Feast of Evelyn Underhill, Mystical Writer, 1941 Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of read more

Feast of Evelyn Underhill, Mystical Writer, 1941 Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not their capacity for meditation, but their capacity for suffering and love. For there is a hard and costly element, a deep seriousness, a crucial choice, in all genuine religion.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 Who belongs to the Church? Who is my true brother? We read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 Who belongs to the Church? Who is my true brother? We cannot always tell whether or not a man believes in Christ; but we can always ask -- Christianity is not a secret society. And if a man says he loves the Lord, why should I not treat him as my brother? If I should happen to welcome one who is only a professing Christian, who has not given his heart to Christ, what harm has it done? I will have offered the love of God to one who rejects it, and I will have given a few hours of my life to an enemy -- but our Father holds out His hands all day long to a rebellious people, and our Savior gave His life for me when I was His enemy.

Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, read more

Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus.

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of read more

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1240 We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position.

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 Is a mediator between the eternal spirit and the read more

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 Is a mediator between the eternal spirit and the finite an unreality, an intrusion? The mystic soul may impatiently think so, but the moral soul finds such mediation the way to reality; and the mystic experience is not quite trustworthy about reality. The pagan gods had no mediators, because they were not real or good gods; but the living God has a living Revealer. To know the living God is to know Christ; to know Christ is to know the living God. We do not know God by Christ but in Him. We find God when we find Christ; and in Christ alone we know and share his final purpose. Our last knowledge is not the contact of our person with a thing or a thought; it is intercourse of person and person.

Concluding a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the read more

Concluding a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting himself whenever and wherever his people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

Feast of Etheldreda, Abbess of Ely, c.678 Read and read again, and do not despair of help to understand read more

Feast of Etheldreda, Abbess of Ely, c.678 Read and read again, and do not despair of help to understand the will and mind of God though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have not commentaries and exposition. Pray and read, read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men. Also, what is from men is uncertain, and is often lost and tumbled over by men; but what is from God is fixed as a nail in a sure place. There is nothing that so abides with us as what we receive from God; and the reason why the Christians in this day are at such a loss as to some things is that they are contented with what comes from men's mouths, without searching and kneeling before God to know of Him the truth of things. Things we receive at God's hands come to us as truths from the minting house, though old in themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us if they come with the smell of Heaven upon them.

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Faith is rest, not toil. It is read more

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own poor performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.