Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 Christians in their relationships should be the most human people read more

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 Christians in their relationships should be the most human people you will ever see. This speaks for God in an age of inhumanity and impersonality and facelessness. When people look at us, their reaction should be, "These are human people" -- human, because we know that we differ from the animal, the plant, and the machine; and that personality is native to what has always been [human]. If they cannot look upon us and say, "They are real people", nothing else is enough. (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of the Holy Cross When you hear someone saying unworthy and hard words of you, then it is read more

Feast of the Holy Cross When you hear someone saying unworthy and hard words of you, then it is given to you to drink medicine for your soul from the cup of the Lord.

The introverted church is one which puts its own survival before its mission, its own identity above its task, its read more

The introverted church is one which puts its own survival before its mission, its own identity above its task, its internal concerns before its apostolate, its rituals before its ministry. Undue emphasis on the static structure of the Church has led to the disappearance of a significant lay ministry in denominational Protestantism.

Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942 Love... makes the whole difference between an execution and a read more

Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942 Love... makes the whole difference between an execution and a martyrdom.

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.

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Continuing a short series on prayer: The read more

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Continuing a short series on prayer: The life of prayer is just love to God, and the custom of being ever with Him.

Feast of All Saints He took upon Him the flesh in which we have sinned, that by wearing read more

Feast of All Saints He took upon Him the flesh in which we have sinned, that by wearing our flesh He might forgive sins; a flesh which He shares with us by wearing it, not by sinning in it. He blotted out through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law... For Scripture had foretold that He who is God should die; that the victory and triumph of them that trust in Him lay in the fact that He, who is immortal and cannot be overcome by death, was to die that mortals might gain eternity. (Continued tomorrow) ... St. Hilary, On the Trinity November 2, 2000 Feast of All Souls In this calm assurance of safety did my soul gladly and hopefully take its rest, and feared so little the interruption of death, that death seemed only a name for eternal life. And the life of this present body was so far from seeming a burden or affliction that it was regarded as children regard their alphabets, sick men their draughts, shipwrecked sailors their swim, young men the training for their profession, future commanders their first campaign -- that is, as an endurable submission to present necessities, bearing the promise of a blissful immortality. ... St. Hilary, On the Trinity November 3, 2000 Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 People make mistakes when they believe. They may even want something so badly that passion creates its own evidences. Reprehensible though these habits are, they nonetheless fall within the pale of man's general effort to conform the self to things as they are. But when a person acknowledges the deficiency of evidences and yet goes right on believing, he defends a position that is large with the elements of its own destruction. Any brand of inanity can be defended on such a principle.

Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 It is no great matter to associate with the read more

Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 It is no great matter to associate with the good and gentle; for this is a naturally pleasing to all, and everyone willingly enjoyeth peace, and loveth those best that agree with him. But to be able to live peaceably with hard and perverse persons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go contrary to us, is a great grace, and a most commendable thing. ... Thomas à Kempis July 25, 2000 Feast of James the Apostle When Jesus calls his disciples "brothers" and "friends", he is contradicting general Jewish usage and breaking through into a new concept of brotherhood which is not tribal, but open to any person.

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 Joy is not gush: joy is not jolliness. read more

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 Joy is not gush: joy is not jolliness. Joy is simply perfect acquiescence in God's will, because the soul delights itself in God himself... rejoice in the will of God, and in nothing else. Bow down your heads and your hearts before God, and let the will, the blessed will of God, be done.