Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877 I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem read more

Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877 I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on the the lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie If I this night before God's throne must stand. "He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, Like Baal, when his prophets holed that name From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height." Nay, peace! I shall behold, before the night, The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, The wounded hands, the weary human face.

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Devotional poetry... has to do with devotedness, with read more

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Devotional poetry... has to do with devotedness, with trust merged into faith, with love's steadfastness. It finds men's worthwhileness deep laid in relationship to God's worthwhileness, and this devotion is expressed in communication. It finds this world precious insofar as it... symbolizes God's love and therefore it runs counter to our national sin of distrust in God. (And yet, how can we trust Him without knowing and living unto Him and loving Him?).

As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them.

As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them.

Continuing a series on God and the human condition: The situation in which we find ourselves in this world read more

Continuing a series on God and the human condition: The situation in which we find ourselves in this world seems to be a condition of estrangement from God, with little feeling of contact with Him, yet a curious nostalgic feeling that somewhere He exists and that our life would be much more complete if we were in relationship with Him. The deep, seemingly indestructible awareness of something like homesickness for God is the natural basis for believing in some kind of "fall" -- we seem to remember something better and to be possessed to recapture it. There appears to be a gap, a chasm, between God and us which must be crossed if we are to be in relationship with him. We know that our own wrongdoing can widen the chasm: we are not so sure what will close it. Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good: it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember, but cannot entirely forget.

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to read more

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him.

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased read more

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased with a man, and that a man can rejoice in God. Only when grace is recognized to be incomprehensible is it grace. Grace exists, therefore, only where the Resurrection is reflected. Grace is the gift of Christ, who exposes the gulf which separates God and man, and, by exposing it, bridges it.

Let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish -- I mean the blotting out read more

Let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish -- I mean the blotting out of their own sins by means of fasting and lamentations, and prayers, and sackcloth and ashes -- this it is possible for us easily to effect without sackcloth and ashes and fasting, if only we blot out anger from our heart, and with sincerity forgive those who have wronged us.