The Churches belong together in the Church. What that may mean for our ecclesiastical groupings we do not know. We read more

The Churches belong together in the Church. What that may mean for our ecclesiastical groupings we do not know. We have not discovered the kind or outward manifestation which God wills that we shall give to that inner unity. But we must seek it.

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 In that age they will neither read more

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 In that age they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be as the angels. We are destined to a better state -- destined to rise to a spiritual consortship. So we, who shall be with God, shall be together: since we shall all be with the one God, though there be many mansions in the house of the same Father; and, in eternal life, God will still less separate them whom He has joined together, than, in this lesser life, He allows them to be separated.

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.

EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me read more

EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter! The faith that limits itself to the promises of God seems to me to partake of the paltry character of such a faith in my child -- good enough for a Pagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith. Those who rest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had God's bond instead of His word, which they regard not as the outcome of His character but as a pledge of His honour. They try to believe in the truth of His word, but the truth of His Being they understand not. In His oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence: in himself they do not believe, for they know Him not.

What is worst of all is to advocate Christianity, not because it is true, but because it might prove useful... read more

What is worst of all is to advocate Christianity, not because it is true, but because it might prove useful... To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion; and we may reflect that a good deal of the attention of totalitarian states has been devoted with a steadfastness of purpose not always found in democracies, to providing their national life with a foundation of morality -- the wrong kind, perhaps, but a good deal more of it. It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 If you believe, where are your works? Your faith is something everyone read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 If you believe, where are your works? Your faith is something everyone knows, for everyone knows that Christ was [crucified], and that everywhere men pray to Him. The whole world knows that His glory has not been spread by force and weapons, but by poor fishermen. 0 wise man, do you think the poor fishermen were not clever enough for this? Where they worked, there they made hearts better; where they could not work, there men remained bad; and therefore was the faith true and from God. The signs which the Lord had promised followed their teaching: in His name they drove out the devil; they spoke in new tongues; if they drank any deadly drink, they received therefrom no harm. Even if these wonders had not occurred, there would have been the wonder of wonders, that poor fishermen without any miracle could accomplish so great a work as the faith. It came from God, and so is Christ true, and Christ is thy God, who is in heaven and awaits thee.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.

Religion is not ours till we live by it, till it is the Religion of our thoughts, words, and actions, read more

Religion is not ours till we live by it, till it is the Religion of our thoughts, words, and actions, till it goes with us into every place, sits uppermost on every occasion, and forms and governs our hopes and fears, our cares and pleasures.

Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; read more

Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows them to have a tremendous fall.