Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Fallacies about Christianity must always be faced as deterrents to right read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Fallacies about Christianity must always be faced as deterrents to right living, and not merely as mistakes in the mind, for it is the effect they have on our actions which matters most. So soon as we abstract them from our lives and think of them only as faults in our mental machinery, we tend to embrace the greatest fallacy of all -- which is to think of Christianity as a way of looking at life instead of a way of changing it.

Beginning a series on the person of Jesus: I read the words and ponder them, but most of all read more

Beginning a series on the person of Jesus: I read the words and ponder them, but most of all I look at Jesus and try to understand His life, when I want to know the fullest truth regarding God. And when thus I look at Him, what do I learn? First of all, the true divinity of Christ Himself. I cannot doubt what is His own conception of His own personality. Through everything He does, through everything He says, there shines the quiet, intense radiance of conscious Godhead. Again, I say, it is not a word or two which He utters, though He does say things which make known His self-consciousness, but it is a certain sense of originalness, of being, as it were, behind the processes of things -- this is what has impressed mankind in Jesus, and been the real power of their often puzzled but never abandoned faith in His Divinity. He has appeared to men, in some way, as He appears to us today, to be not merely the channel but the fountain of Love and Wisdom and Power, of Pity and Inspiration and Hope: The wonderful thing about this sense of Divinity as it appears in Jesus is its naturalness, the absence of surprise or of any feeling of violence. (Continued tomorrow).

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I love poverty because He loved it. I read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I love poverty because He loved it. I love riches because they afford me the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody; I do not render evil to those who wrong me, but I wish them a situation like mine, in which I receive neither good nor evil from men. I try to be just, true, sincere, and faithful to all men; I have a tender heart for those to whom God has more closely united me; and whether I am alone, or seen by people, I do all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. These are my sentiments; and every day of my life, I bless my Redeemer, who has implanted them in me, and who, out of a man full of weakness, of miseries, of lust, of pride, and of ambition, has made a man free from all these evils by the power of His grace, to which all the glory of it is due, as of myself I have only misery and error.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 We must frankly face read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 We must frankly face the fact that there is in this teaching a revolutionary element which could be dangerously subversive of our existing ways of thought. Let us admit that it is part of the fallen human nature of ecclesiastics, no less than of others in responsible positions, to desire always criteria of judgement which can be used without making too heavy demands upon the delicate faculty of spiritual discernment, clear-cut rules by which we may hope to be saved from making mistakes -- or rather, from being obviously and personally responsible for the mistakes. We are uncomfortable without definite principles by which we may guide our steps. We fear uncharted country, and the fanatics of all kinds who, upon the alleged authority of the Holy Spirit, summon us with strident cries in all directions simultaneously. Only those who have never borne the heavy burden of pastoral responsibility will mock at the cautious spirit of the ecclesiastic.

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness. read more

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness. ... Blaise Pascal July 29, 2000 Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.

Feast of the Holy Cross When you hear someone saying unworthy and hard words of you, then it is read more

Feast of the Holy Cross When you hear someone saying unworthy and hard words of you, then it is given to you to drink medicine for your soul from the cup of the Lord.

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 read more

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 Pierce that in you, that was the cause of Christ's piercing; that is sin and the lusts thereof. Look and be pierced with love of Him, who so loved you, that He gave Himself in this sort to be pierced for you. Look upon Him, and His heart opened, and from that gate of hope promise yourself, and look for all manner of things that good are: the deliverance from the evil of our present misery [and] the restoring to the good of our primitive felicity. Look back upon it with some pain; for one way or other, look upon it we must.

Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me the read more

Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me the gift which every dog has by nature: that of being true to Thee in my distress, when I am deprived of all consolation.

Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 It is sufficient to know in the general that our read more

Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 It is sufficient to know in the general that our employment [in Paradise] shall be our unspeakable pleasure and every way suitable to the glory and happiness of that state, and as much above the noblest and most delightful employments of this world as the perfection of our bodies and the power of our souls shall then be above what they now are in this world. For there is no doubt that he who made us and endued our souls with a desire of immortality and so large a capacity of happiness, does understand very well by what ways and means to make us happy, and hath in readiness proper exercises and employments for that state, and every way more fitted to make us happy than any condition or employment in this world is suitable to a temporal happiness.