Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life read more

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876 It is not for nothing that the central rite of Christ's religion is not a fast but a feast, as if to say that the one indispensable requirement for obtaining a portion in Him is an appetite, some hunger -- is to be without what we must have and He can give.

But as many things entice us to apostasy, so that it is difficult to keep us faithful to God in read more

But as many things entice us to apostasy, so that it is difficult to keep us faithful to God in the end, [Jude] calls the attention of the faithful to the last day. For the hope of that alone ought to sustain us, so that we may at no time despond; otherwise, we must necessarily fail every minute.

Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of devotion is the spirit of prayer. read more

Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of devotion is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united as soul and body are united, as life and the heart are united. There is no real prayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer.

Commemoration of John Wyclif, Reformer, 1384 It has been too much the custom to regard the earliest Christian books read more

Commemoration of John Wyclif, Reformer, 1384 It has been too much the custom to regard the earliest Christian books as written in a specially Christian form of speech, standing apart and distinguishable from the common language of the eastern Roman provinces. Had that been the case, it is not too bold to say that the new religion could not have conquered the Empire. It was because Christianity appealed direct to the people, addressed them in their own language, and made itself comprehensible to them on their own plane of thought, that it met the needs and filled the heart of the Roman world.

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter read more

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event read more

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth -- the very thing that the whole story has been about. Since it happened only once, it is by Hume's standards infinitely improbable. But then, the whole history of the Earth has also happened only once: is it therefore incredible? Hence the difficulty, which weighs upon Christian and atheist alike, of estimating the probability of the Incarnation. It is like asking whether the existence of nature herself is intrinsically probable. That is why it is easier to argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the probability of its occurrence.

Feast of Philip & James, Apostles Here is opened to us the true reason of the whole process of read more

Feast of Philip & James, Apostles Here is opened to us the true reason of the whole process of our Saviour's incarnation, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven. It was because fallen man was to go through all these stages as necessary parts of his return to God; and therefore, if man was to go out of his fallen state there must be a son of this fallen man, who, as a head and fountain of the whole race, could do all this -- could go back through all these gates and so make it possible for all the individuals of human nature, as being born of Him, to inherit His conquering nature and follow Him through all these passages to eternal life. And thus we see, in the strongest and clearest light, both why and how the holy Jesus is become our great Redeemer.

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 Our business is to love what God would have read more

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 Our business is to love what God would have us do. He wills our vocation as it is: let us love that, and not trifle away our time in hankering after other people's vocation.

Without realizing what was happening, most of us gradually came to take for granted the premises underlying the philosophy of read more

Without realizing what was happening, most of us gradually came to take for granted the premises underlying the philosophy of optimism. We proceeded to live these propositions, though we would not have stated them as blandly as I set them forth here: Man is inherently good. Individual man can carve out his own salvation with the help of education and society through progressively better government. Reality and values worth searching for lie in the material world that science is steadily teaching us to analyze, catalogue, and measure. While we do not deny the existence of inner values, we relegate them to second place. The purpose of life is happiness, [which] we define in terms of enjoyable activity, friends, and the accumulation of material objects. The pain and evil of life -- such as ignorance, poverty, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust for power -- are caused by factors in the external world; therefore, the cure lies in the reforming of human institutions and the bettering of environmental conditions. As science and technology remove poverty and lift from us the burden of physical existence, we shall automatically become finer persons, seeing for ourselves the value of living the Golden Rule. In time, the rest of the world will appreciate the demonstration that the American way of life is best. They will then seek for themselves the good life of freedom and prosperity. This will be the greatest impetus toward an end of global conflict. The way to get along with people is to beware of religious dictums and dogma. The ideal is to be a nice person and to live by the Creed of Tolerance. Thus we offend few people. We live and let live. This is the American Way.