Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles We are so farre off from condemning any of their labours read more

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles We are so farre off from condemning any of their labours that traveiled before us in this kinds, either in this land or beyond sea, ... that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, ... and that they deserve to be had of us and of posteritie in everlasting remembrance... Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake the yce and give the onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of soules. Now what can be more available thereto, than to deliver Gods booke unto the Gods people in a tongue which they understand? ... So if we, building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, doe endeavor to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, has cause to mislike us; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us. For is the Kingdom of God become words or syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free? [Some antique spelling fixed -- Ed.].

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist The Present is the point at which Time touches Eternity. read more

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist The Present is the point at which Time touches Eternity. Of the present moment -- and of it only -- humans have an experience analogous to the experience which God has of reality as a whole; in it alone, freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with Eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present -- either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself; or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

Feast of the Holy Innocents Christian freedom, in my opinion, consists of three parts. The first: that the read more

Feast of the Holy Innocents Christian freedom, in my opinion, consists of three parts. The first: that the consciences of believers, in seeking assurance of their justification before God, should rise above and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness... The second part, dependent upon the first, is that consciences observe the law, not as if constrained by the necessity of the law, but that freed from the law's yoke they willingly obey God's will... The third part of Christian freedom lies in this: regarding outward things that are of themselves "indifferent", we are not bound before God by any religious obligation preventing us from sometimes using them and other times not using them, indifferently... Accordingly, it is perversely interpreted both by those who allege it as an excuse for their desires that they may abuse God's good gifts to their own lust and by those who think that freedom does not exist unless it is used before men, and consequently, in using it have no regard for weaker brethren... Nothing is plainer than this rule: that we should use our freedom if it results in the edification of our neighbor, but if it does not help our neighbor, then we should forego it.

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of read more

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280 The Kingdom of Heaven is not for the well-meaning: it is for the desperate.

Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for Himself is love: and it is the greatest thing read more

Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for Himself is love: and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the band of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments; for it is the fulfilling of the Law. It does the work of all the graces without any instrument but its own immediate virtue. For as the love of sin makes a man sin against all his own reason, and all the discourses of wisdom, and all the advices of his friends, and without temptation and without opportunity, so does the love of God: it makes a man chaste without the laborious arts of fasting and exterior disciplines, temperate in the midst of feasts, and is active enough to choose it without any intermedial appetites, and reaches at glory through the very heart of grace, without any other aims but those of love. It is a grace that loves God for Himself, and our neighbors for God. The consideration of God's goodness and bounty, the experience of those profitable and excellent emanations from Him, may be, and most commonly are, the first motive of our love; but when we are once entered, and have tasted the goodness of God, we love the spring for its own excellency, passing from passion to reason, from thanking to adoring, from sense to spirit, from considering ourselves to union with God: and this is the image and little representation of heaven; it is beatitude in picture, or rather the infancy and beginning of glory.

Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896 Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958 read more

Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896 Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958 Thus was the Cross of Christ, in St. Paul's day, the glory of Christians; not as it signified their not being ashamed to own a master that was crucified, but as it signified their glorying in a religion which was nothing else but a doctrine of the Cross that called them to the same suffering spirit, the same sacrifice of themselves, the same renunciation of the world, the same humility and meekness, the same patient bearing of injuries, reproaches and contempts, and the same dying to all the greatness, honours, and happiness of this world, which Christ showed on the Cross.

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spritual writer, 1893 We feel that other churches must accept, as read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spritual writer, 1893 We feel that other churches must accept, as the pre-conditions of fellowship, such changes as will bring them into conformity with ourselves in matters which we regard as essential, and that a failure to insist on this will involve compromise in regard to what is essential to the Church's being. But for precisely the same reason, we cannot admit a demand from others for any changes in ourselves which would seem to imply a denial that we already possess the esse of the Church.

No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.