Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 The type read more

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 The type of Judaism in which Paul had grown up had become largely traditional: the word of the Lord, the Rabbis held, came to the prophets of old, but we can only preserve and interpret the truth they handed down. Jesus Christ, with a confidence that to the timid traditionalism of His time appeared blasphemous, asserted that He knew the Father and was prepared to let others into that knowledge. He did so, not by handing down a new tradition about God, but by making others sharers in His own attitude to God. This is what Paul means by "having the mind of Christ." It was this clear, unquestioning conviction that gave Paul his power as a missionary: but he expected it also in his converts. To them too "the world of knowledge" came "by the same Spirit". He prayed that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Such knowledge is, as Paul freely grants, only partial, but, so far as it goes, it is real, personal knowledge. In friendship between men there is a mutual knowledge which is never complete or free from mystery: yet you can know with a certainty nothing could shake, that your friend is "not the man to do such a thing", or that such-and-such a thing that you have heard is "just like him." You have a real knowledge which gives you a criterion. Such is the knowledge the Christian has of his Father.

Deep unto deep, O Lord, Crieth in me, Gathering strength I come, Lord, unto Thee. Jesus of read more

Deep unto deep, O Lord, Crieth in me, Gathering strength I come, Lord, unto Thee. Jesus of Calvary, Smitten for me, Ask what Thou wilt, but give Love to me.

He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become at sixty as wise as he thought himself read more

He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become at sixty as wise as he thought himself at twenty.

Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543 Since becoming a disciple of Christ, Paul knows that all mere orthodoxy, read more

Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543 Since becoming a disciple of Christ, Paul knows that all mere orthodoxy, all mere knowledge concerning God's will, is not only nothing but less than nothing. The more knowledge, the more obligation. The maintaining of revealed doctrine becomes blasphemy if it is not borne out by the corresponding testimony of the life. He who is always appealing to the Word of God without his life and conduct corresponding to this knowledge of God, dishonours God's name, making Him an object of mockery and hatred. It is just those who know so well how to talk about God who make His name hateful among men, because their lives darken the picture of God and turn it into a caricature. The Lord is judged by the life of His servants; this is the truer, the more zealously they appeal to Him.

A teacher appears--for whom no one was prepared, and whom no one could have expected. The argument from prophecy, on read more

A teacher appears--for whom no one was prepared, and whom no one could have expected. The argument from prophecy, on which the early apologists laid so much weight, was all ex post facto. No one beforehand could have conjectured a tenth of it. But without the background of Jewish prophet and psalmist, of Jewish national history, it would be hard to understand Jesus. If prophet and historian and legislator did not in type and enigma foretell in detail the story of his life, he was none the less their heir. None the less was he their heir in that he was not in bondage to his inheritance, but... a "minister not of the letter but of the spirit", and the whole of his activity lay "in newness of spirit". Without conjecturing what he might have been on another soil or of another stock--a type of guesswork always futile in history--we have to recognize the... immense spiritual wealth that lay ready to his hand.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the read more

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the "worldliness" of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man... It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one... This is what I mean by worldliness -- taking life in one's stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness... How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of read more

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280 Our own curiosity often hindereth us in the reading of holy writings, when we seek to understand and discuss, where we should pass simply on. If thou wouldst profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not desiring to win a character [i.e., reputation] for learning.

Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what read more

Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do.

God wanted to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek Him. But men make themselves read more

God wanted to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek Him. But men make themselves so unworthy of it that it is only just that God should refuse to some because of the hardness of heart what He gives to others from a compassion that they do not deserve. If He had wanted to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself to them so obviously that they could not have doubted the truth of His Being -- just as He will appear at the last day with such a clap of thunder and such an upheaval of nature that the dead will revive and the blindest will see. It is not in this way, however, that He willed to appear at His gentle coming: because so many men had made themselves unworthy of His mercy, He willed to leave them deprived of the good which they did not desire. And so it would not have been fair for Him to have appeared in an obviously divine manner, absolutely capable of convincing all men. But also it would not have been fair for Him to appear in a manner so hidden that even those who were sincerely seeking Him should not be able to recognize Him... So He has tempered His knowledge, by giving marks of Himself which were visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not.