Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for his temple.

C. S. Lewis Centennial Holding [the Way of Affirmation], we see that every created thing is, in its degree, read more

C. S. Lewis Centennial Holding [the Way of Affirmation], we see that every created thing is, in its degree, an image of God, and the ordinate and faithful appreciation of that thing a clue, which, truly followed, will lead back to Him. Holding [the Way of Rejection], we see that every created thing, the highest devotion to moral duty, the purest conjugal love, the saint and the seraph, is no more than an image; that every one of them, followed for its own sake and isolated from its source, becomes an idol whose service is damnation.

I was more convinced than ever that the preaching like an Apostle, without joining together those that are awakened and read more

I was more convinced than ever that the preaching like an Apostle, without joining together those that are awakened and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children for the murderer. How much preaching has there been for these twenty years all over Pembrokeshire! But no regular societies, no discipline, no order or connection; and the consequence is, that nine in ten of the once-awakened are now faster asleep than ever.

The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants
and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation . . . surpass read more

The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants
and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation . . . surpass in
atrocity any tenets that have ever been admitted into any pagan
creed.

Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389 Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, read more

Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389 Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833 The fool for Christ holds a prophetic role in Christianity, from the early church to Russian Orthodox "pilgrims" and such later fools as Luther, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky, who were seekers after the true, the good, the holy, the beautiful. They were insane -- not in a clinical sense, but in the madness of the Holy, an insanity which ordinary sanity refuses to admit.

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Logic may read more

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Logic may be viewed, perhaps, as a machine which is designed, at best, to be such that when we feed into it certain data and turn the logic crank, we inevitably get certain conclusions out the other end. Logic is designed to give inevitably true results starting from known true -- or assumed-to-be-true -- premises. Logic is a wonderful tool when we want only logical conclusions. We should not reject such a machine merely because it is not equipped to handle all of reality. The scientist who commits himself to use a logic machine is doing wisely, qua scientist, for use on data of science. But if he feeds into that machine convictions that there is not God, or ignores God because He is not in his corpus of data, and then draws from his logic the conclusion that God does not exist, his conclusion is irrelevant. Logic is a tool; it should not be made into a religion.

Only those who try to live near God and have formed the habit of faithfulness to Him in the small read more

Only those who try to live near God and have formed the habit of faithfulness to Him in the small things of our daily life, can hope in times of need for that special light which shows us our path. To do as well as we can the job immediately before us, is the way to learn what we ought to do next.

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the read more

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the fact that someone has possessed it. A very ordinary thing acquires a new value, if it has been possessed by some famous person. In any museum we will find quite ordinary things--clothes, a walking-stick, a pen, pieces of furniture--which are only of value because they were possessed and used by some great person. It is the ownership which gives them worth. It is so with the Christian. The Christian may be a very ordinary person, but he acquires a new value and dignity and greatness because he belongs to God. The greatness of the Christian lies in the fact that he is God's.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of all aids to the following of Christ, but (let us never forget) the following is the great thing. To those who, by whatever means they are attracted to Him, really seek to do God's will as He revealed it, Christ will prove a Saviour -- a Saviour from sin, a Saviour from the power of sin here, and from the misery which sin brings with it here and hereafter.