I was confirmed in my conviction that when all the best scholarship is taken into account we can know Christ read more

I was confirmed in my conviction that when all the best scholarship is taken into account we can know Christ as He was in the days of His flesh. Although I became familiar with the contemporary and recent studies of honest, competent scholars who questioned them, I was convinced that the historical evidence confirms the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ. Increasingly, I believed that the nearest verbal approach that we human beings can come to the great mystery is to affirm that Christ is both fully man and fully God. Although now we see Him not, yet believing, we can "rejoice with joy unspeakable" in what the Triune God has done and is doing through Him. This Good News, so rich that it is stated in a variety of ways, but always consistently, in the New Testament, is what we always imperfect children, but children [yet], are privileged -- and commanded -- to make known and to demonstrate to all mankind.

Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son read more

Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son bound together in one Spirit. We are created to be brothers under God, the Father. The human family is our best illustration of how each person grows in his unique potentialities by sharing in the loving care of a society of other persons. Yet each member of the family discovers what it is to give of himself for the sake of the others. The human family is only an analogy both for our thought about God and about society; but no Christian thought gets very far away from it.

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 [Christ] is the breathing forth of the heart, life and spirit of read more

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 [Christ] is the breathing forth of the heart, life and spirit of God into all the dead race of Adam. He is the seeker, the finder, the restorer of all that, from Cain to the end of time, was lost and dead to the life of God. He is the love that prays for all its murderers; the love that willingly suffers and dies among thieves, that thieves may have a life with him in Paradise; the love that visits publicans, harlots and sinners, and wants and seeks to forgive where most is to be forgiven.

The evil of riches, then, for institutions, for nations, for individuals, is that those who possess or seek to possess read more

The evil of riches, then, for institutions, for nations, for individuals, is that those who possess or seek to possess almost invariably overvalue possessions and so cease to live creatively. They stop loving God with all the heart and all the soul and all the strength and all the mind. They stop loving their neighbors, too. When you find a person of means who is not either a self-centered bore or a low person, you may know that God has worked a miracle.

Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910 Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978 Commemoration of John read more

Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910 Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978 Commemoration of John XXIII, Bishop of Rome, Inspirer of Renewal, 1963 The Gospel leaves men, unless upon extraordinary occasions, their names, their reputations, their wealth and honors, if lawfully obtained and possessed; but the league that is between the mind and these things in all natural men must be broken. They must be no longer looked upon as the chiefest good or in the place thereof.

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century What is meant by calling the writings of Moses and read more

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century What is meant by calling the writings of Moses and the Prophets [the] "Old Testament"? Do they not set forth the covenant of grace? The doctrine of justification by faith -- does not Paul in his Epistle to the Romans prove it from Genesis and from the Psalms? Where is the doctrine of substitution and the vicarious sufferings of the messiah set forth more clearly than in Leviticus and in the 53rd of Isaiah? The term "Old Testament" leads people to fancy it is an antiquated book; whereas, in many respects, it is newer than the New Testament, referring more fully to the age of glory and blessedness on the earth which is still before us.

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a read more

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song of gladness in the heart.

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century In questions of this sort there are two things read more

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century In questions of this sort there are two things to be observed. First, that the truth of the Scriptures be inviolably maintained. Secondly, since Scripture doth admit of diverse interpretations, that no one cling to any particular exposition with such pertinacity that, if what he supposed to be the teaching of Scripture should afterward turn out to be clearly false, he should nevertheless still presume to put it forward, lest thereby the sacred Scriptures should be exposed to the derision of unbelievers and the way of salvation should be closed to them.

Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397 It is a great mystery of divine love, that not even read more

Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397 It is a great mystery of divine love, that not even in Christ was exception made of the death of the body; and although He was the Lord of nature, He refused not the law of the flesh which He had taken upon Him. It is necessary for me to die; for Him it was not necessary.