Beside Jesus, the whole lot of us are so contemptible... But God is like Jesus, and like Jesus, He will read more

Beside Jesus, the whole lot of us are so contemptible... But God is like Jesus, and like Jesus, He will not give up until we, too, are like Jesus.

I think that there is no reason to doubt but that the blessed spirits above, who continually "behold the face read more

I think that there is no reason to doubt but that the blessed spirits above, who continually "behold the face of their Father", are still writing after this copy which is here propounded to us, and endeavouring to be "perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect", still aspiring after a nearer and more perfect resemblance of God, whose goodness and mercy is far beyond and before that of any creature, that they may be for ever approaching nearer to it and yet never overtake it.

Beautiful sanctuaries, paved parking lots, and new liturgies will do very little for people who sit in worship with their read more

Beautiful sanctuaries, paved parking lots, and new liturgies will do very little for people who sit in worship with their fingers crossed and do not really believe the faith which is expounded. Often the layman dismisses what the preacher says as something irrelevant to his situation and generation. When he joins a group where he is no longer afraid to be frank, the supposedly faithful member often admits that he has never really accepted what he thinks he has heard. He has, for example, grave reservations about the idea of creation. Did not the world evolve of itself? Do we really need the hypothesis of Infinite Purpose to make sense of the physical, biological, and psychological development? These questions seldom come to the surface when the Church provides merely a one-way preaching. There is little chance of renewal if all that we have is the arrangement by which one speaks and the others listen. One trouble with this conventional system is that the speaker never knows what the unanswered questions are, or what reservations remain in the layman's mentality.

When Jesus takes possession of our life, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that read more

When Jesus takes possession of our life, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that were all, we might well proceed to make the same mess of life all over again; but into life there enters this new power which enables us to be what by ourselves we could never be, and to do what by ourselves we could never do. Water and the Spirit stand for the cleansing and the strengthening power of Christ, which wipes out the past and which gives us victory in the future.

Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us read more

Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in His great campaign of sabotage

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 As long as I see any thing to be read more

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 As long as I see any thing to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 "He cannot deny Himself" [II Tim. 2:13], means at the read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 "He cannot deny Himself" [II Tim. 2:13], means at the same time He cannot deny His grace to the sinful, and He cannot deny the moral order in which alone He can live in fellowship with men; and we see the inviolableness of both asserted in the death of Jesus. Nothing else in the world demonstrates how real is God's love to the sinful, and how real the sin of the world is to God. And the love which comes to us through such an expression, bearing sin in all its reality, yet loving us through and beyond it, is the only love which at once forgives and regenerates the soul.

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men read more

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

Feast of the Conversion of Paul The God of Pharisaism was like the God of the Deists, He stood read more

Feast of the Conversion of Paul The God of Pharisaism was like the God of the Deists, He stood aloof from the world He had made, and let law take its course. He did not here and now deal with sinful men. Paul lets us see how new and wonderful was the experience when God "flashed on his heart" in personal dealing with him. He had not suspected that God was like that. His theological studies had told him that God was loving and merciful; but he had thought this love and mercy were expressed once and for all in the arrangements He had made for Israel's blessedness... It was a new thing to be assured by an inward experience admitting of no further question that God loved him, and that the eternal mercy was a Father's free forgiveness of His erring child. This was the experience that Christ had brought him: he had seen the splendour of God's own love in the face of "the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." [Continued tomorrow].