married life, to your administration of affairs, to your life in the Church, in fact to any real part of your lives, if you are taught to think that your neighbour will or ought to agree with you in all points, will accept your solutions of his problems, will in fact be a reflection of your image? Once we get this stuff and nonsense into our heads, we shall never be able to live with anyone or with any group of men. We shall sulk when we are crossed, or run away from the Other -- for Other they are. We shall certainly remove ourselves from the Church when we find it full of friction and yet proclaiming the love of God.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life read more

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876 It is to be acknowledged that many passages in the Bible are abstruse, and not to be easily understood. Yet we are not to omit reading the abstruser texts, which have any appearance of relating to us; but should follow the example of the Blessed Virgin, who understood not several of our Saviour's sayings, but kept them all in her heart. Were we only to learn humility thus, it would be enough; but we shall by degrees come to apprehend far more than we expected, if we diligently compare spiritual things to spiritual.

Beginning a short series on authenticity: A mere form of religion does upon some accounts bring a man read more

Beginning a short series on authenticity: A mere form of religion does upon some accounts bring a man under a heavier sentence than if he were openly profane and irreligious. He that makes a show of religion flatters God, but all the while he acts and designs against him; whereas the profane man deals plainly, and tho' he be a monstrous and unnatural rebel, yet he is a fair and open enemy. And the kisses of a false friend are more hateful than the wounds of an open enemy.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we
grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall read more

This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we
grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on
the coals for money.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 If God said, "I forgive you," to a read more

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 If God said, "I forgive you," to a man who hated his brother, and if (as is impossible) that voice of forgiveness should reach the man, what would it mean to him? How would the man interpret it? Would it not mean to him, "You may go on hating. I do not mind it. You have had great provocation, and are justified in your hate?" No doubt God takes what wrong there is, and what provocation there is, into the account; but the more provocation, the more excuse that can be urged for the hate, the more reason, if possible, that the hater should be delivered from the hell of his hate, that God's child should be made the loving child that He meant him to be. The man would think, not that God loved the sinner, but that He forgave the sin, which God never does. Every sin meets its due fate -- inexorable expulsion from the paradise of God's Humanity.

Beginning a short series on sin: Sin is nothing else than that the creature willeth otherwise than God willeth, read more

Beginning a short series on sin: Sin is nothing else than that the creature willeth otherwise than God willeth, and contrary to Him. ... Theologia Germanica March 10, 1998 Continuing a short series on sin: I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, towards these lower things. ... The Confessions of St. Augustine March 11, 1998 Continuing a short series on sin: In case our sins have been public and scandalous, both reason and the practice of the Christian Church do require that when men have publicly offended they should give public satisfaction and open testimony of their repentance.

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you wanted a read more

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you wanted a label for us, would you find a better than a Sadducean Age? We also are not worrying about immortality, hardly believe in it, or at least are not sure; we, too, have limited ourselves to this dust-speck of time, leaving unclaimed the vast inheritance beyond of which Christ told us; we, too, are putting all our zeal and passion and enthusiasm into things of this earth here, quite sure that that is the only road to progress, and that this everlasting chatter about the soul is quite beside the point. And they are all so earnest and so certain, work so hard, are animated often by such lofty motives, are so sure that there is really no manner of need for Christ: that given this, and this, and this, each of them pushing forward his particular panacea -- the world will manage very well; that to talk about Christ, and changing people's hearts, and making us new creatures, is merely to lose precious time and wander from the practical into vague day-dreaming of which nothing comes. And year by year their voices grow a little harder, and they eye Christ more and more askance, feel sourly that He is a bit of a nuisance and a stumbling-block to progress, keeping people quiet who should not be quiet, lulling them with these dim, immaterial, fantastic, spiritual hopes of His which they think have no body, and can not have. Once more the whisper grows, "Were He not far better away?" Meantime we can ignore Him, they say; and they do.