Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 When I trouble myself over a trifle, read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 When I trouble myself over a trifle, even a trifle confessed -- the loss of some little article, say -- spurring my memory, and hunting the house, not from immediate need, but from dislike of loss; when a book has been borrowed of me and is not returned, and I have forgotten the borrower; and fret over the missing volume, ... is it not time that I lost a few things, when I care for them so unreasonably? This losing of things is the mercy of God: it comes to teach us to let them go. Or have I forgotten a thought that came to me, which seemed of the truth? I keep trying and trying to call it back, feeling a poor man until that thought be recovered -- to be far more lost, perhaps, in a notebook into which I shall never look again to find it! I forget that it is live things that God cares about.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 Having tried, we must hold fast [to the truth] (I read more

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 Having tried, we must hold fast [to the truth] (I Thes. 5:21), upon [the penalty of] the loss of a crown (Rev. 3:11); we must not let go for all the fleabitings of the present afflictions, etc. Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world; no, not for the saving of souls, though our own most precious; least of all for the bitter sweetening of a little vanishing pleasure.

The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is a divine meaning of the world, of man, read more

The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is a divine meaning of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and me.

Feast of Stephen, Deacon, First Martyr There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, read more

Feast of Stephen, Deacon, First Martyr There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, yearning for something better; nobler; holier than it knows now.

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.

Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916 No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies read more

Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916 No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies which lies in this one privilege, in having liberty and ability to approach unto God at all times, according to His mind and will.

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.

The "great commitment" is so much easier than the ordinary, everyday one--and can all too easily shut our hearts to read more

The "great commitment" is so much easier than the ordinary, everyday one--and can all too easily shut our hearts to the latter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart.