Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for his temple.

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 The faint, far-off results read more

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will "flow over" into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites, we cannot imagine this [torrent of pleasure], and I warn everyone most seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading--thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body is made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

The will directs the tongue or the hand to act, and the evil word is spoken, or the evil deed read more

The will directs the tongue or the hand to act, and the evil word is spoken, or the evil deed done. Every time we sin, it is the whole of us that sins, and not just a part. The body is only the instrument of the mind and the will. All that God made, including the body with all its desires and instincts, is good in itself. But it has to be kept under control and used in the right way.

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the read more

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is really an un-Christian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian, love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what-not: it was the work of love which was his life.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance.

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles God always gives us strength enough, and sense enough, for every thing read more

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles God always gives us strength enough, and sense enough, for every thing that He wants us to do.

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of read more

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of thinking of faith as primarily a matter of intellectual assent. As the New Testament uses the word, faith is trust, acceptance, commitment, vision. It is not a belief in this or that creed, it is a quality which lies rather in the realm of intuition than the intellect. Faith has indeed an element of true simplicity; it is one of the qualities -- perhaps the fundamental quality -- of the child-like spirit without which no man can enter the Kingdom of God. ... Anonymous December 16, 1996 But lo' the snare is broke, the captive's freed, By faith on all the hostile powers we tread, And crush through Jesus' strength the Serpent's head. Jesus hath cast the cursed Accuser down, Hath rooted up the tares by Satan sown: All nature bows to His benign command, And two are one in His almighty hand. One in His hand, O may we still remain, Fast bound with love's indissoluble chain; (That adamant which time and death defies, That golden chain which draws us to the skies!) His love the tie that binds us to His throne, His love the bond that perfects us in one, His only love constrains our hearts t' agree, And gives the rivet of Eternity.

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under read more

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under any law; in France, as here, they would be regular jail-birds. But I loved them better and better -- and still I knew how little was my love for them compared to Christ's. It is easy enough for a man to be honest and a "Good Christian" and keeper of "the moral law", when he has his own little room, his purse well filled -- when he is well shod and well fed. It is far less easy for a man who has to live from day to day, roaming from city to city, from factory to factory. It is far less easy for someone just out of jail, with nothing to wear but old down-at-the-heels shoes and a shirt in rags. All of a sudden, I understood our Lord's words: "I was in prison ... and you visited me not." All these men, lazy, outside the law, starving: these failures of all kinds -- they were dear to Christ -- they were Christ, waiting in prison for someone to lean over Him -- and if we were true Christians, we would do them every kindness.

Christmas turns things tail-end foremost. The day and the spirit of Christmas rearrange the world parade. As the world arranges read more

Christmas turns things tail-end foremost. The day and the spirit of Christmas rearrange the world parade. As the world arranges it, usually there come first in importance -- leading the parade with a big blare of a band -- the Big Shots. Frequently they are also the Stuffed Shirts. That's the first of the parade. Then at the tail end, as of little importance, trudge the weary, the poor, the lame, the halt, and the blind. But in the Christmas spirit, the procession is turned around. Those at the tail end are put first in the arrangement of the Child of Christmas.