Most men dislike a teaching which lays upon them strict moral requirements that check their natural desires. Yet they like read more

Most men dislike a teaching which lays upon them strict moral requirements that check their natural desires. Yet they like to be considered as Christians, and listen willingly to the hypocrites who preach that our righteousness is only that God holds us to be righteous, even if we are bad people, and that our righteousness is without us and not in us, for, according to such teaching, they can be counted as holy people. Woe to those who preach that men of sinful walk can not be considered pious; most are furious when they hear this, as we see and experience, and would like all such preachers to be driven away or even killed; but where that cannot be done, they strengthen their hypocrite preachers with praise, comfort, presents and protection, so that they may go on happily and give no place to the truth, however clear it may be.

Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980 Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953 Continuing a Lenten read more

Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980 Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953 Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: In our praying, we should speak to God about Himself -- that is praise; or about His gifts--that is thanksgiving; or about other people -- that is intercession; or about our sins--that is confession and penitence; or about our needs--that is petition. Prayer has five fingers, like a hand, and each in turn must be pointed to God, that our prayer may be full and complete.

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 How wonderful it is -- is it not? -- read more

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 How wonderful it is -- is it not? -- that literally only Christianity has taught us the true place and function of suffering. The Stoics tried the hopeless little game of denying its objective reality, or of declaring it a good in itself (which it never is); and the Pessimists attempted to revel in it, as a food to their melancholy, and as something that can no more be transformed than it can be avoided or explained. But Christ came, and He did not really explain it; He did far more: He met it, willed it, transformed it; and He taught us to do all this -- or, rather, He Himself does it within us, if we do not hinder the all-healing hands.

Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of vv. 4-13] You must not understand flesh here read more

Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of vv. 4-13] You must not understand flesh here as denoting only unchastity or spirit as denoting only the inner heart. Here St. Paul calls flesh (as does Christ in John 3) everything born of flesh, i.e. the whole human being with body and soul, reason and senses, since everything in him tends toward the flesh. That is why you should know enough to call that person "fleshly" who, without grace, fabricates, teaches and chatters about high spiritual matters. You can learn the same thing from Galatians, chapter 5, where St. Paul calls heresy and hatred works of the flesh. And in Romans, chapter 8, he says that, through the flesh, the law is weakened. He says this, not of unchastity, but of all sins, most of all of unbelief, which is the most spiritual of vices.

The last and highest result of prayer is not the securing of this or that gift, the avoiding of this read more

The last and highest result of prayer is not the securing of this or that gift, the avoiding of this or that danger. The last and highest result of prayer is the knowledge of God -- the knowledge which is eternal life -- and by that knowledge, the transformation of human character, and of the world.

Feast of Thomas the Apostle Long did I toil and knew no earthly rest, Far did I rove and found read more

Feast of Thomas the Apostle Long did I toil and knew no earthly rest, Far did I rove and found no certain home; At last I sought them in His sheltering breast, Who opes His arms and bids the weary come: With Him I found a home, a rest divine, And I, since then, am His, and He is mine. The good I have is from His stores supplied, The ill is only what He deems the best; He for my friend, I'm rich with naught beside, And poor without Him, though of all possessed; Changes may come, I take or I resign Content, while I am His, and He is mine. Whate'er may change, in Him no change is seen, A glorious Sun that wanes not nor declines; Above the storms and clouds He walks serene, And on His people's inward darkness shines; All may depart: I fret not, nor repine, While I my Saviours am, while He is mine. While here, alas! I know but half His love, But half discern Him, and but half adore; But when I meet Him in the realms above I hope to love him better, praise Him more, And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine, How fully I am His, and He is mine.

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly read more

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 After Calvary, God has the right to be trusted; to be read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 After Calvary, God has the right to be trusted; to be believed that He means what He says; and that His love is dependable.

To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a read more

To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a Being whom men desired to find but could not. But such a formula, though it truly represented one side of their situation, can never represent the whole of any human situation. For God is also a Being whom it ill suits any of us to find but from whom we cannot escape. Part of the reason why men cannot find God is that there is that in Him which they do not desire to find, so that the God whom they are seeking and cannot find is not the God who truly is. Perhaps we could not fail to find God, if it were really God whom we were seeking. And indeed the deepest reality of the situation is that contained in the discovery, which alone is likely at last to resolve our perplexity, that when we were so distressfully seeking that which was not really God, the true God had already found us, though at first we did not know that it was He by whom we had been found. There is a saying, "Be careful what you seek; you might find it." And some who have sought God only as a complacent ally of their own ambitions have found Him a consuming fire.