I was confirmed in my conviction that when all the best scholarship is taken into account we can know Christ read more

I was confirmed in my conviction that when all the best scholarship is taken into account we can know Christ as He was in the days of His flesh. Although I became familiar with the contemporary and recent studies of honest, competent scholars who questioned them, I was convinced that the historical evidence confirms the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ. Increasingly, I believed that the nearest verbal approach that we human beings can come to the great mystery is to affirm that Christ is both fully man and fully God. Although now we see Him not, yet believing, we can "rejoice with joy unspeakable" in what the Triune God has done and is doing through Him. This Good News, so rich that it is stated in a variety of ways, but always consistently, in the New Testament, is what we always imperfect children, but children [yet], are privileged -- and commanded -- to make known and to demonstrate to all mankind.

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Let us go and wake up the universe... and sing His read more

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Let us go and wake up the universe... and sing His praises.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally original and draw on resources peculiar to themselves, but with this difference. The unbeliever may take his own temperament and experience, just as they happen to stand, and consider them worth communicating simply because they are his. To the Christian his own temperament and experience, as mere fact, and as merely his, are of no value or importance whatsoever: he will deal with them, if at all, only because they are the medium through which, or the position from which, something universally profitable appeared to him.

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.

In all the sins of men, God principally regards the principle -- that is, the heart.

In all the sins of men, God principally regards the principle -- that is, the heart.

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 Our critical day read more

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 Our critical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course of our life; I thank him, that prays for me when my bell tolls; but I thank him much more, that catechizes me, or preaches to me, or instructs me how to live.

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic read more

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles When our lives are focused on God, awe and wonder lead read more

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles When our lives are focused on God, awe and wonder lead us to worship God, filling our inner being with a fullness we would never have thought possible. Awe prepares the way in us for the power of God to transform us and this transformation of our inner attitudes can only take place when awe leads us in turn to wonder, admiration, reverence, surrender, and obedience toward God.

We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way that we read more

We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way that we would have it be, rather than the way God has provided, which is infinitely better for us. As they lead us into the blind alleys of self-indulgence and escape from life, heresies pander to the most unworthy tendencies of the human heart.