Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Augustine shows clearly the religious character of sin. Sin for read more

Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Augustine shows clearly the religious character of sin. Sin for him is not a moral failure; it is not even disobedience. Disobedience is a consequence but not the cause. The cause is: turning away from God, and from God as the highest good, as the love with which God loves Himself, through us. For this reason, since sin has this character -- if you say "sins", it is easily dissolved into moral sins; but sin is first of all basically the power of turning away from God. For this very reason, no moral remedy is possible. Only one remedy is possible: return to God. But this of course is possible only in the power of God, and this power is lost. This is the state of man under the conditions of existence.

Easter Because upon the first glad Easter day The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away, So, through the read more

Easter Because upon the first glad Easter day The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away, So, through the deepening shadows of death's night, Men see an open door ... beyond it, light.

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 Perhaps there cannot be a better way of judging of read more

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 Perhaps there cannot be a better way of judging of what manner of spirit we are of, than to see whether the actions of our life are such as we may safely commend them to God in our prayers.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 There is a cowardice in this age which is not Christian. We read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 There is a cowardice in this age which is not Christian. We shrink from the consequences of truth. We look round and cling dependently. We ask what men will think; what others will say; whether they will not stare in astonishment. Perhaps they will; but he who is calculating that, will accomplish nothing in this life. The Father -- the Father which is with us and in us -- what does He think? God's work cannot be done without a spirit of independence. A man is got some way in the Christian life when he has learned to say, humbly yet majestically, "I dare to be alone.".

Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of read more

Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the spokesmen of Christian opinion. When I was a child, bishops expressed doubts about the Resurrection, and were called courageous. When I was a girl, G. K. Chesterton professed belief in the Resurrection, and was called whimsical. When I was at college, thoughtful people expressed belief in the Resurrection "in a spiritual sense", and were called advanced; (any other kind of belief was called obsolete, and its professors were held to be simpleminded). When I was middle-aged, a number of lay persons, including some poets and writers of popular fiction, put forward rational arguments for the Resurrection, and were called courageous. Today, any lay apologist for Christianity... whose works are sold and read, is liable to be abused in no uncertain terms as a mountebank, a reactionary, a tool of the Inquisition, a spiritual snob, an intellectual bully, an escapist, an obstructionist, a psychopathic introvert, an insensitive extrovert, and an enemy of society. The charges are not always mutually compatible, but the common animus behind them is unmistakable, and its name is fear. Writers who attack these domineering Christians are called courageous.

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: When Christ was in the world, He was despised by men; read more

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: When Christ was in the world, He was despised by men; in the hour of need He was forsaken by acquaintances and left by friends to the depths of scorn. He was willing to suffer and to be despised; do you dare to complain of anything? He had enemies and defamers; do you want everyone to be your friend, your benefactor? How can your patience be rewarded if no adversity tests it? How can you be a friend of Christ if you are not willing to suffer any hardship? Suffer with Christ and for Christ if you wish to reign with Him. Had you but once entered into perfect communion with Jesus or tasted a little of His ardent love, you would care nothing at all for your own comfort or discomfort but would rejoice in the reproach you suffer; for love of Him makes a man despise himself. ... Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ May 11, 2000 Concluding a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus' good news, then, was that the Kingdom of God had come, and that he, Jesus, was its herald and expounder to men. More than that, in some special and mysterious was, he was the kingdom.

One attempt to reconcile the Gnostic doctrine [of the unreality of evilness] of matter with the apostolic teaching about Christ read more

One attempt to reconcile the Gnostic doctrine [of the unreality of evilness] of matter with the apostolic teaching about Christ was the theory that the body which our Lord took at His coming into the world was not a real body but a phantom one. He only seemed to inhabit a material body, and from the Greek word dokein ["to seem"], people who held this theory were known as Docetists. But if Christ's incarnation was unreal, His death and resurrection were also unreal; and the whole gospel message was thus evacuated of its truth and power: one unhappy legacy of this short-lived phase of Christian heresy remains to bedevil Christian witness to Muslims up to the present day. For when the Koran says of Jesus that "they did not kill Him, nor did they crucify Him, but they thought they did", we may infer that Muhammad was indebted for this idea to a Christian source tainted with Docetism.

Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 Christians must learn again what Christians have always known -- how read more

Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 Christians must learn again what Christians have always known -- how to live without immediate hopes in the world.

Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258 As Christians, and followers of Jesus, we have not taken read more

Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258 As Christians, and followers of Jesus, we have not taken pride half seriously enough. But the Devil has. The Devil knows that as long as he can control human pride it does not matter how many prayer meetings, how many services, how much devotion goes on -- he can still wrack any group of Christians, sooner or later, and frustrate God's purpose for them, and for the world. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn August 11, 1999 Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 Never... think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins.