Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Local churches which are read more

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Local churches which are respected and even attended by "the public" -- interpreted as people who under different circumstances would not feel obliged to attend church at all -- are often found to be those where, on a Christian judgment, the gospel seems to be most faithfully preached. Such churches may invite and suffer temporary periods of unpopularity -- by standing up for West Indian immigrants, say, or refusing indiscriminate baptism. But on the whole, the storms are weathered by churches, and ministers, whose interest in the community and presentation of the faith [are] alert and genuine. Even so, the Church has every excuse for getting itself disliked: none at all for escaping notice.

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 If Christianity has never frightened us, we have read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 If Christianity has never frightened us, we have not yet learnt what it is. ... Abp. William Temple November 7, 2001 Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 The social gospel is not an addendum to the gospel; it is the gospel. If we read the Gospels, it becomes clear that it was not what Jesus said about God that got him into trouble (but) his treatment of men and women, his way of being friendly with outcasts with whom no respectable Jew would have anything to do. It has always been fairly safe to talk about God; it is when we start to talk about men that the trouble starts. And yet the fact remains that there is no conceivable way of proving that we love God other than by loving men. And there is no conceivable way of proving that we love men than by doing something for those who most need help.

They cast their nets in Galilee, just off the hills of brown; Such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came read more

They cast their nets in Galilee, just off the hills of brown; Such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down. Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew The peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too. Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified. The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod; Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing -- the marvelous peace of God.

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 read more

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890 O Jesus, King most wonderful! O Conqueror renowned! O Source of peace ineffable, In whom all joys are found: When once you visit darkened hearts Then truth begins to shine, Then earthly vanity departs, Then kindles love divine. O Jesus, light of all below, The fount of life and fire, Surpassing all the joys we know, All that we can desire: May ev'ry heart confess your name, Forever you adore, And, seeking you, itself inflame To seek you more and more! Oh, may our tongues forever bless, May we love you alone And ever in our lives express The image of your own!

The new age cannot live on naturalism or on secularism. Life becomes sterile and futile without the depth and power read more

The new age cannot live on naturalism or on secularism. Life becomes sterile and futile without the depth and power which come from participation in eternal realities. But this new age cannot any more successfully live on religious faiths that are out of harmony with known truth, or that hang loose in the air, cut apart from the fundamental intellectual culture of the age. The hour has struck for the serious business of rediscovering the foundations, and of interpenetrating all life and thought with the truths and realities of a victorious religious faith.

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," read more

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.

We religious leaders need to look very much more deeply. We can so easily have talks with people, and they read more

We religious leaders need to look very much more deeply. We can so easily have talks with people, and they can say we have helped, write us grateful letters, even stand steady for a time till the juice we have put into them runs out; but, we may have brought them no hunger for God -- because that hunger is no ache in our own heart -- nor brought them anywhere near to the end of self. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn September 13, 1999 Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life. These are words by which the slanderers of the nature, of the body, the impeachers of our flesh, are completely overthrown... We do not wish to cast aside the body, but corruption: not the flesh, but death. The body is one thing, corruption another; the body is one thing, death another... What is foreign to us is not the body but corruptibility.

Feast of James the Apostle When Jesus calls his disciples "brothers" and "friends", he is contradicting general Jewish usage read more

Feast of James the Apostle When Jesus calls his disciples "brothers" and "friends", he is contradicting general Jewish usage and breaking through into a new concept of brotherhood which is not tribal, but open to any person.

Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200 The Way is not a religion: Christianity is the end read more

Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200 The Way is not a religion: Christianity is the end of religion. "Religion" means here the division between sacred and secular concerns, other-worldliness, man's reaching toward God in a way which projects his own thoughts.