Lord Jesus Christ! A whole life long didst thou suffer that I too might be saved; and yet thy suffering read more

Lord Jesus Christ! A whole life long didst thou suffer that I too might be saved; and yet thy suffering is not yet at an end; but this too wilt thou endure, saving and redeeming me, this patient suffering of having to do with me, I who so often go astray from the right path, or even when I remained on the straight path stumbled along it or crept so slowly along the right path. Infinite patience, suffering of infinite patience. How many times have I not been impatient, wished to give up and forsake everything; wished to take the terribly easy way out, despair: but thou didst not lose patience. Oh, I cannot say what thy chosen servant says: that he filled up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh; no, I can only say that I increased thy sufferings, added new ones to those which thou didst once suffer in order to save me.

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Christ claims our help in many a strange disguise: Now, read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Christ claims our help in many a strange disguise: Now, fever ridden, on a bed He lies; Homeless He wanders now beneath the stars; Now counts the number of His prison bars; Now bends beside us, crowned with hoary hairs. No need have we to climb the heavenly stairs And press our kisses on His feet and hands; In every man that suffers, He, the Man of Sorrows, stands. ... Anonymous March 5, 1998 When we have, through Christ, obtained mercy for our persons, we need not fear but that we shall have suitable and seasonable help for our duties.

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 Do not desire crosses, unless you have borne well those laid on read more

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 Do not desire crosses, unless you have borne well those laid on you; it is an abuse to long after martyrdom while unable to bear an insult patiently.

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 I know the road to Jericho read more

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 I know the road to Jericho It's in a part of town That's full of factories and filth. I've seen the folks go down, Small folk with roses in their cheeks And starlight in their eyes; And seen them fall among the thieves, And heard their helpless cries. The priests and Levites speeding by Read of the latest crimes In headlines spread in black and red Across the Evening Times. How hard for those in limousines To heal the heart of man! It was a slow-paced ass that bore The Good Samaritan.

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one read more

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship.

We know so well what the unique quality was that held this great and beautiful pride and exquisite humility together. read more

We know so well what the unique quality was that held this great and beautiful pride and exquisite humility together. It lay in the relationship he held with God. We know the familiar idea of Jesus' oneness with God: only we deal with it too much as a doctrine of the Church, not as an element in Jesus' own experience. If we never find it in reality, in life, we cannot reveal the true Christ-like character at all -- we will always be trying earnestly to be something, but on too superficial and obvious a plane. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn June 28, 1996 Feast of Irenêus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200 The Church exists, and does not depend for its existence upon our definition of it: it exists wherever God in His sovereign freedom calls it into being by calling his own into the fellowship of His Son. And it exists solely by His mercy. God shuts up and will shut up every way except the way of faith which simply accepts His mercy as mercy. To that end, He is free to break off unbelieving branches, to graft in wild slips, and to call "No people" His people. And if, at the end, those who have preserved through all the centuries the visible "marks" of the Church find themselves at the same board with some strange and uncouth late-comers on the ecclesiastical scene, may we not fancy that they will hear Him say -- would it not be so like him to say -- "It is my will to give unto these last even as unto thee"? Final judgement belongs to God, and we have to beware of judging before the time. I think that if we refuse fellowship in Christ to any body of men and women who accept Jesus as Lord and show the fruits of His Spirit in their corporate life, we do so at our peril. It behooves us, therefore, to receive one another as Christ has received us.

Feast of Andrew the Apostle This means that we do not know what are the limits of human history, read more

Feast of Andrew the Apostle This means that we do not know what are the limits of human history, but it does not mean that there are no real limits. It is important to assert this, because if we do not do so, the limit which we know apart from Christ becomes determinative of our outlook. That limit is death -- the death of the individual, and the death of the social structure in which his corporate personality is embodied. When these are the only limits that men know, then they are left in a hopeless alternation between hope for an individual survival of death, which evacuates their corporate life of ultimate significance, and hope for the eternity of some social or political or cultural achievement, which evacuates personal existence of ultimate significance. This false alternation is overcome in Christ in whom we are brought into relation with the true limit -- a consummation of all things in which both the significance of each personal life and the significance of history as a whole are to be gathered up.

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know read more

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 The Christ of God read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 The Christ of God was not then first crucified when the Jews brought Him to the Cross; but Adam and Eve were His first real murderers; for the death which happened to them in the day when they did eat of the earthly tree was the death of the Christ of God or the divine life in their souls. For Christ had never come into the world as a second Adam to redeem it, had He not been originally the life and perfection and glory of the first Adam.