Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you wanted a read more

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you wanted a label for us, would you find a better than a Sadducean Age? We also are not worrying about immortality, hardly believe in it, or at least are not sure; we, too, have limited ourselves to this dust-speck of time, leaving unclaimed the vast inheritance beyond of which Christ told us; we, too, are putting all our zeal and passion and enthusiasm into things of this earth here, quite sure that that is the only road to progress, and that this everlasting chatter about the soul is quite beside the point. And they are all so earnest and so certain, work so hard, are animated often by such lofty motives, are so sure that there is really no manner of need for Christ: that given this, and this, and this, each of them pushing forward his particular panacea -- the world will manage very well; that to talk about Christ, and changing people's hearts, and making us new creatures, is merely to lose precious time and wander from the practical into vague day-dreaming of which nothing comes. And year by year their voices grow a little harder, and they eye Christ more and more askance, feel sourly that He is a bit of a nuisance and a stumbling-block to progress, keeping people quiet who should not be quiet, lulling them with these dim, immaterial, fantastic, spiritual hopes of His which they think have no body, and can not have. Once more the whisper grows, "Were He not far better away?" Meantime we can ignore Him, they say; and they do.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 In addition to read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 In addition to the general situations in which men find themselves today, there are those things in personal life which have always tested faith: the inexplicable tragedies and injustices; the suffering of innocent people, especially of children; the seeming uselessness of prayer, and so forth. It is surely life itself that makes against belief in most cases. It is the contradiction in real life between any image of God as good -- whether God is "above", "beneath", or "within" -- that makes men atheists. Yet how few books and how few sermons touch on this basic problem! Our theological libraries are crammed with books devoted to every aspect of textual and higher criticism of the Bible; but of genuine theological thinking about the things which drive religion from men's hearts, there is appallingly little to be found. The archaeology of Christian origins seems largely to have replaced genuine theology.

It is quite true that the Greek word ekklesia comes from two roots which mean literally "called out." Many preachers read more

It is quite true that the Greek word ekklesia comes from two roots which mean literally "called out." Many preachers have made use of this fact to point out helpful spiritual implications; and yet, by New Testament times, the word carried no such denotation as "called out." It was simply the word for "assembly" or "congregation." It so happened that in the Greek city-states an assembly of the citizenry resulted from the people being called out of their city and summoned from their farms to participate in such gatherings. Even though the etymology of the word remains, its real meaning is just "assembly," and a Greek-speaking person of New Testament times would be no more inclined to understand ekklesia in its original etymological value of "called out" than we today would recognize "God be with you" in "good-by," which, as we may learn from the dictionary, was derived from the longer phrase.

I suppose that every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Blaise Pascal, who read more

I suppose that every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Blaise Pascal, who thought himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us, it is the other way `round.

[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests read more

[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests that by nature we are prone to take and make to our souls. He pressed us to take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust -- as from this or that, or any other man or men -- but to cry mightily to God that He would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word.

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 A knowledge of the Bible without a college read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 A knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without a knowledge of the Bible.

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency read more

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency to work up a subjective state which, if we succeeded, we should describe as "faith", with the idea that this will somehow ensure the granting of our prayer. We have probably all done this as children. But the state of mind which desperate desire working on a strong imagination can manufacture is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics.

Feast of Anselm, Abbot of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1109 I hear men praying everywhere for read more

Feast of Anselm, Abbot of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1109 I hear men praying everywhere for more faith, but when I listen to them carefully, and get to the real heart of their prayer, very often it is not more faith at all that they are wanting, but a change from faith to sight. Faith says not, "I see that it is good for me, so God must have sent it," but, "God sent it, and so it must be good for me." Faith, walking in the dark with God, only prays Him to clasp its hand more closely.

Maundy Thursday Perhaps we feel that we do not see much to encourage us. "I do not envy those read more

Maundy Thursday Perhaps we feel that we do not see much to encourage us. "I do not envy those who have to fight the battle of Christianity in the twentieth century," wrote Marcus Dods. "Yes, perhaps I do; but it will be a stiff fight." Of course, he did, and anybody with his valiant spirit would. There was a day when our Lord passed through cheering streets wildly enthusiastic; and another day when He watched the crowds deserting Him, till even the disciples themselves seemed to be withering, and He looked at them sadly. "Will you also go away?" He said. And Peter strode across the sudden empty spaces widening around Him, and put his back to Christ's. "No", he cried; "there are two of us, at least", and faced the world, Christ's poor minority of one. I would rather have been Peter than one of the shouting mob. And today, perhaps, we may get our chance of that.