Christians seeking social justice have a special responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of aid to people who read more

Christians seeking social justice have a special responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of aid to people who are homeless and in need, and contributing to their support. There are real dangers to be faced. It must never be allowed to appear that charity is dispensed to the unfortunate by superior beings... Much greater care must be taken to identify the giver with those whom he comes to serve.

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Continued from yesterday: He, then, whose action is governed by read more

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Continued from yesterday: He, then, whose action is governed by mere desire is not free to attain the satisfaction which alone gives meaning to that desire. There is no breaking through this law of our being. Every attempt to do so proves itself in experience to be futile. Hence we are in a more helpless state of bondage than that which materialistic determinism holds; for the tyrant is established within our own consciousness. One way, and one way only, out of this bondage remains. If we can discover how to make our own immediate desire, and the act of will springing out of it, accord with the supreme law of our being, then to "do as we like" will no longer be to run our heads against the stone wall of necessity which shuts us out from the heaven of satisfaction. For we shall only "like" doing what we "ought". This introduces a new sense of the word "freedom". It does not now mean freedom from restrains to follow our desires, but freedom from the tyranny of futile desires to follow what is really good. (Continued tomorrow).

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... read more

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... they are bound by the command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites... The sword may make a whole nation of hypocrites. But to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-Christian doctrine or worship to the Christian doctrine and worship, in the least true internal or external submission, is only worked by the all-powerful God through the sword of the Spirit in the hand of His spiritual officers.

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 read more

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 Commemoration of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, tractarian, 1882 If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world, to the creature instead of the Creator, the disciple is lost... However urgently Jesus may call us, His call fails to find access to our hearts. Our hearts are closed, for they have already been given to another.

There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values read more

There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values in the churches is mainly the heavier dosage of religious vocabulary involved... Another way of putting this is to say that the churches operate with secular values while the secular institutions are permeated with religious terminology... An objective observer is hard put to tell the difference (at least in terms of values affirmed) between the church members and those who maintain an 'unchurched' status. Usually the most that can be said is that the church members hold the same values as everybody else, but with more emphatic solemnity. Thus, church membership in no way means adherence to a set of values at variance with those of the general society; rather, it means a stronger and more explicitly religious affirmation of the same values held by the community at large.

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 O Holy Spirit, Who breathe where you will, read more

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 O Holy Spirit, Who breathe where you will, come into me and snatch me up to yourself. Fortify the nature you have created, with gifts so flowing with honey that, from intense joy in your sweetness, it may despise and reject all which is in this world, that it may accept spiritual gifts, and through melodious jubilation, it may entirely melt in holy love, reaching out for uncircumscribed Light.

EPIPHANY A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, "The very best way to send an read more

EPIPHANY A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, "The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person." That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person.

This wide and generous spirit of love, not the religious egotist's longing to get away from the world to God, read more

This wide and generous spirit of love, not the religious egotist's longing to get away from the world to God, is the fruit of true self-oblation; for a soul totally possessed by God is a soul totally possessed by Charity. By the path of self-offering, the Church and the soul have come up to the frontiers of the Holy. There we are required, not to cast the world from us, but to do our best for all others as well as ourselves.