He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying.

He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying.

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our read more

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, "Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home". Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another that God is not mocked; that He is not a man that He should repent; that tears and entreaties will not work on Him to the breach of one of His laws; that for God to give a man, because he asked for it, that which was not in harmony with His laws of truth and right, would be to damn him -- to cast him into the outer darkness.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 That earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 That earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, six days in finishing, Moses sets up in a few syllables, in one line: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. If a Livie or a Guicciardine, or such extensive and voluminous authors had had this story in hand, God must have made another world, to have made them a library to hold their books, of the making of this world. Into what wire would they have drawn out this earth! Into what leaf-gold would they have beat out these heavens! It may assist our conjecture herein, to consider, that amongst those men, who proceed with a sober modesty and limitation in their writing, & make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books, yet the volumes which are written by them, upon the beginning of Genesis, are scarce less than infinite. God did no more but say, Let this & this be done; and Moses doth no more but say, that upon God's saying it was done. God required not Nature to help him to do it; Moses required not Reason to help him believe.

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, read more

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, Spiritual Writer, 1688 Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy read more

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever.

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 Love is careful of read more

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 Love is careful of little things, of circumstances and measures, and of little accidents; not allowing to itself any infirmity which it strives not to master, aiming at what it cannot yet reach, desiring to be of an angelic purity, and of a perfect innocence, and a seraphical fervor, and fears every image of offense; is as much afflicted at an idle word as some at an act of adultery, and will not allow to itself so much anger as will disturb a child, nor endure the impurity of a dream. And this is the curiosity and niceness of divine love: this is the fear of God, and is the daughter and production of love.

Nothing is so easy to men of goodwill as goodwill itself, and this is all that God requires. Every act read more

Nothing is so easy to men of goodwill as goodwill itself, and this is all that God requires. Every act of goodwill permanently and sensibly increases goodwill. Trifling acts of goodwill are often more efficacious in this way than great ones. A flower given in kindness and at the right time profits more, both to giver and receiver, than some vast material benefit in which the goodwill is hidden by the magnitude of the act. Some little, sensible, individual touch from the hand of our Lord may convert the heart more than the contemplation of His death for us.

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 At no point does the Gospel encourage us to believe that read more

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 At no point does the Gospel encourage us to believe that every man will hearken to it, charm we never so wisely. The prophets, for all their passionate sincerity, for all their courageous simplifyings of the Gospel, will meet many deaf adders who stop their ears. We must reckon with this certain fact, and refuse to be daunted by it. But also there comes a point where accommodation can go no further. It is the Gospel we have to present, however we do it. We cannot hope to do it unless we walk humbly with the modern man, as well as with God, unless we are much more eager to learn from him and about him, than to instruct him. God help us, it is all very difficult. But was there ever a task better worth trying to do, or one in which, whether we fail or succeed, we more surely find our freedom?

Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 read more

Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 [He said:] that our sanctification did not depend upon our changing our works, but upon our doing that for God' s sake which commonly we do for our own; that it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.