The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose: the world is run by causes, not by purposes.
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Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910 Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978 Commemoration of John read more
Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910 Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978 Commemoration of John XXIII, Bishop of Rome, Inspirer of Renewal, 1963 The Gospel leaves men, unless upon extraordinary occasions, their names, their reputations, their wealth and honors, if lawfully obtained and possessed; but the league that is between the mind and these things in all natural men must be broken. They must be no longer looked upon as the chiefest good or in the place thereof.
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.
Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising read more
Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead.
From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why read more
From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why doesn't He stop Hitler?", to the unspoken questioning in many a Christian heart when a devoted servant of Christ dies from accident or disease at what seems to us a most inopportune moment, there is this universal longing for God to intervene, to show His hand, to vindicate His purpose. I do not pretend to understand the ways of God any more than the next man; but it is surely more fitting as well as more sensible for us to study what God does do and what He does not do as He works in and through the complex fabric of this disintegrated world, than to postulate what we think God ought to do and then feel demoralized and bitterly disappointed because He fails to fulfil what we expect of Him.
Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 Above all, desire to please Christ; dread read more
Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 Above all, desire to please Christ; dread his disapproval above everything else.
Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The Gospels do not explain the Resurrection -- the read more
Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The Gospels do not explain the Resurrection -- the Resurrection explains the Gospels.
If we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto Him read more
If we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto Him at all times and all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as His gift.
Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our read more
Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our holiness is an effect, not a cause; as long as our eyes are on our own personal whiteness as an end in itself, the thing breaks down. God can do nothing while my interest is in my personal character--He will take care of this if I obey His call. In learning to love God and people as He commanded us to do, obviously your sanctification cannot but come, but not as an end in itself.
Many ordinary treasures may be denied the man who has God, or if he is allowed to have them, the read more
Many ordinary treasures may be denied the man who has God, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss.
