Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and read more

Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay sometimes even shed tears, while you say to Me: 'My Father, give me wealth!' If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance, you would fancy that you had gained something very great. Because you asked for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had it, you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it to you, and I proved you; you have found -- and you have found out! Ask of Me better things than these, greater things than these. Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself!".

Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from grace.

Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from grace.

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop read more

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664 Sunshine let it be, or frost, Storm or calm, as Thou shalt choose; Though Thine every gift were lost, Thee Thyself we cannot lose.

He that asks me what heaven is, means not to hear me, but to silence me; He knows I cannot read more

He that asks me what heaven is, means not to hear me, but to silence me; He knows I cannot tell him. When I meet him there, I shall be able to tell him, and then he will be as able to tell me; yet then we shall be but able to tell one another. This, this that we enjoy is heaven, but the tongues of Angels, the tongues of glorified Saints, shall not be able to express what that heaven is; for, even in heaven our faculties shall be finite.

Jesus is our mouth, through which we speak to the Father; He is our eye, through which we see the read more

Jesus is our mouth, through which we speak to the Father; He is our eye, through which we see the Father; He is our right hand through which we offer ourselves to the Father. Unless He intercedes, there is no intercourse with God.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Feast of Simon & Jude, Apostles Some natures will endure an immense amount of misery before they feel read more

Feast of Simon & Jude, Apostles Some natures will endure an immense amount of misery before they feel compelled to look there for help whence all help and healing come. They cannot believe that there is verily an unseen, mysterious power, till the world and all that is in it has vanished in the smoke of despair; till cause and effect are nothing to the intellect, and possible glories have faded from the imagination. Then, deprived of all that made life pleasant or hopeful, the immortal essence, lonely and wretched and unable to cease, looks up with its now unfettered and wakened instinct to the source of its own life -- to the possible God who, notwithstanding all the improbabilities of His existence, may yet perhaps be, and may yet perhaps hear His wretched creature that calls. In this loneliness of despair, life must find The Life: for joy is gone, and life is all that is left; it is compelled to seek its source, its root, its eternal life. This alone remains a possible thing. Strange condition of despair into which the Spirit of God drives a man -- a condition in which the Best alone is the Possible!

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord 'Twas an unhappy Division that has been made between read more

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord 'Twas an unhappy Division that has been made between Faith and Works; though in my Intellect I may divide them, just as in the Candle I know there is both Light and Heat. But yet, put out the Candle, and they are both gone.

When the bones have become most dry, when they are lying most scattered and separate from each other, there is read more

When the bones have become most dry, when they are lying most scattered and separate from each other, there is still a word going forth -- from Him who liveth for ever and ever -- the voice which says, "These bones shall rise." All struggles after union, though they may be of the most abortive kind, though they may produce fresh sects and fresh divisions, though they must do so as long as they rest on the notion that unity is something visible and material, yet indicate a deep and divine necessity which men could not be conscious of in their dreams if they were not beginning to wake.