Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an read more

Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an irrelevant personal argument. We see that many articulate secularists are well-meaning and law-abiding men; we see them go into righteous indignation over injustice and often devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that "he can't be wrong whose life is in the right" -- that their philosophies are just as good guides to action as Christianity. What we don't see is that they are not acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of habit or sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their children will inherit some what less of it.

John Bunyan understood the Gospel when he wrote that tract, "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved." He knew that every sinner is read more

John Bunyan understood the Gospel when he wrote that tract, "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved." He knew that every sinner is a Jerusalem sinner who has crucified the Lord of Glory; and to whom, notwithstanding all this, the grace of God is exceedingly abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Therefore the Apostle Paul himself is a pattern... of the grace of God abounding to the Christ-crucifiers. A new covenant is made with those who transgressed the first covenant. It is the brethren of Joseph, who have sold him into Egypt, who are made the partakers of Joseph's power and of Joseph's riches.

As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them. read more

As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them. ... Charles Haddon Spurgeon August 4, 2000 Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him. ... William Barclay, The Plain Man's Book of Prayers, Introduction August 5, 2000 Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 We must remember that our experience of union with God, read more

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 We must remember that our experience of union with God, our feeling of His presence, is altogether accidental and secondary. It is only a side effect of His actual presence in our souls, and gives no sure indication of that presence in any case. For God Himself is above all apprehensions and ideas and sensations, however spiritual, that can ever be experienced by the spirit of man in this life.

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?

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 If read more

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history off the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.

The principal part of faith is patience.

The principal part of faith is patience.

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and read more

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they loved in God: for they too are mutable, but in Him they are firmly established. ... The Confessions of St. Augustine June 15, 1996 Feast of Evelyn Underhill, Mystical Writer, 1941 Jesus remains unshaken as the practical man; and we stand exposed as the fools, the blunderers, the unpractical visionaries.

Let me love Thee so that the honour, riches, and pleasures of the world may seem unworthy even of hatred read more

Let me love Thee so that the honour, riches, and pleasures of the world may seem unworthy even of hatred -- may not even be encumbrances.