Every day the church here (in Antioch] feeds 3000 people. Besides this, the church daily helps provide food and clothes read more

Every day the church here (in Antioch] feeds 3000 people. Besides this, the church daily helps provide food and clothes for prisoners, the hospitalized, pilgrims, cripples, churchmen, and others. If only ten [other groups of] people were willing to do this, there wouldn't be a single poor man left in town.

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 In this age when it seems tacitly assumed that the read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 In this age when it seems tacitly assumed that the Church is concerned only with another world than this, and in this world with nothing but individual conduct as bearing on prospects in that other world, hardly anyone reads the history of the Church in respect to its exercise of political influence. It is often assumed that the Church exercises little such influence and ought to exercise none; it is further assumed that this assumption is self-evident and has always been made by reasonable men. As a matter of fact the assumption is entirely modern and unjustified.

Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: The day of resurrection! read more

Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: The day of resurrection! Earth, tell it out abroad; The passover of gladness, The passover of God. From death to life eternal, From this world to the sky, Our Christ hath brought us over With hymns of victory. Our hearts be pure from evil, That we may see aright The Lord in rays eternal Of resurrection light, And, list'ning to His accents, May hear, so calm and plain His own "All hail!" and, hearing, May raise the victor strain. Now let the heav'ns be joyful, Let earth her song begin, Let the round world keep triumph And all that is therein; Invisible and visible, Their notes let all things blend; For Christ the Lord has risen -- Our Joy that has no end.

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy read more

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever.

CHRISTMAS DAY He has come! the Christ of God; Left for us His glad abode, Stooping from His throne of read more

CHRISTMAS DAY He has come! the Christ of God; Left for us His glad abode, Stooping from His throne of bliss, To this darksome wilderness. He has come! the Prince of Peace; Come to bid our sorrows cease; Come to scatter with His light All the darkness of our night. He, the Mighty King, has come! Making this poor world His home; Come to bear our sin's sad load,-- Son of David, Son of God! He has come whose name of grace Speaks deliverance to our race; Left for us His glad abode,-- Son of Mary, Son of God! Unto us a Child is born! Ne'er has earth beheld a morn, Among all the morns of time, Half so glorious in its prime! Unto us a Son is given! He has come from God's own heaven, Bringing with Him, from above, Holy peace and holy love.

Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 The Pauline teaching is read more

Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 The Pauline teaching is the means through which God Himself wants to teach us; Paul's Epistle to the Romans is a letter from God to us, mankind today. It remains the great problem of interpretation, hitherto never entirely solved, how to unite these two things: the keen attention to what Paul wanted to say to that community then, and the search for what God wants to say to us through Paul today. In the end, the question is whether the reader will really allow God to speak to him, or whether he evades God by hiding behind "Paul", behind "the past".

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 Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 A Better Resurrection I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart read more

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 A Better Resurrection I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears. Look right, look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf: O Jesus, quicken me. My life is like a faded leaf, My harvest dwindled to a husk: Truly my life is void and brief And tedious in the barren dusk; My life is like a frozen thing, No bud nor greenness can I see: Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring; O Jesus, rise in me. My life is like a broken bowl, A broken bowl that cannot hold One drop of water for my soul Or cordial in the searching cold; Cast in the fire the perished thing; Melt and remould it, till it be A royal cup for Him, my King: O Jesus, drink of me.

To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a true man, and Christ was a true man. read more

To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a true man, and Christ was a true man. His prayer in Gethsemane, his sweat of blood, show that the preceding anxiety is a part of human affliction, which we must try to accept with some sort of submission.