Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: A man who prays without ceasing, if he achieves something, knows why he achieved it, and can take no pride in it... for he cannot attribute it to his own powers, but attributes all his achievements to God, always renders thanks to him and constantly calls upon him, trembling lest he be deprived of help.
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The idea of endless and limitless progress and development seems unsatisfying both philosophically and religiously; a process only finds its read more
The idea of endless and limitless progress and development seems unsatisfying both philosophically and religiously; a process only finds its meaning in its goal. However far off be the Beatific Vision, to see the King in His glory, "to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" -- this is heaven, and "it were a well-spent journey though seven deaths lay between".
A satisfying prayer life elevates and purifies every act of body and mind and integrates the entire personality into a read more
A satisfying prayer life elevates and purifies every act of body and mind and integrates the entire personality into a single spiritual unit. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live.
Feast of Barnabas the Apostle Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change; and when we read more
Feast of Barnabas the Apostle Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change; and when we are right, make us easy to live with.
The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our read more
The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, "Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home". Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another that God is not mocked; that He is not a man that He should repent; that tears and entreaties will not work on Him to the breach of one of His laws; that for God to give a man, because he asked for it, that which was not in harmony with His laws of truth and right, would be to damn him -- to cast him into the outer darkness.
Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]
Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]
His Christianity was muscular.
His Christianity was muscular.
God's manifestation of Himself has not been for our personal experience only, but all creation, and all time, all mankind read more
God's manifestation of Himself has not been for our personal experience only, but all creation, and all time, all mankind and all man's life upon the earth, are manifestations of God; and the man turns to barrenness and folly who limits himself to his own narrow thought and futile endeavours. All human experience is revelation if the great purpose of life is the discipline of souls, and the one unchanging guidance for all men is duty.
Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over read more
Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550 It might help us in our thinking if we read more
Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550 It might help us in our thinking if we drew a distinction between preaching, which the New Testament talks about as a continuing activity in society at large, and sermonising, which we have made into a special activity in the church premises... A great many people sermonising in our churches today would be better off and of greater service if they absolved themselves from the bondage and disciplines of the pulpit and came down among their congregations, teaching informally on sounder educational principles. After all, the vital matter in the ministry of the Word is not that a clergyman delivers himself of a discourse but that the people to whom he ministers end up being taught something. The tragedy is that the professional clergy have been trained to sermonise and they seem overwhelmed with fears and a sense of insecurity when they contemplate other methods. A further problem, of course, is that most of our churches contain a significant number of people who become emotionally disturbed at any departure from what they have always done in the past. To them, the sermon is part of their Christianity -- even if it bores them stiff!
