God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God read more

God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God is in all things; and that man is not serving God aright, who can only serve Him in his own self-chosen way.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604 We can have no power from Christ unless we read more

Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604 We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.

Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is leading, with read more

Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is leading, with the thoughts he is thinking, with the deeds he is doing; when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God.

This was the fullness of time, when Christ Jesus did come, that the Messiah should come. It was so to read more

This was the fullness of time, when Christ Jesus did come, that the Messiah should come. It was so to the Jews, and it was so to the Gentiles too... Christ hath excommunicated no nation, no shire, no house, no man; He gives none of His ministers leave to say to any man, thou art not redeemed; He gives no wounded or afflicted conscience leave to say to itself, I am not redeemed.

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 I too had noticed read more

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 I too had noticed that our prayers for others flow more easily than those we offer on our own behalf. And it would be nice to accept your view that this just shows we are made to live by charity. I'm afraid, however, I detect two much less attractive reasons for the ease of my own intercessory prayers. One is that I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him. And the other is like unto it. Suppose I pray that you may be given grace to withstand your besetting sin (short list of candidates for this post will be forwarded on demand). Well, all the work has to be done by God and you. If I pray against my own besetting sin there will be work for me. One sometimes fights shy of admitting an act to be a sin for this very reason.

Nothing could have saved the infant Church from melting away into one of those vague and ineffective schools of philosophic read more

Nothing could have saved the infant Church from melting away into one of those vague and ineffective schools of philosophic ethics except the stern and strict rule that is laid down here [Rev. 2:15, 16] by St. John. An easy-going Christianity could never have survived; only the most convinced, resolute, almost bigoted adherence to the most uncompromising interepretation of its own principles could have given the Christians the courage and self-reliance that were needed. For them to hesitate or to doubt was to be lost.

Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main read more

Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading Burke with no interest in politics, or reading the Aeneid with no interest in Rome... But there is a saner sense in which the Bible -- since it is, after all, literature -- cannot properly be read except as literature, and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are. Most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems -- as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry... Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.

Behind the words of Jesus and the memories about him, there shines forth a self-authenticating portrait of a real person read more

Behind the words of Jesus and the memories about him, there shines forth a self-authenticating portrait of a real person in all his human uniqueness, an impression which is accessible alike to the layman and to the expert, to believer and non-believer. No reader of the gospel story can fail to be impressed by Jesus' humble submission to the will of his God on the one hand, and his mastery of all situations on the other; by his penetrating discernment of human motives and his authoritative demand of radical obedience on the one hand, and his gracious, forgiving acceptance of sinners on the other. There is nothing, either in the Messianic hopes of pre-Christian Judaism or in the later Messianic beliefs of the early Christian Church to account for this portrait. It is characterized by an originality and freshness which is beyond the power of invention. (Continued tomorrow).