The fulfillment of the Lord's mercy does not depend upon believers' works, but... he fulfills the promise of salvation for read more

The fulfillment of the Lord's mercy does not depend upon believers' works, but... he fulfills the promise of salvation for those who respond to his call with upright life, because in those who are directed to the good by his Spirit he recognizes the only genuine insignia of his children.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 Outward as well read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 Outward as well as inward morality helps to form the idea of a true Christian freedom. We are right to lay stress on inwardness, but in this world there is no inwardness without an outward expression.

Feast of Andrew the Apostle Devotion is the real spiritual sweetness which takes away all bitterness from mortifications, and read more

Feast of Andrew the Apostle Devotion is the real spiritual sweetness which takes away all bitterness from mortifications, and prevents consolations from disagreeing with the soul; it cures the poor of sadness, and the rich of presumption; it keeps the oppressed from feeling desolate, and the prosperous from insolence; it averts sadness from the lonely, and dissipation from social life; it is as warmth in winter and as refreshing dew in summer; it knows how to abound and how to suffer want, how to profit alike by honour and by contempt; it accepts gladness and sadness with an even mind, and fills men's hearts with a wondrous sweetness.

Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942 It is fatally easy to think of Christianity as something to read more

Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942 It is fatally easy to think of Christianity as something to be discussed and not as something to be experienced. It is certainly important to have an intellectual grasp of the orb of Christian truth; but it is still more important to have a vital, living experience of the power of Jesus Christ. When a man undergoes treatment from a doctor, he does not need to know the way in which the drug works on his body in order to be cured. There is a sense in which Christianity is like that. At the heart of Christianity there is a mystery, but it is not the mystery of intellectual appreciation; it the mystery of redemption.

Feast of the Conversion of Paul If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that read more

Feast of the Conversion of Paul If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether: of how many things, even in middle life, we have to say, "No time for that", "Too late now" and "Not for me". But Nature herself forbids you [young people] to share that experience. A more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God's hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 Those who charged the Christians with burning down Rome with fire brands were read more

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 Those who charged the Christians with burning down Rome with fire brands were slanderers -- but they were, at least, far nearer to the nature of Christianity than those among the moderns who tell us that the Christians were a sort of ethical society, being martyred in a languid fashion for telling men they had a duty to their neighbours, and only mildly disliked because they were meek and mild!

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 Here is the great truth that, read more

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 Here is the great truth that, only when we see things in the light of God, do we see things as they are. It is only when we see things in the light of God that we see what things are really important, and what things are not. These things seem vastly important, things like ambition, and prestige, and money and gain, lose all their value and importance when they are seen in the light of God. Pleasures and habits and social customs which seem permissible enough, are seen for the dangerous things they are when they are seen in the light of God. Things which seem evils, hardship, toil, discipline, unpopularity, even persecution, are seen in their glory when they are seen in the light of God.

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 "I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee, I have not read more

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 "I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee, I have not thirsted for Thee: And now cold billows of death surround me, Buffeting billows of death astound me, Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see Thy perishing me?" "Yea, I have sought thee, yea, I have found thee, Yea, I have thirsted for thee, Yea, long ago with love's bands I bound thee: Now the Everlasting Arms surround thee, Through death's darkness I look and see And clasp thee to Me.".

I will attempt no historical or theological classification of [George] Macdonald's thought, partly because I have not the learning to read more

I will attempt no historical or theological classification of [George] Macdonald's thought, partly because I have not the learning to do so, still more because I am no great friend to such pigeon-holing. One very effective way of silencing the voice of conscience is to impound in an Ism the teacher through whom it speaks; the trumpet no longer seriously disturbs our rest when we have murmured '..Thomist', 'Barthian', or 'Existentialist'. And in Macdonald it is, always the voice of conscience that speaks. He addresses the will: the demand for obedience, for "something to be neither more nor less nor other than done" is incessant. Yet in that very voice of conscience every other faculty somehow speaks as well -- intellect and imagination and humour and fancy and all the affections; and no man in modern times was perhaps more aware of the distinction between Law and Gospel, the inevitable failure of mere morality.