Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258 There are doubtless many reasons for the degeneration of Christianity read more

Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258 There are doubtless many reasons for the degeneration of Christianity into churchiness, and the narrowing of the Gospel for all mankind into a set of approved beliefs; but the chief cause must be the worship of an inadequate god -- a cramped and regulated god who is a 'good churchman' according to the formulas of the worshipper. For actual behaviour infallibly betrays the real object of the man's worship. All Christians, whatever their Church, would of course instantly repudiate the idea that their god was a super-example of their own denomination, and it is not suggested that the worship is conscious. Nevertheless, beneath the conscious critical level of the mind it is perfectly possible for the Anglo-Catholic, for example, to conceive God as particularly pleased with Anglo-Catholicism, doubtful about Evangelicalism, and frankly displeased by all forms of Nonconformity... The ultra-low Churchman on the other hand must admit, if he is honest, that the God whom he worships disapproves most strongly of vestments, incense, and candles on the altar. The tragedy of these examples -- which could be reproduced ad nauseam any day of the week -- is not difference of opinion, which will probably be with us till the Day of Judgment, but the outrageous folly and damnable sin of trying to regard God as the Party Leader of a particular point of view.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can't, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God's care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 To preach the Gospel requires that the preacher should read more

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 To preach the Gospel requires that the preacher should believe that he is sent to those whom he is addressing at the moment, because God has among them those whom He is at the moment calling; it requires that the speaker should expect a response.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 It is by affliction chiefly read more

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honors forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or quiet, and how justly we may inscribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy and courage.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 How often we look upon read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

Continuing a series on the church: By God's grace we live in a time of rediscovery of the Church read more

Continuing a series on the church: By God's grace we live in a time of rediscovery of the Church and of the wholeness of the Church. We see more clearly than often has been the case that ecclesiology and christology are one. The ekklesia, the community of believers, has as its first and foremost qualification that it is that community which, as community, belongs to Christ and is in Christ, and as such is the sphere of God's salvation, redemption, and reconciliation, and of Christ's rulership. This is the archetypal reality of the Church. To see and seize this essential point is a great blessing. This blessing, however, could as well become a curse, if it remained a theme of theological meditation and self-contemplation. This new knowledge is not real knowledge if it is not accompanied by a horror about the alienation of the empirical Church from its own fundamental reality and by a deep longing for a tangible manifestation of the Church's true nature. This horror and this longing are the deeper motives which are operating in many of the events and passionate discussions around the place and responsibility of the laity as an organic part of the Church.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of all aids to the following of Christ, but (let us never forget) the following is the great thing. To those who, by whatever means they are attracted to Him, really seek to do God's will as He revealed it, Christ will prove a Saviour -- a Saviour from sin, a Saviour from the power of sin here, and from the misery which sin brings with it here and hereafter.

The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through Him we might know His read more

The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through Him we might know His Father and our Father, His God and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear as the moon of our darkness, by which we travel toward the east; not dear as the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that, walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror that reflected his absent brightness.

Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear, It is not night read more

Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear, It is not night if Thou be near; O may no earth-born cloud arise To hide Thee from thy servant's eyes.