Feast of the Conversion of Paul The life of faith does not earn eternal life: it is eternal life. read more

Feast of the Conversion of Paul The life of faith does not earn eternal life: it is eternal life. And Christ is its vehicle.

We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, and so live on and in our read more

We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, and so live on and in our own poverty and weakness -- today pleased and comforted with the seeming firmness and strength of our own pious tempers and fancying ourselves to be somewhat. Tomorrow, fallen into our own mire, we are dejected, but not humbled; we grieve, but it is only the grief of pride at the seeing our perfection not to be such as we had vainly imagined. And thus it will be, till the whole turn of our minds be so changed that we as fully see and know our inability to have any goodness of our own as to have a life of our own.

In vain does anyone pretend that he will be a martyr for his religion, when he will not rule an read more

In vain does anyone pretend that he will be a martyr for his religion, when he will not rule an appetite nor restrain lust nor subdue a passion nor cross his covetousness and ambition for the sake of it, and in hope of that eternal life which God that cannot lie hath promised. He that refuses to do the less is not like to do the greater. It is very improbable that a man will die for his religion, when he cannot be persuaded to live according to it. He that cannot take up a resolution to live a saint, hath a demonstration within himself that he is never like to die a martyr.

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 It is a singularly unpleasant read more

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 It is a singularly unpleasant thought that a book about Holy Communion is more likely to produce disagreement and controversy than one written on almost any other Christian subject. It seems a truly terrible thing that this Sacred Appointment, which was surely meant to unite, in actual practice divides Christians more sharply than any other part of their worship. Christians of various denominations may, and frequently do, work together on social projects, they may study the Scripture together, and they may ... pray together. But the moment attendance at the Lord's Table is suggested, up go the denominational barriers... I would make a strong plea that we do not exclude from the Lord's Table in our Church those who are undoubtedly sincere Christians. I cannot believe that to communicate together with our Lord should be regarded as the consummation, the final pinnacle, of the whole vast work of Reunion. Suppose it is the means and not the end. We might feel far more sharply the sin of our divisions and of our exclusiveness if we came humbly together to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, and in that reception we might find such a quickening of our common devotion to Him that the divisions between us might be found not nearly so insuperable as we supposed.

Assumptions based on faith are apparently an ever-present component in any system of belief -- whether these assumptions include the read more

Assumptions based on faith are apparently an ever-present component in any system of belief -- whether these assumptions include the existence of a personal God, or whether they begin with non-rational directionally-emergent forces governed by statistical probabilities. Our argument does not claim that evidences are so clear that faith is not needed. We do intend to imply, however, that the choice of a set of assumptions is a moral choice. Adherence to an epistemology is not something which merely "happens to" a person, but instead it reflects a component of his moral development. In some sense he is, in my judgment, morally responsible for adopting an epistemology even though it can be neither proved nor disproved to the satisfaction of those who oppose it.

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 The great need today among the young read more

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 The great need today among the young is the strengthening of belief in things spiritual, for in spite of the superhuman advances in science, invention, and culture, none of this is attributed to God's gift to man; in fact, the increase of knowledge and the cult of education have but given to youth a self-reliant independence where religion has no place, and beyond admitting that Christ was "the best man that ever lived," there are few who concede any other tribute to the Creator. And yet the saving principles of the world are rooted in Christ, implanted in him; the Truth by which men live is the Truth as taught and lived by Jesus.

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it... Be importunate, Jesus says read more

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it... Be importunate, Jesus says -- not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door.

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 God's omnipotence means read more

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 God's omnipotence means [His] power to do all that is not intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, "God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it", you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words "God can." It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives -- not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.