This total and entire conversion of the inner man, this absolute doing away of the old and acceptance of the read more

This total and entire conversion of the inner man, this absolute doing away of the old and acceptance of the new life, being in its nature a real breach and not a formal one, necessarily involved a corresponding outward breach with the old form of life. Of this breach Baptism was the sacrament. In Baptism the change was effected and realized in fact. Baptism was not a mere formal external act, a symbol of a spiritual fact which was already complete without it. A Spiritual conversion which was not also a conversion of life was no conversion at all, but a delusion... With the heart man believes, with the mouth he confesses; but a mouth which does not confess disproves the existence of a heart that believes. The soul cannot be God's and the life not God's at the same time. The soul can not be recreated and the life remain unchanged. The spiritual breach is proved and realized and completed in the outward breach. Where there is no outward change, it is safe to deny an inward change. Faith without Baptism and all that Baptism involved was consequently no part of St. Paul's teaching.

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says "Amen" read more

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says "Amen" and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him your ideas.

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 The gospel comprises indeed, read more

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 The gospel comprises indeed, and unfolds, the whole mystery of man's redemption, as far forth as it is necessary to be known for our salvation: and the corpuscularian or mechanical philosophy strives to deduce all the phenomena of nature from adiaphorous matter, and local motion. But neither the fundamental doctrine of Christianity nor that of the powers and effects of matter and motion seems to be more than an epicycle ... of the great and universal system of God's contrivances, and makes but a part of the more general theory of things, knowable by the light of nature, improved by the information of the scriptures: so that both these doctrines... seem to be but members of the universal hypothesis, whose objects I conceive to be the natural counsels, and works of God, so far as they are discoverable by us in this life.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the secularists secular education if they on their side will promise not to have moral instruction. Secular education seems to me intellectually clean and comprehensible. Moral instruction seems to me unclean, intolerable; I would destroy it with fire. Teaching the Old Testament by itself means teaching ancient Hebrew ethics, which are simple, barbaric rudimentary, and, to a Christian, unsatisfying. Teaching moral instruction means teaching modern London, Birmingham and Boston ethics, which are not barbaric and rudimentary, but are corrupt, hysterical and crawling with worms, and which are to a Christian, not unsatisfying but detestable. The old Jew who says that you must fight only for your tribe is inadequate; but the modern prig who says you must never fight for anything is substantially and specifically immoral. I know quite well, of course, that the unreligious ethics suggested for modern schools do not verbally assert these things; they only talk about peaceful reform, true Christianity, and the importance of Count Tolstoy. It is all a matter of tone and implication--but then, so is all teaching. Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 So long as we are full of self, we are shocked read more

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 So long as we are full of self, we are shocked at the faults of others. Let us think often of our own sin, and we shall be lenient to the sins of others.

"They shall return unto me with their whole heart." "Ye shall search for me with all your heart." He makes read more

"They shall return unto me with their whole heart." "Ye shall search for me with all your heart." He makes a direct call to us for single-mindedness: a single-minded longing for Him -- no lesser aim will do; no desire to be good, no striving to measure up to some standard we have set for ourselves, to correct some failure we have been shown in our way of life. These may be temporarily necessary, but they will turn to dust and ashes, they will end in a grim dryness, unless at the back of them all is what He asks of us --a never-ending search for a real knowledge of Him, for a sense of His reality, a confidence in His companionship, a joy and delight in the very person of God Himself. It is for this that we must learn to long and long, till our prayers for it become not just a form of words, but a stretching out of our whole being to Him. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn November 27, 1999 When God finished man He breathed into the human form the divine life, "and man became a living soul." Man is created to be a witness and likeness of God. God and man are so near to one another that it was possible for the Eternal Word to become Man without ceasing to be God, to re-ascend to the Highest without dehumanizing the Manhood which He had assumed; so near that the believer may say in the fullest meaning of the words, "I live, yet not I, but Christ".

His Christianity was muscular.

His Christianity was muscular.

Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 A Christian should always remember that the value read more

Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence, but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things. St. John of the Cross December 15, 2000 Two thousand years of failure have not taught some reformers that you can't stop sin by declaring it illegal. Two thousand years have not taught them that you can't save a man's soul by force -- you can only lose your own in the attempt. Drunkenness and gambling and secularism and lechery -- various hopeful churchmen have earnestly tried to outlaw them all; and what is the result? A drunken nation, a gambling nation, a secularist nation, an adulterous nation. And, often, a ruined Church.

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".