Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Keep clear of concealment -- keep clear of the need of read more

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Keep clear of concealment -- keep clear of the need of concealment. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes. The whole life is different thenceforth. When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects which must not be touched, the bloom of life is gone.

Feast of Justin, Martyr at Rome, c.165 Commemoration of Angela de'Merici, Founder of the Institute of St. Ursula, 1540 read more

Feast of Justin, Martyr at Rome, c.165 Commemoration of Angela de'Merici, Founder of the Institute of St. Ursula, 1540 This astonishing sense of spiritual attack which, it seems to me, must inevitably follow the continual reading of the four Gospels, without preconception but with an alert mind, is not the sole privilege of the translator. It can happen to anyone who is prepared to abandon proof-texts and a closed attitude of mind, and allow not merely the stories but the quality of the Figure Who exists behind the stories to meet him afresh. Neat snippets of a few verses are of course useful in their way, but the overall sweep and much of the significance of the Gospel narratives are lost to us unless we are prepared to read the Gospels through, not once but several times.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more orthodox than pantheism -- it is the great dualist heresy which always lies in wait for an over-spiritualized Christianity.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 One can say: "I will, but my body does not obey read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 One can say: "I will, but my body does not obey me"; but not: "My will does not obey me".

Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not read more

Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not their capacity for meditation, but their capacity for suffering and love. For there is a hard and costly element, a deep seriousness, a crucial choice, in all genuine religion.

Commemoration of Maximilian Kolbe, Franciscan Friar, Priest, Martyr, 1941 Whether God revealed Himself to the patriarchs by oracles read more

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.

We will have no other master but our caprice -- that is to say, our evil self will have no read more

We will have no other master but our caprice -- that is to say, our evil self will have no God, and the foundation of our nature is seditious, impious, refractory, opposed to and contemptuous of all that tries to rule it, and therefore contrary to order, ungovernable and negative. It is this foundation which Christianity calls the natural man. But the savage which is within us, and constitutes the primitive stuff of us, must be disciplined and civilized in order to produce a man. And the man must be patiently cultivated to produce a wise man; and the wise man must be tested and tried if he is to become righteous, and the righteous man must have substituted the will of God for his individual will, if he is to become a saint.

Every day is a little life: and our whole life is but a day repeated, whence it is that old read more

Every day is a little life: and our whole life is but a day repeated, whence it is that old Jacob numbers his life by days; and Moses desires to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, to number not his years but his days. [And so, those] that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it, desperate.

Our forgiving of others will not procure forgiveness for ourselves; but our not forgiving others proves that we ourselves are read more

Our forgiving of others will not procure forgiveness for ourselves; but our not forgiving others proves that we ourselves are not forgiven.