EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me read more

EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter! The faith that limits itself to the promises of God seems to me to partake of the paltry character of such a faith in my child -- good enough for a Pagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith. Those who rest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had God's bond instead of His word, which they regard not as the outcome of His character but as a pledge of His honour. They try to believe in the truth of His word, but the truth of His Being they understand not. In His oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence: in himself they do not believe, for they know Him not.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can't, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God's care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.

Barrie tells us how, in the little house at Thrums, they used to tiptoe to and fro when his mother read more

Barrie tells us how, in the little house at Thrums, they used to tiptoe to and fro when his mother was upon her knees, awed by the knowledge that she was praying for them. And here and there in the New Testament, we blunder in on Christ and find Him on His knees; and, once at least, ere we can escape, cannot but overhear Him pleading our names. "Neither pray I for these alone," that is, for Peter and John and the rest, "but for those who will believe through them"-- that is, for you and me. Hush! the Lord Christ is praying for you! And what is it He asks for us? That we be given such a spirit of unity and brotherliness and Christlikeness that people, coming upon us, will look at us, and look again, and then from us to Jesus Christ, seeking the explanation of us there.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense -- first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

The mark of modern unbelieving man as a whole is that he has felt astonishingly much at home in his read more

The mark of modern unbelieving man as a whole is that he has felt astonishingly much at home in his earthly surroundings. He has taken a cheerful view of the prospects of the race and of the future of human history, staying his soul upon the promise of further "evolution" of the human individual, the continuous upward progress of civilization, or perhaps the confident expectation of a completely revolutionized order of society -- a communist Utopia beyond the class struggle or something else of that same general kind. Where such hopes remain unchastened by the cold touch of reality, there is little prospect of the Christian Gospel recommending itself to men's minds, and any wordy defense of it is likely to be quite useless.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 Continuing a read more

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 Continuing a short series on Romans 8: Romans 8:14,16. Ephesians 1:13,14. The Witnessing and Sealing Spirit Why should the children of a king Go mourning all their days? Great Comforter, descend and bring Some tokens of thy grace. Dost though not dwell in all thy saints, And seal the heirs of heaven? When wilt thou banish my complaints, And shew my sins forgiven? Assure my conscience of her part In the Redeemer's blood; And bear thy witness with my heart, That I am born of God. Thou are the earnest of his love, The pledge of joys to come; And thy soft wings, celestial Dove, Will safe convey me home.

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of read more

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1240 If 'religion' is understood... as man's search for God on man's own terms, as his effort to make some kind of adjustment to the 'ground of being' on a level less radical than that of the self-forgetful commitment of faith, it clearly can become faith's greatest enemy, the last bastion of human pride to hold out against God. The experience of the Jews in relation to Jesus, and of the churches throughout the ages, demonstrates that this is the most persistent and far-reaching temptation which confronts men. To call attention to this is always an urgently necessary part of the prophetic ministry within the Church.

Continuing a short series about the early church: Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; read more

Continuing a short series about the early church: Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If a man has something, he gives freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don't consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him what he needs -- if it is possible, they bail him out. If one of them is poor and there isn't enough food to go around, they fast several days to give him the food he needs... This is really a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.