Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 He has loved us without being loved... We are bound to read more

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 He has loved us without being loved... We are bound to Him, and not He to us, because before He was loved, He loved us... There it is, then: we cannot... love Him with this first love. Yet I say that God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then? ... I tell you, through a means which he has established, by which we can love Him freely; ... that is, we can be useful, not to Him -- which is impossible -- but to our neighbor... To show the love that we have for Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature and extend our charity to good and bad -- as much to one who does us ill service and criticizes us as to one who serves us. For, His charity extends over just men and sinners.

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Concluding a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is read more

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Concluding a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 It is a Gospel to men who read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 It is a Gospel to men who are without God, sinful, bewildered, anxious, discouraged, self-sufficient and proud yet destroying themselves and others, caught in a desperate plight from which they cannot extricate themselves. The Bible characterizes men in such a state as "lost", and as being "without hope in the world"... And let no one suppose that such a term as "lost" is merely a bit of conventional theological jargon. It stands for a terrible reality, a reality which modern man in his modern predicament knows only too well from his own bitter experience. It gives rise to the voices of despair which haunt our radios, our newspapers, our fiction and poetry, our stage and screen, our doctors' offices, our hospital wards, our grisly nightmare of atomic war, and the conversation of common people who no sooner meet than they begin to bemoan the fate that has overtaken the world.

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves or some dark demon. If we are not fit to cope with that which He has prepared for us, we would have been utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine for ourselves. We are to live and wrestle in this time, and in no other. Let us humbly, tremblingly, manfully look at it, and we shall not wish that the sun could go back its ten degrees, or that we could go back with it. If easy times are departed, it is that the difficult times may make us more in earnest; that they may teach us not to depend on ourselves. If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.

Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 The surest symbol of a heart not yet fully subdued read more

Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 The surest symbol of a heart not yet fully subdued to God and His will is going to be found in the areas of money, sex, and power: in wanting these things for ourselves. The surest symbol of spiritual earnestness will be the checkbook, the affections, and the ego-drive surrendered to Him. A disciple must have discipline. He must not be afraid of being asked by God for some of the time, the money, and the pleasure he has been in the habit of calling his "own". This does not mean that there will not be time for the family, and time for some healthy diversion. But it does mean that we are never -- on vacation, or wherever we may be -- exempt from our primary commitment to Him.

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 The progress of these terrors is plainly shown us in read more

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 The progress of these terrors is plainly shown us in our Lord's agony in the garden, when the reality of this eternal death so broke in upon Him, so awakened and stirred itself in Him, as to force great drops of blood to sweat from His body... His agony was His entrance into the last, eternal terrors of the lost soul, into the real horrors of that dreadful, eternal death which man unredeemed must have died into when he left this world. We are therefore not to consider our Lord's death upon the Cross as only the death of that mortal body which was nailed to it, but we are to look upon Him with wounded hearts, as being fixed and fastened in the state of that twofold death, which was due to the fallen nature, out of which He could not come till He could say, "It is finished; Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.".

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 Immortal Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which read more

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 Immortal Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade; How hath man parcel'd out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortal love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain (Thy workmanship), and give thee share in neither. Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit: The world is theirs; they two play out the game, Thou standing by: and though thy glorious name Wrought our deliverance from th' infernal pit, Who sings thy praise? only a scarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.

Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326 (1) God's children ought to walk in constant amazement of read more

Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326 (1) God's children ought to walk in constant amazement of spirit as to God, His nature, and works. (2) The glorifying of God is the great work of God's children. (3) Delightful privacy with God argues strong affection. (4) Frequent prayer an argument of much of God's Spirit; true prayer is the pouring out of the heart to God; God's children are most in private with God; the prayers of God's people most respect spiritual mercies; God's people wait for and rest in God's answer. (5) God's people are sensible of their unworthiness. (6) God Himself is regarded as the portion of His people. (7) Ready obedience to God. (8) The patience of God's children under God's hand. (9) The mournful confession of God's people. (10) God's people long after God in an open profession of His ordinances. (11) Their hearts are ready and prepared. (12) God's people's sense of their own insufficiencies.

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
Spech in March 1976.

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
Spech in March 1976.