Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration read more

Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration of Octavia Hill, Worker for the Poor, 1912 The kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power, the power of Godliness. Though now we are fallen upon another method, we have turned all religion into faith, and our faith is nothing but the production of interest or disputing; it is adhering to a party and a wrangling against all the world beside--and when it is asked of what religion he is, we understand the meaning to be what faction does he follow, what are the articles of his sect, not what is the manner of his life: and if men be zealous for their party and that interest, then they are precious men, though otherwise they be covetous as the grave, factious as Dathan, schismatical as Korah, or proud as the fallen angels. ... Jeremy Taylor August 14, 2000 Commemoration of Maximilian Kolbe, Franciscan Friar, Priest, Martyr, 1941 Whether God revealed Himself to the patriarchs by oracles and visions, or suggested, by means of the ministry of men, what should be handed down by tradition to their posterity, it is beyond a doubt that their minds were impressed with a firm assurance of the doctrine, so that they were persuaded and convinced that the information they had received came from God... But since we are not favored with daily oracles from heaven, and since it is only in the Scriptures that the Lord hath been pleased to preserve His truth in perpetual remembrance, it obtains the same complete credit and authority with believers, when they are satisfied of its divine origin, as if they heard the very words pronounced by God Himself... Let it be considered, then, as an undeniable truth, that they who have been inwardly taught by the Spirit feel an entire acquiescence in the Scripture, and that it is self-authenticated, carrying with it its own evidence, and ought not to be made the subject of demonstration and arguments from reason; but it obtains the credit which it deserves with us by the testimony of the Spirit.

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Continuing a short series on read more

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Continuing a short series on forgiveness: He who has not forgiven an enemy has not yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 The progress of these terrors is plainly shown us in read more

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 The progress of these terrors is plainly shown us in our Lord's agony in the garden, when the reality of this eternal death so broke in upon Him, so awakened and stirred itself in Him, as to force great drops of blood to sweat from His body... His agony was His entrance into the last, eternal terrors of the lost soul, into the real horrors of that dreadful, eternal death which man unredeemed must have died into when he left this world. We are therefore not to consider our Lord's death upon the Cross as only the death of that mortal body which was nailed to it, but we are to look upon Him with wounded hearts, as being fixed and fastened in the state of that twofold death, which was due to the fallen nature, out of which He could not come till He could say, "It is finished; Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.".

That appearance on earth as an individual is the crisis in the history both of Christ Himself and of the read more

That appearance on earth as an individual is the crisis in the history both of Christ Himself and of the humanity He saves and leads. The ministry of Jesus, therefore, culminating in His death, is essential to Paul's whole thought. If in certain aspects of his theology it is the death that bulks most largely -- because it seemed to him to be the purest and most moving expression of what the whole life meant -- he is quite aware that the ethical impulse given by the example and teaching of Jesus is of the very stuff of the Christian life. He alludes to the Gospel story but sparingly, but those who study his teaching most closely become aware that he is himself acting and speaking all through under the impulse of the life and teaching of Jesus. If he refuses to "know Christ after the flesh," it means that he will not risk a harking back to the temporary conditions of the Galilean ministry when the Spirit of Christ is clearly leading out into new fields. The issues of that ministry have been gathered up in the new experience of "Christ in me", and that experience gives a living Christ, who leads ever onward those who will adventure with Him, and not a prophet of the past, whose words might pass into a dead tradition.

Christ is the Word of God. It is not in certain texts written in the New Testament, valuable as they read more

Christ is the Word of God. It is not in certain texts written in the New Testament, valuable as they are; it is not in certain words which Jesus spoke, vast as is their preciousness; it is in the Word, which Jesus is, that the great manifestation of God is made.

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 When all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments, read more

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 When all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments, is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence; sayes the Apostle, it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Yet there was a case, in which David found an ease, to fall into the hands of God, to scape the hands of men: When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearefull thing, to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Although we have different ways of worshipping and doing things, we have read more

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Although we have different ways of worshipping and doing things, we have only one God. So how can we claim to have... "Good News" unless people can see in us that Jesus Christ is breaking down barriers and bringing us together?

If Christians are ever to be united, they must be united in Christ, their living head and the source of read more

If Christians are ever to be united, they must be united in Christ, their living head and the source of their spiritual life.

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 It is generally true that all that is read more

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.