Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709 Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845 read more

Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709 Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845 No nation, and few individuals, are really brought into [God's] camp by the historical study of the biography of Jesus, simply as biography. Indeed, materials for a full biography have been withheld from men. The earliest converts were converted by a single historical fact (the Resurrection) and a single theological doctrine (the Redemption) operating on a sense of win which they already had... The "Gospels" came later and were written not to make Christians but to edify Christians already made.

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of read more

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280 JESUS, the infinite I AM, With God essentially the same, With him enthroned above all height, As God of God, and Light of Light, Thou art by thy great Father known, From all eternity his Son. Thou only dost the Father know, And wilt to all thy followers show, Who cannot doubt thy gracious will His glorious Godhead to reveal; Reveal him now, if thou art he, And live, eternal Life, in me.

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Paul, using the examples of differing opinions about food and days read more

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Paul, using the examples of differing opinions about food and days among the believers in Rome, teaches that Christians should not despise or judge others. He does not advise them to find a happy medium between the contending opinions or to average the two extremes in a compromise. On the contrary, he admonished them that "every one be fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5), because God is able to make both stand, as both of them are serving the Lord in obedience to their individual convictions of His will... Each of us has to find personally what is the will of God for his own life, and let all others meet their responsibility to do the same... For God, by giving different commands to many, and putting them together according to His plan, shall accomplish ultimately His complete will.

O Lord, let thyself be found with a good gift to everyone who needs it, that the happy may find read more

O Lord, let thyself be found with a good gift to everyone who needs it, that the happy may find courage to accept thy good gifts, that the sorrowful may find courage to accept thy perfect gifts. For to men there is a difference of joy and of sorrow, but for thee, O Lord, there is no difference in these things; everything that comes from thee is a good and perfect gift. ... Søren Kierkegaard August 16, 2000 By giving to Jesus Christ, the Man who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, this historical personality, the name of Lord, the Saviour, we renounce all mysticism. For mysticism in the strict sense exists only where one soars above the sphere of history, and where in place of the Mediator and the historical event are put the inner word of God, the inner motions of the soul, in order to reach immediacy between soul and God, and, in the end, the identity of both. But while it is necessary to safeguard the Christian message of the Holy Spirit from the mystical misunderstanding by calling attention to its relation to Jesus Christ, it is necessary on the other hand to safeguard the message of Jesus Christ and His work from the orthodox and rationalist misunderstanding by emphasizing that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit.

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is read more

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is to take the cup of Providence, and call upon the name of the Lord. What the cup contains is its contents. To get all that is in the cup is the act and art of contentment. Not to drink because one has but half a cup, or because one does not like its flavor, or because somebody else has silver to one's own glass, is to lose the contents; and that is the penalty, if not the meaning, of discontent. No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost what he has. It is high philosophy to say, we can have just what we like if we like what we have; but this much at least can be done, and this is contentment: to have the most and best in life by making the most and best of what we have.

O Lorenzo,
If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
Become a Christian and thy loving read more

O Lorenzo,
If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
Become a Christian and thy loving wife!

A conversion is incomplete if it does not leave one integrated into the Church. By this we do not mean read more

A conversion is incomplete if it does not leave one integrated into the Church. By this we do not mean any particular part of the Church; what we do mean is that conversion must leave one linked in loving fellowship with one's fellow believers. Conversion is not something simply between a man and Jesus Christ, with no other person involved. True, it may start in that way; but it cannot end in that way. Conversion is not individualistic. It is, in fact, just the opposite. It joins man to his fellow men, and certainly does not separate him from them. (Continued tomorrow).

Christian Unity is not a secular unity, and must be prompted by no secular motive. The unity we seek is read more

Christian Unity is not a secular unity, and must be prompted by no secular motive. The unity we seek is deeper than anything that the world offers. Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, and even Shintoism have proved their ability to bind men together in a common enterprise with great devotion and selfsacrifice; but these are secular ideals, intermixed with selfinterest, the love of master, and the use of force. Christian Unity can only be "in Christ". It is based on the New Birth and New Life in Christ, and upon the oneness of all the members in the Christ who is the Head. Therefore, "the quest for the unity of the Church must in fact be identical with the quest for Jesus Christ as the concrete Head and Lord of the Church." (Barth) What kind of unity, then, do we ask? It must be God's kind, that for which Christ prayed, and which, therefore, must be in the line of God's purpose. Will He not then take the initiative? It is for us to wait upon Him, and to go through the gates which He opens, to cast up the highway, to gather out the stones of stumbling, to lift up the standard, and to prepare the way of the Lord. (Isa. 62:10).

Commemoration of John Wyclif, Reformer, 1384 While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up read more

Commemoration of John Wyclif, Reformer, 1384 While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism.