God's child in Christ adopted -- Christ my all -- What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather Than read more

God's child in Christ adopted -- Christ my all -- What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather Than forfeit that blest name, by which I call The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father? -- Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee -- Eternal Thou and everlasting we. The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death: In Christ I live! in Christ I draw the breath Of the true life! -- let then earth, sea, and sky Make war against me! On my front I show Their mighty Master's seal. In vain they try To end my life, that can but end its woe. Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies? Yes, but not his -- 'tis Death itself there dies.

[Magic] is not mere superstition. It can corrupt people who otherwise carry on their daily duties with apparent reasonableness and read more

[Magic] is not mere superstition. It can corrupt people who otherwise carry on their daily duties with apparent reasonableness and common sense... It exploits man's urgent desire for all the material good things of life -- health, prosperity, success, "good luck" -- and at times, it may even descend to aggressive acts against one's competitors and supposed enemies and rivals. It rests upon an assumption, not always explicit, that divine power can be manipulated and used for human ends. And it is the more dangerous among people who assume that since God is love, He will do whatever they ask, provided they use the right formula in asking. Magic mocks God's freedom no less than His purpose. For it binds men more and more in a prison of fear and selfishness. Far from liberating divine power, it shuts out the free and creative forces of love and self-sacrifice that alone ennoble life and remove the alienation of men one from another. Love, not compulsion, casts out fear.

The self-centered regret which a man feels when his sin has found him out -- the wish, compounded of pride, read more

The self-centered regret which a man feels when his sin has found him out -- the wish, compounded of pride, shame, and anger at his own inconceivable folly, that he had not done it: these are spoken of as repentance. But they are not repentance at all... It is the simple truth that that sorrow of heart, that healing and sanctifying pain in which sin is really put away, is not ours in independence of God; it is a saving grace which is begotten in the soul under the impression of sin it owes to the revelation of God in Christ. A man can no more repent than he can do anything else without a motive; and the motive which makes evangelic repentance possible does not enter into his world till he sees God as God makes Himself known in the death of Christ. All true penitents are children of the Cross. Their penitence is not their own creation: it is the reaction towards God produced in their souls by this demonstration of what sin is to Him, and of what His love does to reach and win the sinful.

Feast of the Holy Innocents You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast read more

Feast of the Holy Innocents You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.

The pastoral charge [does not] consist merely in administering the sacraments, chanting the canonical hours, celebrating masses -- though even read more

The pastoral charge [does not] consist merely in administering the sacraments, chanting the canonical hours, celebrating masses -- though even these are not properly done by hirelings --; it consists also in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, covering the naked, receiving guests, visiting the sick and those in prison. By the doing of these things is the people to be instructed in the holy duties of an active life.

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered progressive change with the successive development of new faunal and floral assemblages through the changing epochs of our earth's history. There should be no real conflict between science, which is the search for truth, and Christ's teachings, which I hold to be truth itself. It is only when scientists remove God from creation that the Christian is faced with an irreconcilable situation.

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; he read more

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; he has been all that was great, and all that was abject, in order to sanctify in himself all things except sin, and to be the model of every condition.

God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. read more

God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years.

Nothing is small or great in God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however trifling, and if once read more

Nothing is small or great in God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.