Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration read more

Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration of Octavia Hill, Worker for the Poor, 1912 When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming towards him, who was a hundred years of age; he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man ate and prayed not, nor begged a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he threw the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, "I thrust him away, because he did not worship thee." God answered him, "I have suffered him these hundred years, though he dishonoured me; and wouldst thou not endure him one night?".

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 Many people despise those who spend their health, strength read more

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 Many people despise those who spend their health, strength and money for the salvation of others, and call them mad. And yet it is they who will save many and be saved themselves.

Feast of All Souls Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says read more

Feast of All Souls Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God's work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it... Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it can not be well done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow, in which no work can be done any more than in yesterday.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

Now it is not good for the Christian's health
To hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian read more

Now it is not good for the Christian's health
To hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles,
And it weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased--
And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East."

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. All that I have written appears to me as much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Jesus was read more

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Jesus was the representative of the Lord who forgives sins and heals all infirmities; the disciples acknowledged him as "Lord" and transferred to him the position ascribed to the "Lord" in the Old Testament. Whereas Jesus placed the penitent heart and the saving will of God higher than the pride of the godly and the letter of the Torah, so Paul preached faith in Christ as the only way to salvation and rejected striving after righteousness through the works of the Law. Above all, Jesus knew himself to be the Messiah and he acted in messianic authority; hence the risen and glorified Jesus was acknowledged as the king of the last days. It is still faith, not sight, that is demanded from men.

Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 There is a misplaced sense of loyalty which makes many Christians feel read more

Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 There is a misplaced sense of loyalty which makes many Christians feel reluctant to come out in open opposition to anything that calls itself by the same name, or uses words like "God" and "Christ"; even Christians who in practice dislike superstition as much as I do still often treat it as a minor aberration to be hushed up rather than a radical perversion to be denounced.

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of read more

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of thinking of faith as primarily a matter of intellectual assent. As the New Testament uses the word, faith is trust, acceptance, commitment, vision. It is not a belief in this or that creed, it is a quality which lies rather in the realm of intuition than the intellect. Faith has indeed an element of true simplicity; it is one of the qualities -- perhaps the fundamental quality -- of the child-like spirit without which no man can enter the Kingdom of God. ... Anonymous December 16, 1996 But lo' the snare is broke, the captive's freed, By faith on all the hostile powers we tread, And crush through Jesus' strength the Serpent's head. Jesus hath cast the cursed Accuser down, Hath rooted up the tares by Satan sown: All nature bows to His benign command, And two are one in His almighty hand. One in His hand, O may we still remain, Fast bound with love's indissoluble chain; (That adamant which time and death defies, That golden chain which draws us to the skies!) His love the tie that binds us to His throne, His love the bond that perfects us in one, His only love constrains our hearts t' agree, And gives the rivet of Eternity.