Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 Infant Baptism... has been a witness for the Son of read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 Infant Baptism... has been a witness for the Son of Man and the universality of His Kingdom, like no other. It has taught parents that to bring children into the world is not a horrible crime. It has led them to see Christ and His redemption of humanity through all the mists of our teachings and our qualifications. It has explained the nature of His Kingdom to the hearts even of the poorest. Christ has preached at the fonts, when we have been darkening counsel in the pulpits.

Earnestness is good and impressive: genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, read more

Earnestness is good and impressive: genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, and more powerful energy than earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains of sin, to win estranged and deprived hearts to God, to repair the breaches and restore the Church to her old ways of purity and power. Nothing but the anointing of the Holy Spirit can do this.

My biological work convinced me that the One who was declared dead by Nietzsche, and silent by Sartre, actually is read more

My biological work convinced me that the One who was declared dead by Nietzsche, and silent by Sartre, actually is very much alive and speaking to us through all things.

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Where would you be if God took away all read more

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Where would you be if God took away all your Christian work? Too often it is our Christian work that is worshiped and not God.

Feast of Philip & James, Apostles What was God to do in the face of the dehumanizing of mankind read more

Feast of Philip & James, Apostles What was God to do in the face of the dehumanizing of mankind -- this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself? So burdened were men with their wickedness that they seemed rather to be brute beasts than reasonable men, reflecting the very likeness of the Word. What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ?... Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in two opposite directions, down among created things, and things of sense. The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half-way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body. [Continued].

In the world to which the Apostles preached their new message, religion had not been the solace of the weary, read more

In the world to which the Apostles preached their new message, religion had not been the solace of the weary, the medicine of the sick, the strength of the sin-laden, the enlightenment of the ignorant: It was the privilege of the healthy and the instructed. The sick and the ignorant were excluded. They were under the bondage of evil demons. "This people which knoweth not the law are accursed", was the common doctrine of Jews and Greeks. The philosophers addressed themselves only to the well-to-do, the intellectual, and the pure. To the mysteries were invited only those who had clean hands and sound understanding. It was a constant marvel to the heathen that the Christians called the sick and the sinful.

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul, May keep the path, but will not reach the goal; While read more

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul, May keep the path, but will not reach the goal; While he who walks in love may wander far, But God will bring him where the Blessed are.

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not read more

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm, he develops no biceps muscles and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character -- the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.

He who has found his soul's life in God is happy -- not, In truth, with perfect happiness: that is read more

He who has found his soul's life in God is happy -- not, In truth, with perfect happiness: that is not granted to men in this world, but a foretaste thereof --he has a secret joy which is beyond the reach of temptation, unrest, and sorrow; a quiet confidence and steadfastness which abide even while the waves and storms of life sweep over him... When the soul has sincerely given itself up to God, He fills it with His own peace, a peace which makes all earthly things indifferent -- as before His Presence, absorbing the heart. It is our strength, our comfort, our guide, the deeper and more confirmed it becomes, the greater our spiritual perfection; so that in truth to obtain and preserve this peace is the real secret of the interior life.