We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that read more

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

EPIPHANY If on our daily course our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still of countless read more

EPIPHANY If on our daily course our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still of countless price God will provide for sacrifice. The trivial round, the common task Will furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves -- a road To bring us daily nearer God.

Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the mysteries of God. read more

Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the mysteries of God. If thou understandest not... the things which are beneath thee, how shalt thou comprehend those which are above thee? Submit thyself unto God, and humble thy sense to faith, and the light of knowledge shall be given thee, as shall be profitable and necessary unto thee.

Although prayer has been defined as communion with God, aspiration after the highest things, Stopford Brooke [Irish clergyman, 1832-1916] is read more

Although prayer has been defined as communion with God, aspiration after the highest things, Stopford Brooke [Irish clergyman, 1832-1916] is right when he insists that prayer, in its plainest meaning, is a petition addressed to God. When Jesus laid the duty of petition upon his disciples, He went on to assert the reasonableness of man's asking and God's answering. Jesus argues along the line of reason that, if an earthly parent does the best in his power for his children, ... the Almighty and All-Wise Love, of which human love is only the shadow, will do better still for His great family; and therefore our Master teaches that men ought everywhere to pray, without fear, with hope, and without doubt.

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles The more vigor you need, the more gentleness and kindness you read more

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles The more vigor you need, the more gentleness and kindness you must combine with it. All stiff, harsh goodness is contrary to Jesus.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to read more

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, read more

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, Spiritual Writer, 1688 [John Bunyan] had to live through that obscure night -- "wide, vast, and lonely" -- which fell upon St. John of the Cross before; like him, he knew that grace would enter "the dark caverns where the senses live". In the meantime, Bunyan tossed to and fro, as it were between heaven and hell. It has been said that he paints too dark a picture of his moral condition when a young man, that he exaggerates his wickedness at this period, and afterwards wrestles with phantoms of his vivid imagination. But spiritual sins, though not so obvious as those that are sensual, may be just as real; and Bunyan's intensity of feeling and expression arose from the intensity of his spiritual nature.

If Christianity is what Jesus taught and lived and died for, then nothing can be truly the Gospel which lays read more

If Christianity is what Jesus taught and lived and died for, then nothing can be truly the Gospel which lays less stress than he did upon every human being's need of forgiveness by God, and upon our human need to be perpetually forgiving each other. Sooner or later, the modern adult man, like all other men everywhere, must come to know his need to be forgiven, and that by God.

Feast of Etheldreda, Abbess of Ely, c.678 Man is challenged to participate in the sufferings of God at the read more

Feast of Etheldreda, Abbess of Ely, c.678 Man is challenged to participate in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world. He must therefore plunge himself into the life of a godless world, without attempting to gloss over its ungodliness with a veneer of religion or trying to transfigure it. He must live a 'worldly' life and so participate in the suffering of God. He may live a worldly life as one emancipated from all false religions and obligations. To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to cultivate some particular form of asceticism (as a sinner, a penitent, or a saint), but to be a man. It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world.