Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 read more

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890 Bernard [of Clairvaux] did not stop with love for God or Christ, he insisted also that the Christian must love his neighbors, including even his enemies. Not necessarily that he must feel affection for them -- that is not always possible in this life, though it will be in heaven -- but that he must treat them as love dictates, doing always for others what he would that they should do for him.

Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326 If we with earnest effort could succeed To make our life one long, read more

Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326 If we with earnest effort could succeed To make our life one long, connected prayer, As lives of some, perhaps, have been and are; If, never leaving Thee, we have no need Our wandering spirits back again to lead Into Thy presence, but continued there Like angels standing on the highest stair Of the Sapphire Throne: this were to pray indeed!

Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 We sometimes come to read more

Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 We sometimes come to God, not because we love Him best, but because we love our possessions best; we ask Christ to "save Western civilization", without asking ourselves whether it is entirely a civilization that Christ could want to save. We pray, too often, not to do God's will, but to enlist God's assistance in maintaining our "continually increasing consumption". And yet, though Christ promised that God would feed us, he never promised that God would stuff us to bursting.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more orthodox than pantheism -- it is the great dualist heresy which always lies in wait for an over-spiritualized Christianity.

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God is especially present in the hearts of His people, by read more

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God is especially present in the hearts of His people, by His Holy Spirit; and indeed the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and in type and shadow they are heaven itself. For God reigns in the hearts of His servants; there is His Kingdom. The power of grace hath subdued all His enemies; there is His power. They serve Him night and day, and give Him thanks and praise; that is His glory. This is the religion and worship of God in the temple. [Continued tomorrow] ...Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living October 11, 1997 Commemoration of Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking, 675 The temple itself is the heart of man, Christ is the high priest, who from thence sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to His own intercession and presents all together to His Father; and the Holy Ghost by His dwelling there hath also consecrated it into a temple; and God dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by His Spirit, and the spirit by His purities: so that we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity, and what is this short of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood?... The same state of life it is, but not the same age. It is heaven in a looking glass, dark but yet true, representing the beauties of the soul, and the grace of God, and the images of His eternal glory, by the reality of a special presence. ...Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living October 12, 1997 Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709 Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845 If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry: for I am verily persuaded, the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally original and draw on resources peculiar to themselves, but with this difference. The unbeliever may take his own temperament and experience, just as they happen to stand, and consider them worth communicating simply because they are his. To the Christian his own temperament and experience, as mere fact, and as merely his, are of no value or importance whatsoever: he will deal with them, if at all, only because they are the medium through which, or the position from which, something universally profitable appeared to him.

It is common to hear churchmen speak as though they did not really regard Christian unity as a serious question read more

It is common to hear churchmen speak as though they did not really regard Christian unity as a serious question this side of the End. This is a disastrous illusion. Christians cannot behave as though time were unreal. God gives us time, but not an infinite amount of time. It is His purpose that the Gospel should be preached to all nations, and that all men should be brought into one family in Jesus Christ. His purpose looks to a real End, and therefore requires of us real decisions. If we misconstrue His patience, and think that there is an infinity of time for debate while we perpetuate before the world the scandal of our dismemberment of the Body of Christ, we deceive ourselves. In an issue regarding the doing of the will of God there is no final neutrality.

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.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 read more

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are never likely to take it seriously now! You put some of the virus of some dreadful illness into a man's arm, and there is a little itchiness, some scratchiness, a slight discomfort--disagreeable, no doubt, but not the fever of the real disease, the turning and the tossing, and the ebbing strength. And we have all been inoculated with Christianity, more or less. We are on Christ's side, we wish him well, we hope that He will win, and we are even prepared to do something for Him, provided, of course, that He is reasonable, and does not make too much of an upset among our cozy comforts and our customary ways. But there is not the passion of zeal, and the burning enthusiasm, and the eagerness of self-sacrifice, of the real faith that changes character and wins the world.