There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented read more

There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented Christians especially tend to think that the barriers to faith should be removed by repackaging the content of the message in a way more congenial to the modern outlook. But it is quite possible that we are dealing not so much with a failure of intellect as with an alienation from the experiential roots of Christianity itself so amply attested in the New Testament.

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 They only renounce the world as they ought, who live in read more

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 They only renounce the world as they ought, who live in the midst of it without worldly tempers, who comply with their share in the offices of human life without complying with the spirit that reigneth in the world.

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful read more

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful to His covenant. But the substance of that covenant is all pure mercy and grace. If men presume to claim for themselves, upon the basis of the covenant, some relationship with God other than that of the sinner needing God's grace, the covenant has been perverted. And when that has happened, God, in the sovereign freedom of His grace, destroy these pretensions, calls "No people" to be His people, breaks off natural branches and grafts in wild slips, filling them with the life that is His own life imparted to man. There is no law in His Kingdom save the law of pure grace. That is why they come from east and west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, while the sons of the Kingdom are cast out; for the sons of the Kingdom have no place there unless they are willing to sit down with all whom the Lord of the feast shall call, and to receive His mercy in exactly the same way as the publicans and sinners.

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God's Road is all uphill, but do not tire: read more

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God's Road is all uphill, but do not tire: Rejoice that we may still keep climbing higher.

Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son read more

Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son bound together in one Spirit. We are created to be brothers under God, the Father. The human family is our best illustration of how each person grows in his unique potentialities by sharing in the loving care of a society of other persons. Yet each member of the family discovers what it is to give of himself for the sake of the others. The human family is only an analogy both for our thought about God and about society; but no Christian thought gets very far away from it.

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 read more

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 The one great fear which is a holy fear is, I think, lest you make your adventure too small, too easy, too self-full, too mediocre. Christianity fails because people will keep on the surface too much, they will not go down to face these deep inner obediences; and that is ultimately to be beaten by themselves. We talk big and play so small. And the world has found it out --the great bulk have discarded Christianity as the way of Hope and put their hope in other things. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn September 26, 1998 Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 Even those of us who are inside it will agree that, in the main, the Church and all for which it stands occupy a palpably smaller place in the life of the average member than it did in former days. We explain it on the ground that life has become fuller, and that, of necessity, our attention nowadays has to percolate over a wide area instead of rushing foam-flecked down a narrower channel -- which is to say, in other words, that Christ is getting lost to us in the crush and throng of things, does not loom up as arresting, as unique, as all-important, as He did to our forefathers. Yet that, when you come to think of it, is no bad definition of unspirituality.

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 To be right with God has often meant to be read more

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.

Because they were prejudiced against the meanness of our Saviour's birth and condition, and had upon false grounds (though, as read more

Because they were prejudiced against the meanness of our Saviour's birth and condition, and had upon false grounds (though, as they thought, upon the infallibility of tradition and of Scripture interpreted by tradition) entertained quite other notions of the Messiah from what he was really to be, because they were proud and thought themselves too wise to learn of him, and because his doctrine of humility and selfdenial did thwart their interest and bring down their authority and credit among the people; therefore they set themselves against him with all their might, opposing his doctrine and blasting his reputation and persecuting him to the death: and all this while did bear up themselves with a conceit of the antiquity and privileges of their church, and their profound knowledge in the laws of God, and a great external show of piety and devotion and an arrogant presence and usurpation of being the only church and people of God in the world.

Commemoration of Crispin & Crispinian, Martyrs at Rome, c.285 In the last analysis, the service the Christian does is read more

Commemoration of Crispin & Crispinian, Martyrs at Rome, c.285 In the last analysis, the service the Christian does is not his, but Christ's. Therefore he must not feel too keenly the burden of responsibility, because at the end of the day all he can say is, "We are unprofitable servants". This knowledge, far from inhibiting action, actually releases the Christian from that appalling feeling of responsibility that has driven so many high-minded humanists to despair, even to suicide... Work done conscientiously by the Christian is his share in Christ's service; but it is Christ's service, and therefore the Christian need neither be proud because it has succeeded or overwhelmed because it has failed. The service of Christ is supremely expressed in the apparent failure of the Cross.