Feast of Luke the Evangelist No man dares to condemn the Christian faith today, because the Christian faith has read more

Feast of Luke the Evangelist No man dares to condemn the Christian faith today, because the Christian faith has not been tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine, an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain; not until they get the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through the lives of men; not until then does Christianity enter upon its true trial and become ready to show what it can do.

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Sin is a base and ill-natured thing, and renders read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Sin is a base and ill-natured thing, and renders a man not so apt to be affected with the injuries he hath offered to God as with the mischief which is likely to fall upon himself.

Let no man deceive you with vain words or vain hopes or false notions of a slight and sudden repentance. read more

Let no man deceive you with vain words or vain hopes or false notions of a slight and sudden repentance. As if heaven were a hospital founded on purpose to receive all sick and maimed persons that, when they can live no longer to the lusts of the flesh and the sinful pleasures of this world, can but put up a cold and formal petition to be admitted there. No, no, as sure as God is true, they shall never see the Kingdom of God who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat.

A frequent intercession with God, earnestly beseeching Him to forgive the sins of all mankind, to bless them with His read more

A frequent intercession with God, earnestly beseeching Him to forgive the sins of all mankind, to bless them with His providence, enlighten them with His Spirit, and bring them to everlasting happiness, is the divinest exercise that the heart of man can be engaged in. Be daily, therefore, on your knees, in a solemn deliberate performance of this devotion, praying for others in such forms, with such length, importunity, and earnestness, as you use for yourself; and you will find all little, ill-natured passions die away, your heart grow great and generous, delighting in the common happiness of others, as you used only to delight in your own... It was this holy intercession that raised Christians to such a state of mutual love, as far exceeded all that had been praised and admired in human friendship. And when the same spirit of intercession is again in the world, when Christianity has the same power over the hearts of people that it then had, this holy friendship will be again in fashion, and Christians will be again the wonder of the world, for that exceeding love which they bear to one another.

Continuing a series on the church: We must not admit for one moment the truth of a statement often read more

Continuing a series on the church: We must not admit for one moment the truth of a statement often made, that the man who devotes himself to the establishment of the church, declining to be involved in all sorts of activities for the improvement of social conditions, is indifferent to, or heedless of, the sufferings and injustices under which men suffer. He is nothing of the kind: he is simply a man who is sure of his foundation, and is convinced that the only way to any true advancement is spiritual, and is Christ; and therefore he persists, in spite of all appearances, in clinging to Christ as the only foundation, and in building all his hopes for the future on the acceptance of Christ. He is not content with attacks upon symptoms of evil; they seem to him superficial: he goes to the roots. He cannot be content with teaching men Christian principles of conduct, "Christian ideals of social life" -- still less with the establishment of colleges and clubs. Nothing but Christ Himself, faith in Christ, the obedience of Christ, seems to him equal to the need, and nothing else is his work but the establishment of that foundation. In doing this he is not showing indifference to social evils, he is not standing aloof from beneficent movements; he is actively engaged in laying the axe to the roots of the trees which bear the evil. That is not indifference.

He that begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than read more

He that begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The tendency of the religions of all time read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The tendency of the religions of all time has been to care more for religion than for humanity: Christ cared more for humanity than for religion -- rather, His care for humanity was the chief expression of His religion. He was not indifferent to observances, but the practices of the people bulked in His thoughts before the practices of the Church. It has been pointed out as a blemish on the immortal allegory of Bunyan that the Pilgrim never did anything -- anything but save his soul. The remark is scarcely fair, for the allegory is designedly the story of a soul in a single relation; and, besides, he did do a little. But the warning may well be weighed. The Pilgrim's one thought, his work by day, his dream by night, was escape. He took little part in the world through which he passed. He was a Pilgrim travelling through it; his business was to get through safe. Whatever this is, it is not Christianity.

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about the nature of read more

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about the nature of the transformation which our Lord's body underwent in his resurrection, and if we know anything about physics and biology we are quite likely to ask them. But, since we are concerned with an occurrence which is by hypothesis unique in certain relevant aspects, we are most unlikely to be able to give confident answers to them. [Paul M.] van Buren's remarks about biology and the twentieth century are nothing more than rhetoric or, at best, are simply empirical statements about his own psychology. The first century knew as well as the twentieth that dead bodies do not naturally come to life again, and no amount of twentieth-century knowledge about natural processes can tell us what may happen by supernatural means.

Feast of James the Apostle The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the read more

Feast of James the Apostle The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the difficulties of existence, but an invitation to enter fully into that difficult existence, and there apply the Charity of God, and bear the cost.