Concluding a series on God and the human condition: Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. read more

Concluding a series on God and the human condition: Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. In them the Ancients personified living realities -- intelligence, beauty, love, or lust, which are still at work in our hearts, and which fashion our persons. The language they speak is that of image and myth, which touches the person much more directly than the explicit language of science and the intellectual dialectic of the modern world. It is also the language of the Bible, of the parables of Christ, which the rationalist of today finds it so difficult to understand, of the Word of God which demands of us not a discussion but a personal decision.

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 I love my God, but with no love of mine For I read more

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 I love my God, but with no love of mine For I have none to give; I love Thee, Lord, but all that love is Thine, For by Thy life I live. I am as nothing, and rejoice to be Emptied and lost and swallowed up in Thee.

Morning has broken like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for read more

Morning has broken like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word! Sweet the new rain's fall sunlit from heaven, Like the first dewfall on the first grass. Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, Spring in completeness where His feet pass. Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning Born of the one light Eden saw play! Praise with elation, praise every morning, God's re-creation of the new day!

But, you object, a heart like mine can offer Christ so little -- at best, so poor and pinched and read more

But, you object, a heart like mine can offer Christ so little -- at best, so poor and pinched and stingey a hospitality and such meagre fare; for I have nothing worthy of Him to set before Him, only a kind of affection, real enough at times, but which, at others, can and does so easily forget; only a will, quite unreliable, deplorably unstable; only a faith that is the merest shadow of what His real friends mean when they speak about faith, I know. But, there was once a garret up under the roof, a poor, bare place enough. There was a table in it, and there were some benches, and a water-pot; a towel, and a basin in behind the door, but not much else -- a bare, unhomelike room. But the Lord Christ entered into it. And, from that moment, it became the holiest of all, where souls innumerable ever since have met the Lord God, in High glory, face to face. And, if you give Him entrance to that very ordinary heart of yours, it too He will transform and sanctify and touch with a splendour of glory.

Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 It is no great matter to associate with the read more

Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 It is no great matter to associate with the good and gentle; for this is a naturally pleasing to all, and everyone willingly enjoyeth peace, and loveth those best that agree with him. But to be able to live peaceably with hard and perverse persons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go contrary to us, is a great grace, and a most commendable thing.

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake read more

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it I do believe, and take it.

There is nothing safe in religion, except in such a course of behaviour that leaves nothing for corrupt nature to read more

There is nothing safe in religion, except in such a course of behaviour that leaves nothing for corrupt nature to feed or live upon; which can only then be done when every degree of perfection we aim at is a degree of death to the passions of the natural man.

That faith alone will never forsake Christ which springs out of or is built upon a conviction of the need read more

That faith alone will never forsake Christ which springs out of or is built upon a conviction of the need for Him.

Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709 Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845 Accustom read more

Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709 Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845 Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.