The testimony of the New Testament cannot be lightly disregarded, nor can the claims of Christ be airily dismissed. Many read more

The testimony of the New Testament cannot be lightly disregarded, nor can the claims of Christ be airily dismissed. Many otherwise intelligent people have never read with adult attention either the four Gospels or the Letters of the New Testament. When they so do, to my certain knowledge they not infrequently become converted. Indeed, I know of no adult who has seriously studied the New Testament and rejected the stories of Christ as mythical or the evidence of changed lives in the Letters as mere fabrication.

Every Christian, by virtue of membership in the Church, has a vocation to share in the ministry of Christ to read more

Every Christian, by virtue of membership in the Church, has a vocation to share in the ministry of Christ to the world which has been entrusted to the Church. The vocation is answered in the home and office and factory and field. There it is that the People of God bears its witness to the vocation of the People of God, a people with a people's diversity and complex vitality, a people comprising a multiplicity of cultures and histories and colours and tongues, a people and not a collection of individuals, a people bound together in allegiance to one King and in obedience to one purpose.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we're only talking about it.

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 "Homesickness for the [One True Church]" is read more

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 "Homesickness for the [One True Church]" is genuine and legitimate only in so far as it is a disquietude at the fact that we have lost and forgotten Christ, and with Him have lost the unity of the Church. Thus we must be on our guard, all along the line, lest the motives which stir us today lead us to a quest that looks past Him. Indeed, however rightful and urgent those motives are, we could well leave them out of our reckoning. We shall do well to realize that in themselves they are well-meaning but merely human desires, and that we can have no final certainty that they are rightful, no unanswerable claim for their fulfillment. Unless we regard them with a measure of holy indifference, we are ill placed for a quest after the unity of the Church.

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true: To think without confusion clearly, To love his fellow men sincerely, To act from honest motives purely, To trust in God and heaven securely. ... Henry van Dyke August 24, 2000 Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle Beginning a short series on the Bible: The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid.

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in read more

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 It is the fellowship of the Cross to read more

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. If any member refuses to bear that burden, he denies the law of Christ.

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 Many a congregation when it assembles in read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 Many a congregation when it assembles in church must look to the angels like a muddy, puddly shore at low tide; littered with every kind of rubbish and odds and ends --a distressing sort of spectacle. And then the tide of worship comes in, and it's all gone: the dead sea-urchins and jelly-fish, the paper and the empty cans and the nameless bits of rubbish. The cleansing sea flows over the whole lot. So we are released from a narrow, selfish outlook on the universe by a common act of worship. Our little human affairs are reduced to their proper proportion when seen over against the spaceless Majesty and Beauty of God.

When the Bible speaks of "following Jesus", it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from all man-made dogma, read more

When the Bible speaks of "following Jesus", it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from all man-made dogma, from every burden and oppression, from every anxiety and torture which afflicts the conscience. If they follow Jesus, men escape from the hard yoke of their own laws, and submit to the kindly yoke of Jesus Christ. But does this mean that we can ignore the seriousness of His command? Far from it! We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when His command, His call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirety. Only the man who follows the command of Jesus without reserve, and submits unresistingly to His yoke, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard -- unutterably hard -- for those who try to resist it.