Thanksgiving (U.S.) Lord, I am glad for the great gift of living, Glad for Thy days of sun and of read more

Thanksgiving (U.S.) Lord, I am glad for the great gift of living, Glad for Thy days of sun and of rain; Grateful for joy, with an endless thanksgiving, Grateful for laughter -- and grateful for pain. Lord, I am glad for the young April's wonder, Glad for the fulness of long summer days; And now when the spring and my heart are asunder, Lord, I give thanks for the dark autumn ways. Sun, bloom, and blossom, O Lord, I remember, The dream of the spring and its joy I recall; But now in the silence and pain of November, Lord, I give thanks to Thee, Giver of all!

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Feast of the Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth The solution lies in a complete realisation of what read more

Feast of the Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth The solution lies in a complete realisation of what we mean by asserting that God is Almighty. The two ideas of Free-will and Divine Sovereignty can not be reconciled in our own minds, but that does not prevent them from being reconciled in God's mind. We measure Him by our own intellectual standard if we think otherwise. And so our solution of the problem of Free-will and of the problems of history and of individual salvation must finally lie in the full acceptance and realisation of what is implied by the infinity and the omniscience of God.

As for what the Church thinks and says, what influence does that have on the handling of American politics, the read more

As for what the Church thinks and says, what influence does that have on the handling of American politics, the conduct of American education, the regulation of marriage and divorce, on sex and drink, on how industrial disputes are settled, on how we carry on business? As a plain matter of fact, religion in this country is generally regarded as a tolerated pastime for such people as happen to like to indulge in occasional godly exercises -- as a strictly private matter in an increasingly close-knit and socially acting society -- in other words, as something that does not count. I should like to see the Church recognize that it has been pushed into the realm of the non-essentials, and to persuade it to fight like fury for the right and the duty to bring every act of America and Americans before the bar of God's judgment. [Christian leaders] are making valiant claim to such a right and duty; but the great mass of Church members are content to regard the Church as a conglomerate of private culture clubs, nice for christenings, weddings and funerals. Most Church members readily agree with the unchurched majority that it is not the proper business of the Church to criticize America or Americans.

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.

God is present by Love alone. By Love alone He is great and glorious. By Love alone He liveth and read more

God is present by Love alone. By Love alone He is great and glorious. By Love alone He liveth and feeleth in other persons. By Love alone He enjoyeth all the creatures, by Love alone He is pleasing to Himself, by Love alone He is rich and blessed. The Soul is shrivelled up and buried in a grave that does not love. But that which does love wisely and truly is the joy and end of all the world, the King of Heaven, and the Friend of God.

It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only read more

It is in vain, 0 men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you will discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you, and have not been able to keep their promises... Your principal maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth; and they have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies. If they have given you God for your object, it has only been to pander to your pride; they have made you think that you were like Him and resembled Him by your nature. And those who have grasped the vanity of such a pretension have cast you down into the other abyss by making you believe that your nature was like that of the beasts of the field, and have led you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals.

It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on read more

It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on the inheritance of victories of faith: not enough to build the sepulchres of those who were martyred by men unwilling, in their day of trial as we may be in our own, to hear new voices of a living God. Our duty is to see whether God is with us; whether we expect great things from Him; whether we do not practically place Him far off, forgetting that, if He is, He is about us, speaking to us words that have not been heard before, guiding us to paths on which earlier generations have not been able to enter. There is -- most terrible thought! -- a practical atheism, orthodox in language, reverent in bearing, which can enter a Christian church and charm the conscience to rest with shadowy traditions; an atheism which grows incessantly within us if we separate what cannot be separated with impunity, the secular from the divine, the past and the future from the present, earth from heaven, the things of Caesar from the things of God.

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I have seen and read somewhat of the read more

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I have seen and read somewhat of the writings of learned men concerning the state of future glory; some of them are filled with excellent notions of truth, and elegancy of speech, whereby they cannot but much affect the minds of those who duly consider what they say. But -- I know not well whence it comes to pass -- the things spoken do not abide nor incorporate in our minds. They please and refresh for a little while, like a shower of rain in a dry season, that soaketh not unto the roots of things; the power of them doth not enter into us. Is it not from hence, that their notions of future things are not educed out of the experience which we have of the beginnings of them in this world? Yea, the soul is disturbed, not edified, in all contemplations of future glory, where things are proposed to it whereof in this life it hath neither foretaste, sense, experience, nor evidence. No man ought to look for anything in heaven, but what one way or other he hath some experience of in this life.