Maundy Thursday We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing his disciples read more

Maundy Thursday We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing his disciples for their coming crisis; only in the garden are we shown his deep anguish over what lies ahead for himself. But if this verse ("'They hated me without a cause." Ps. 69:4) occurred to Jesus as describing his enemies, surely he was also identifying with the rest of [Psalm 69] with its vivid description of overwhelming troubles and importune cries to God for deliverance. What in the upper room was still under the surface was openly expressed in the garden.

Of all the spirits, I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of read more

Of all the spirits, I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of me, I cannot tell you how dreadfully and how long... This, I find has more hindered my progress in love and gentleness than all things else. I never knew what the words, "Judge not that ye be not judged," meant before; now they seem to me some of the most awful, necessary, and beautiful in the whole Word of God.

Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304 Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988 The Christian's read more

Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304 Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988 The Christian's life is lived in the open, not in a pious cubby-hole. As Christ gives Himself to feed us, so we have to incarnate something of His all-loving, all-sacrificing soul. If we do not, then we have not really received Him. That is the plain truth. It has been said that there are many ways and degrees of receiving the Blessed Sacrament. It really depends on how wide we open our hearts. A spiritually selfish communion is not a communion at all.

Feast of the Holy Cross Does not every man feel, that there is corruption enough within him read more

Feast of the Holy Cross Does not every man feel, that there is corruption enough within him to drive him to the commission of the greatest enormities, and eternally to destroy his soul? He can have but little knowledge of his own heart who will deny this. On the other hand, who that is holding on in the ways of righteousness, does not daily ascribe his steadfastness to the influence of that grace which he receives from God; and look daily to God for more grace, in order that he may be "kept by his power through faith unto salvation (Zech. iv. 9)?" No man can in any measure resemble the scripture saints, unless he be of this disposition. Why then must these things be put in opposition to each other, so that every advocate for one of these points must of necessity controvert and explode the other? Only let any pious person... examine the language of his prayers after he has been devoutly pouring out his soul before God, and he will find his own words almost in perfect consonance with the foregoing statement.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I love poverty because He loved it. I read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I love poverty because He loved it. I love riches because they afford me the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody; I do not render evil to those who wrong me, but I wish them a situation like mine, in which I receive neither good nor evil from men. I try to be just, true, sincere, and faithful to all men; I have a tender heart for those to whom God has more closely united me; and whether I am alone, or seen by people, I do all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. These are my sentiments; and every day of my life, I bless my Redeemer, who has implanted them in me, and who, out of a man full of weakness, of miseries, of lust, of pride, and of ambition, has made a man free from all these evils by the power of His grace, to which all the glory of it is due, as of myself I have only misery and error.

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, read more

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, you must also guard against an extreme into which some people fall who, in their desire to speak evil of no one, actually uphold and speak well of vice. If you have to do with one who is unquestionably a slanderer, do not excuse him by calling him frank and free-spoken; do not call one who is notoriously vain, liberal and elegant; do not call dangerous levities mere simplicity; do not screen disobedience under the name of zeal; or arrogance, of frankness; or evil intimacy, of friendship. No, my friends, we must never, in our wish to shun slander, foster or flatter vice in others: but we must call evil evil, and sin sin, and so doing we shall serve God's glory.

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know read more

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.

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. O, why dost not thou by love alone seek to achieve all these, by love alone attain another self, by love alone live in others, by love attain thy glory? The same is shriveled 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, the shining light and temple of eternity, the brother of Jesus Christ, and one spirit with the Holy Ghost.

Feast of Simon & Jude, Apostles True spiritual power of the Christian order is a kind of possessedness. It read more

Feast of Simon & Jude, Apostles True spiritual power of the Christian order is a kind of possessedness. It arises in and flows through a life hid with Christ in God. Its source is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the potency of the Holy Spirit. True spiritual power is the child of two parents: the truth as it is revealed in Jesus and our own experience resulting upon our acceptance of Him and His truth. The objective factor is that whole set of facts and truths, of historic events, and of interpretation of them, which is held by the church and set forth in the Bible. The subjective factor is what happens in the crucible of your life and mine when we accept the set of facts and truths and interpretations, and it begins to work in us.