THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven. We are read more

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about "pie in the sky", and of being told that we are trying to "escape" from the duty of making a happy world here and now, into dreams of a better world elsewhere. But either there is "pie in the sky" or there is not. If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this doctrine, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or no.

Feast of the Holy Innocents The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it read more

Feast of the Holy Innocents The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." The life is in the speaking words. God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful.

More than any other religion or, indeed, than any other element in human experience, Christianity has made for the intellectual read more

More than any other religion or, indeed, than any other element in human experience, Christianity has made for the intellectual advance of man in reducing languages to writing, creating literatures, promoting education from primary grades through institutions of university level, and stimulating the human mind and spirit to fresh explorations into the unknown. It has been the largest single factor in combating, on a world-wide scale, such ancient foes of man as war, famine, and the exploitation of one race by another. More than any other religion, it has made for the dignity of human personality. This it has done by a power inherent within it of lifting lives from selfishness, spiritual mediocrity, and moral defeat and disintegration, to unselfish achievement and contagious moral and spiritual power and by the high value which it set upon every human soul through the possibilities which it held out of endless growth in fellowship with the eternal God.

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles Christ did not throw about that great word Salvation. But once, in the read more

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles Christ did not throw about that great word Salvation. But once, in the heart of an angry crowd, their enthusiasm soured suddenly into a growling muttering. He applied it confidently to a man who, under the inspiration of His friendship, had broken with his sorry past and his old selfish, unclean ways, and was doing what he could to put things right. Now that, He said, is what I call a saved man. Very solemnly He tells us that on the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked the questions we are expecting, but others that will puzzle and startle us. Those folk on the left hand were, as far as we hear, respectable folk; their business books were straight, their home life was kindly, they themselves were clean-living men and women: nothing whatever is laid to their charge excepting this, that they lived in a world needing their help and were too absorbed in something -- what it was, we are not told; it may have been their souls -- to give what aid they could.

Commemoration of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690 The preacher and the writer may seem to have an... read more

Commemoration of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690 The preacher and the writer may seem to have an... easy task. At first sight, it may seem that they have only to proclaim and declare; but in fact, if their words are to enter men's hearts and bear fruit, they must be the right words, shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds. This means, in practice, turning a face of flint toward the easy cliche, the well-worn religious cant and phraseology -- dear, no doubt, to the faithful, but utterly meaningless to those outside the fold. It means learning how people are thinking and how they are feeling; it means learning with patience, imagination and ingenuity the way to pierce apathy or blank lack of understanding. I sometimes wonder what hours of prayer and thought lie behind the apparently simple and spontaneous parables of the Gospel.

Each of these foregoing states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only read more

Each of these foregoing states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only be known by experience in the passage through them. The one only and infallible way to go safely through all the difficulties, trials, temptations, dryness, or opposition of our own evil tempers is this: It is to expect nothing from ourselves, to trust to nothing in ourselves, but in everything to expect and depend upon God for relief. Keep fast hold of this thread, and then let your way be what it will -- darkness, temptation, or the rebellion of nature -- you will be led through it all, to an union with God: for nothing hurts us in any state but an expectation of some thing in it and from it, which we should only expect from God. (Continued tomorrow).

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of.

Commemoration of Martin Luther, Teacher, Reformer, 1546 All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the read more

Commemoration of Martin Luther, Teacher, Reformer, 1546 All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask; yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more orthodox than pantheism -- it is the great dualist heresy which always lies in wait for an over-spiritualized Christianity.