To live of love, it is when Jesus sleeps To sleep near Him, though stormy waves beat nigh. read more

To live of love, it is when Jesus sleeps To sleep near Him, though stormy waves beat nigh. Deem not I shall awake Him! On these deeps Peace reigns, like that the Blessed know on high. To Hope, the vovage seems one little day; Faith's hand shall soon the veil between remove; 'Tis Charity that swells my sail alway. I live of love!

Institutions can never conserve without betraying the movements from which they proceed. The institution is static, whereas its parent movement read more

Institutions can never conserve without betraying the movements from which they proceed. The institution is static, whereas its parent movement has been dynamic; it confines men within its limits, while the movement had liberated them from the bondage of institutions; it looks to the past, [although] the movement had pointed forward. Though in content the institution resembles the dynamic epoch whence it proceeded, in spirit it is like the [state] before the revolution. So the Christian church, after the early period, often seemed more closely related in attitude to the Jewish synagogue and the Roman state than to the age of Christ and his apostles; its creed was often more like a system of philosophy than like the living gospel.

CHRISTMAS DAY GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN Lo, God, our God has come! To us a Child is born, read more

CHRISTMAS DAY GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN Lo, God, our God has come! To us a Child is born, To us a Son is given; Bless, bless the blessed morn! O happy, lowly lofty birth, Now God, our God, has come to earth! Rejoice, our God has come! In love and lowliness; The Son of God has come The sons of men to bless. God with us now descend to dwell, God in our flesh, Immanuel. Praise ye the word made flesh! True God, true man is He. Praise ye the Christ of God! To Him all glory be. Praise ye the Lamb that once was slain, Praise ye the king that comes to reign.

Must we then have strange music... unlike the world's music, and a special language with an imagery that illuminates the read more

Must we then have strange music... unlike the world's music, and a special language with an imagery that illuminates the minds only of the religious? Or dare we do what our Lord did, and see the Name hallowed in all life that is real and honest and good? Indeed, it was a scandal to the religious men of Jesus' day when they saw what He did with sacred things. With Jesus all life was sacred and nothing was profane until sin entered in. And so it was that the word "common," which used to mean profane and unclean, became the New-Testament word for the Communion of Saints and for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Above all, the group must keep remembering that true growth in grace is not to be achieved by our own read more

Above all, the group must keep remembering that true growth in grace is not to be achieved by our own efforts or contriving, but must be received as the gift of God's Spirit, working in and among us. The work of the group is to keep open the channels of receptiveness through study, discipline, prayer, and self-offering. When a group learns to live in this faith, it can keep the lines of endeavor tentative and sensitive to new headings and possibilities, on the one hand; and, on the other, move forward resolutely under such light as is now given.

It does not make a very great difference what side of Christ's work attracts us and appeals to us most; read more

It does not make a very great difference what side of Christ's work attracts us and appeals to us most; doubtless Christ has many ways of drawing men to Himself. One side of Christ's work will appeal most to one mind, another to another. The mistake that is often made by those who speak most about Christian experience is that they are so apt to insist upon everyone else's experience -- on penalty of its utter worthlessness -- being exactly the same as their own. The great thing is that we should be attracted by Christ in some way, that we should come to God in that spirit of penitence which Christ taught was the one condition of acceptance with Him, and with that steady purpose of amendment which is, as he always taught, a part of true penitence.

The evil of riches, then, for institutions, for nations, for individuals, is that those who possess or seek to possess read more

The evil of riches, then, for institutions, for nations, for individuals, is that those who possess or seek to possess almost invariably overvalue possessions and so cease to live creatively. They stop loving God with all the heart and all the soul and all the strength and all the mind. They stop loving their neighbors, too. When you find a person of means who is not either a self-centered bore or a low person, you may know that God has worked a miracle.

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

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history off the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.

A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on read more

A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating, and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a women and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called "falling in love" occurred in a sexless world.