Briefly, that teaching contains the following elements: (1) There is one living and true God (i.9); (2) Idolatry is sinful read more

Briefly, that teaching contains the following elements: (1) There is one living and true God (i.9); (2) Idolatry is sinful and must be forsaken (i.9); (3) The wrath of God is ready to be revealed against the heathen for their impurity (iv.6), and against the Jews for their rejection of Christ and their opposition to the Gospel (ii.15,16); (4) The judgment will come suddenly and unexpectedly (v.2,3); (5) Jesus, the Son of God (i.1O), given over to death (v.10), and raised from the dead (iv.14), is the Saviour from the wrath of God (i.10); (6) The Kingdom of Jesus is now set up and all men are invited to enter it (ii.12); (7) Those who believe and turn to God are now expecting the coming of the Savior who will return from Heaven to receive them (i.10; iv.15-17); (8) Meanwhile, their life must be pure (iv.1-8), useful (iv.11-12), and watchful (v.14-8); (9) To that end, God has given them His Holy Spirit (iv.8; v.19). (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The desire for certitude is natural enough and explains the human read more

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The desire for certitude is natural enough and explains the human tendency to mistake faith for certainty. This is not a specially religious mistake. We think of supernaturalism when faith is mentioned, but the naturalistic description of the world also operates on assumptions that require a faith as robust as does the most soaring mysticism. The usual efforts to skirt faith beg all the questions there are. A psychiatrist, for instance, who points out to you that you believe in God the Father because you need a father, or that you became a missionary to expiate your guilt feelings, may be quite correct, but he has not touched on the prior question as to whether there is, in fact, a cosmic father figure who is the archetype of all other fathers, or whether there is an evangel worth spending your life promulgating.

A good preacher should have these qualities and virtues: first, to teach systematically; second, he should have a ready wit; read more

A good preacher should have these qualities and virtues: first, to teach systematically; second, he should have a ready wit; third, he should be eloquent; fourth, he should have a good voice; fifth, a good memory; sixth, he should know when to make an end; seventh, he should be sure of his doctrine; eighth, he should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honor, in the world; ninth, he should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of everyone.

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 We have spoken throughout of the Divine read more

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 We have spoken throughout of the Divine Commonwealth. That phrase represents Paul's "ecclesia of God". It is a community of loving persons, who bear one another's burdens, who seek to build up one another in love, who "have the same thoughts in relation to one another that they have in their communion with Christ". It is all this because it is the living embodiment of Christ's own Spirit. This is a high and mystical doctrine, but a doctrine which has no meaning apart from loving fellowship in real life. A company of people who celebrate a solemn sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood, and all the time are moved by selfish passions -- rivalry, competition, mutual contempt -- is not for Paul a Church or Divine Commonwealth at all, no matter how lofty their faith or how deep their mystical experience; for all these things may "puff up"; love alone "builds up". In the very act, therefore, of attaining its liberty to exist, the Divine Commonwealth has transcended the great divisions of men. In principle, it has transcended them all, and by seriously living out that which its association means, it is on the way to comprehending the whole race. Short of that its development can never stop. This is the revealing of the sons of God for which the whole creation is waiting.

It may seem absurd to some that all desires by which man is by nature affected are so completely condemned read more

It may seem absurd to some that all desires by which man is by nature affected are so completely condemned -- although they have been bestowed by God himself, the author of nature. To this I reply that we do not condemn those inclinations which God so engraved upon the character of man at his first creation, that they were eradicable only with humanity itself; but only those bold and unbridled impulses which contend against God's control.

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 "Homesickness for the [One True Church]" is read more

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 "Homesickness for the [One True Church]" is genuine and legitimate only in so far as it is a disquietude at the fact that we have lost and forgotten Christ, and with Him have lost the unity of the Church. Thus we must be on our guard, all along the line, lest the motives which stir us today lead us to a quest that looks past Him. Indeed, however rightful and urgent those motives are, we could well leave them out of our reckoning. We shall do well to realize that in themselves they are well-meaning but merely human desires, and that we can have no final certainty that they are rightful, no unanswerable claim for their fulfillment. Unless we regard them with a measure of holy indifference, we are ill placed for a quest after the unity of the Church.

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, read more

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 We are made for action, and for right action -- for thought, and for true thought. Let us live while we live; let us be alive and doing; let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish. Let us believe what we do not see and know. Let us forestall knowledge by faith. Let us maintain before we have demonstrated. This seeming paradox is the secret of happiness. Why should we be unwilling to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only do we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception? Why should we be unwilling to use for heavenly objects what we daily use for earthly?

If thou desirest to be safe, turn at once in thy emptiness to God. If thou hast been inconsistent, how read more

If thou desirest to be safe, turn at once in thy emptiness to God. If thou hast been inconsistent, how canst thou better become consistent again than in God only? How canst thou better escape death than by the true, real Life -- which is God Himself?

Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells read more

Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe, that perish with our breath, Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall not live who have not tasted death. They only sing who are struck dumb by God.