Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because He was giving them what they wanted [bread], and they wished to use Him for their plans and dreams and purposes. That attitude to Christ still lingers in men's minds. We would like Christ's gifts without Christ's Cross; we would like to use Christ instead of allowing Him to use us.

Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761 Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347 Commemoration of read more

Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761 Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347 Commemoration of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Priest, Scientist, Visionary, 1955 Christianity does not consist in any partial amendment of our lives, any particular moral virtues, but in an entire change of our natural temper, a life wholly devoted to God.

But we must believe that Judas, who repented even to agony, who repented so that his high-prized life, self, soul, read more

But we must believe that Judas, who repented even to agony, who repented so that his high-prized life, self, soul, became worthless in his eyes and met with no mercy at his own hand, -- must we believe he could find no mercy in such a God? I think when Judas fled from his hanged and fallen body, he fled to the tender help of Jesus, and found it -- I say not how. He was in a more hopeful condition now than during any moment of his past life, for he had never repented before. But I believe that Jesus loved Judas even when he was kissing Him with traitor's kiss; and I believe that He was his Saviour still.

The scientific age with its urban-industrial culture is, for all its magnificent achievements and intoxicating success, in a very real read more

The scientific age with its urban-industrial culture is, for all its magnificent achievements and intoxicating success, in a very real sense a dark age. Its complete bondage to nature has enclosed the mind and spirit of man in a fast prison out of which, try as he may, he can find no way of escape. The inability to perceive any longer the reality of things invisible and unseen is a sickness of the soul which cries out to be cured. The only way to dispel the darkness of the present age and liberate it from the prison within which it has become bound is to restore the proper relationship of nature to supernature and of time to eternity as an essential feature of external reality. Until this can be accomplished, there is really very little that the Church or Christianity in general has to offer to this age.

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devotion signifies a life given, read more

Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.

Make me what Thou wouldst have me. I bargain for nothing. I make no terms. I seek for no previous read more

Make me what Thou wouldst have me. I bargain for nothing. I make no terms. I seek for no previous information whither Thou art taking me. I will be what Thou wilt make me, and all that Thou wilt make me. I say not, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest, for I am weak, but I give myself to Thee, to lead me anywhither.

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as read more

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to 'cure' It? Such 'cure' will , of course, be compulsory; but under the humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution. No one will blame us for being Christians, no one will hate us, no one revile us. The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact {compulsory}, all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like 'right' and 'wrong' , or 'freedom' and 'slavery' are never heard. And thus when the command is given, every prominent Christian in the land may vanish overnight into Institutions for the Treatment of the Ideologically Unsound, and it will rest with the expert gaolers to when (if ever) they are to emerge. But it will not be persecution. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident, the intention was purely therapeutic.

The wonder of the life of Jesus is this -- and you will find it so and you have found read more

The wonder of the life of Jesus is this -- and you will find it so and you have found it so if you have ever taken your New Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily life -- that there is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you need be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as to what Jesus Christ, if he were here, Jesus Christ being here, would have you do under those circumstances and with the materials upon which you are called upon to act.

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves or some dark demon. If we are not fit to cope with that which He has prepared for us, we would have been utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine for ourselves. We are to live and wrestle in this time, and in no other. Let us humbly, tremblingly, manfully look at it, and we shall not wish that the sun could go back its ten degrees, or that we could go back with it. If easy times are departed, it is that the difficult times may make us more in earnest; that they may teach us not to depend on ourselves. If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.