Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 The conduct of disputation by verbal read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 The conduct of disputation by verbal brickbat, by innuendo, and by light-fingered intellectual dexterity, is a mordant reminder of the time when controversies were settled by faggot and sword. The truth is hardly less the loser because the inquisitor has altered his methods. All of us who seek to explore the wide reaches of God's revelation, and strive to bring the thinking of others under the domination of Christ, do well to seek first to bring our own rhetorical techniques under that same dominion -- under the discipline, that is, of love.

Feast of the Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth The solution lies in a complete realisation of what read more

Feast of the Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth The solution lies in a complete realisation of what we mean by asserting that God is Almighty. The two ideas of Free-will and Divine Sovereignty can not be reconciled in our own minds, but that does not prevent them from being reconciled in God's mind. We measure Him by our own intellectual standard if we think otherwise. And so our solution of the problem of Free-will and of the problems of history and of individual salvation must finally lie in the full acceptance and realisation of what is implied by the infinity and the omniscience of God.

As the wife of a state Supreme Court justice in Arkansas put it, "My husband has been a Methodist all read more

As the wife of a state Supreme Court justice in Arkansas put it, "My husband has been a Methodist all his life, but if it comes to choosing between being a Methodist and an American, he'll be an American every time." But this was not the issue, quite. In this case the choice was between being a good Methodist and a good American, and being a tribal religionist. But the theological problem of churches without discipline comes into stark outline in the quotation. Inadequately trained for membership, admitted without preparatory training, without the proper instruments of voluntary discipline, many members have never had the discontinuity between life in Christ and life in the world brought home to them. Here the ordinary members are less at fault than the leadership of the churches, who -- though sworn to uphold the form of sound words and doctrine -- neglect catechetical instruction and concentrate solely on the acquisition of more new members at any price.

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, read more

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until he be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so will he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop read more

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664 A man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood... Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The very Nazis look at you with wonderment and read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The very Nazis look at you with wonderment and an open contempt! For even they are sure that to live for nothing higher than oneself is to lose life; that life, to be called life, can be found only in serving something bigger than one's personal interests; something that crowds these out of mind and heart, till one forgets about them and lives wholly, and without exception, for that other, worthier thing... It is long since Aristotle told us that only barbarians have as their ideal the wish to live as they please, and to do what they like. And the New Testament gravely sets us down before the Cross, and bids us gaze, and still gaze, and keep gazing, till the fact has soaked itself into our minds that that, not less than that, is now the standard set us, and that whatever in our lives clashes with that is sin.

Seeing, then, it is no longer the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, but He who knoweth "the deep things of read more

Seeing, then, it is no longer the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, but He who knoweth "the deep things of God" (I Cor. ii. 10), the Holy Spirit, I mean, that striketh this lyre, let us hearken accordingly. For he will say nothing to us as a man, but what he saith, he will say from the depths of the Spirit.

Must we then have strange music... unlike the world's music, and a special language with an imagery that illuminates the read more

Must we then have strange music... unlike the world's music, and a special language with an imagery that illuminates the minds only of the religious? Or dare we do what our Lord did, and see the Name hallowed in all life that is real and honest and good? Indeed, it was a scandal to the religious men of Jesus' day when they saw what He did with sacred things. With Jesus all life was sacred and nothing was profane until sin entered in. And so it was that the word "common," which used to mean profane and unclean, became the New-Testament word for the Communion of Saints and for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 For the saints in the world to come, there can be no read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 For the saints in the world to come, there can be no change in the object of their faith and hope and love. They have Christ, they have God, and they are satisfied. There can be no monotony in the contemplation and worship of the Infinite. Their great possession is unchangeable, but also inexhaustible; no change is possible where all is love and truth. The centre of the heavenly life is fixed and immovable, but the circumference may ever be advancing towards the centre, the saints may ever be drawing nearer and nearer to the goal which they can never reach. There may be progress in knowledge, progress in enjoyment, progress in service -- a progress which at every point will open up new wonders, new opportunities, new outlooks into a greater future, and as that future unfolds itself, new and unexpected scopes for the energies of redeemed men, new ways of fellowship with God in Christ, new companionships with the good and great of past generations, and with angelic beings who have watched and guarded us in life, and rejoiced over our repentance, and are ready to welcome us into the eternal mansions, and will share our worship and our work, our service and our joy, in the ages to come.