Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We do not cease to be children because we are read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We do not cease to be children because we are disobedient children.

Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle It is often said with a sneer that the God of Israel was only read more

Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle It is often said with a sneer that the God of Israel was only a God of Battles, "a mere barbaric Lord of Hosts" pitted in rivalry against other gods only as their envious foe. Well it is for the world that He was indeed a God of Battles. Well it is for us that He was to all the rest only a rival and a foe. In the ordinary way, it would have been only too easy for them to have achieved the desolate disaster of conceiving Him as a friend. It would have been only too easy for them to have seen Him stretching out His hands in love and reconciliation, embracing Baal and kissing the painted face of Astarte... It would have been easy enough for His worshipers to follow the enlightened course of Syncretism and the pooling of all the pagan traditions. It is obvious indeed that His followers were always sliding down this easy slope; and it required the almost demoniac energy of certain inspired demagogues, who testified to the divine unity in words that are still like winds of inspiration and ruin, [to stop them]. The more we really understand of the ancient conditions that contributed to the final culture of the Faith, the more we shall have a real and even a realistic reverence for the greatness of the Prophets of Israel. As it was, while the whole world melted into this mass of confused mythology, this Deity who is called tribal and narrow, precisely because He was what is called tribal and narrow, preserved the primary religion of all mankind. He was tribal enough to be universal. He was as narrow as the universe.

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties read more

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us -- an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God... Prayer is commitment. We don't merely co-operate with God with certain things held back within. We, the total person, co-operate. This means that co-operation equals committment. Prayer means that the total you is praying. Your whole being reaches out to God, and God reaches down to you... Prayer is communion. Prayer is a means, but often it is an end in itself. There are times when your own wants and the needs of others drop away and you want just to look on His face and tell Him how much you love Him... Prayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you...

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 If we would put some slight stress on ourselves at read more

Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461 If we would put some slight stress on ourselves at the beginning, then afterwards we should be able to do all things with ease and joy. It is a hard thing to break through a habit, and a yet harder thing to go contrary to our own will. Yet, if thou overcome not slight and easy obstacles, how wilt thou overcome greater ones? Withstand thy will at the beginning, and unlearn an evil habit, lest it lead thee little by little into worse difficulties. Oh, if thou knewest what peace to thyself thy holy life should bring, ... and what joy to others, methinketh thou wouldst be more zealous for spiritual profit.

Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of read more

Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and polite unbelief are gone forever.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 There remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely read more

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 There remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as though it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future.

Love does not inquire into the character of the recipient but it asks what he needs. It does not love read more

Love does not inquire into the character of the recipient but it asks what he needs. It does not love him because he is such-and-such a person but because he is there. In all this it is quite the opposite of natural love: it "does not seek its own". It does not perform the characteristic natural impulse of love and life. Therefore it is basically independent of the conduct of the other person; it is not conditional but absolute. It wants nothing for itself but only for others. Therefore it is also not vulnerable. It never "reacts" but is always "spontaneous", emerging by its own strength -- rather, from the power of God. Love is the real God-likeness of man for which he has been created. In so far as love is in man he really resembles God and shows himself to be the child of God.

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much... religious read more

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much... religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that case, it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God among men.

Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761 Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347 Commemoration of read more

Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761 Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347 Commemoration of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Priest, Scientist, Visionary, 1955 No creature can be a child of God but because the goodness of God is in it; nor can it have any union or communion with the goodness of the Deity till its life is the Spirit of Love. This is the one only band of union betwixt God and the creature... Here the necessity is absolute; nothing will do instead of this will; all contrivances of holiness, all forms of religious piety, signify nothing without this will to all goodness. For as the will to all goodness is the whole nature of God, so it must be the whole nature of every service of religion that can be acceptable to him.