Is it unfair to suggest that, in some of us at least, [Christianity] hasn't fully worked so far simply because, read more

Is it unfair to suggest that, in some of us at least, [Christianity] hasn't fully worked so far simply because, at the pinch, at the decisive moment, we don't want it to work or ourselves to be lifted up above the failings and disloyalties we find so alluring, but rather to be enabled to continue them without the ugly consequences of so doing, to have the inexorable laws of life bent aside in our favour, so that we can squeeze through and escape, without reaping what we have sown; because, as we misunderstand it, the whole point of the good news our Lord brings is the (to us) gladsome announcement that God is happily much more morally indifferent than our consciences had thought, and is not going to make a fuss about our sins and such-like trivial peccadilloes, but will surely let us off -- because, in fact, we have not grasped that the core and essence of the Gospel... is its tremendous and glorious revelation of how deadly is God's hatred of sin, so that He cannot stand having it in the same universe as Himself, and will go any length, and will pay any price, and will make any sacrifice, to master and abolish it, is set upon so doing in our hearts, thank God, as elsewhere.

Continuing a series on God and the human condition: The situation in which we find ourselves in this world read more

Continuing a series on God and the human condition: The situation in which we find ourselves in this world seems to be a condition of estrangement from God, with little feeling of contact with Him, yet a curious nostalgic feeling that somewhere He exists and that our life would be much more complete if we were in relationship with Him. The deep, seemingly indestructible awareness of something like homesickness for God is the natural basis for believing in some kind of "fall" -- we seem to remember something better and to be possessed to recapture it. There appears to be a gap, a chasm, between God and us which must be crossed if we are to be in relationship with him. We know that our own wrongdoing can widen the chasm: we are not so sure what will close it. Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good: it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember, but cannot entirely forget.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Seducers we, they say; but they lead men astray. Oh, what read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Seducers we, they say; but they lead men astray. Oh, what a noble seduction ours, that men should change from dissolute to sober living -- or towards it; to justice from injustice -- or tending that way; to wisdom from being foolish -- or becoming such; and from cowardice, meanness and timidity, show courage and fortitude, not least in this struggle for the sake of our religion.

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life read more

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876 The sacred page is not meant to be the end, but only the means toward the end, which is knowing God himself.

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 You rob, and spoile, and eat his people as bread, by Extortion, read more

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 You rob, and spoile, and eat his people as bread, by Extortion, and bribery, and deceitful waights and measures, and deluding oathes in buying and selling, and then come hither, and so make God your Receiver, and his house a den of Thieves. His house is Sanctum Sanctorum, The holiest of holies, and you make it onely Sanctuarium: It should be a place sanctified by your devotions, and you make it onely a Sanctuary to priviledge Maelfactors, a place that may redeeme you from the ill opinion of men, who must in charity be bound to thinke well of you, because they see you in here.

Men love to trust God (as they profess) for what they have in their hands, in possession, or what lies read more

Men love to trust God (as they profess) for what they have in their hands, in possession, or what lies in an easy view; place their desires afar off, carry their accomplishment behind the clouds out of their sight, interpose difficulties and perplexities -- their hearts are instantly sick. They cannot wait for God; they do not trust Him, nor ever did. Would you have the presence of God with you? Learn to wait quietly for the salvation you expect from Him.

What, after all, are the world's deepest problems? They are what they always have been, the individual's problems -- the read more

What, after all, are the world's deepest problems? They are what they always have been, the individual's problems -- the meaning of life and death, the mastery of self, the quest for value and worth-whileness and freedom within, the transcending of loneliness, the longing for love and a sense of significance, and for peace. Society's problems are deep, but the individual's problems go deeper; Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, or Shakespeare will show us that, if we hesitate to take it from the Bible.

There is a wisdom of the head, and... a wisdom of the heart.

There is a wisdom of the head, and... a wisdom of the heart.

If the prophecies of the Old Testament are not rightly interpreted of Jesus our Christ, then there is no prediction read more

If the prophecies of the Old Testament are not rightly interpreted of Jesus our Christ, then there is no prediction whatever contained in it of that stupendous event, the rise and establishment of Christianity, in comparison with which all the preceding Jewish history is as nothing. With the exception of the book of Daniel, which the Jews themselves never classed among the prophecies, and an obscure text of Jeremiah, there is not a passage in all the Old Testament which favours the notion of a temporal Messiah. What moral object was there, for which such a Messiah should come? What could he have been but a sort of virtuous Napoleon?