Not pleading with the Father, but expressing the Father's good pleasure is the key-note of true intercession. Forgiveness is God's read more

Not pleading with the Father, but expressing the Father's good pleasure is the key-note of true intercession. Forgiveness is God's idea, God's desire; and it is He who appoints both the Judge and the Counsel for the Defense. It was He who inaugurated the priestly work, that men might receive His cleansing and turn to the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. God has provided for himself a Lamb. It is He who sends His Son to be our Elder Brother, and to incorporate us as adopted sons into the circle of His Fatherly love. So then it is the voice of His beloved Son which is most clearly heard by the Father in heaven. In that voice of intercession, all the voices of intercession are contained and heard. The Son is talking to the Father about us, and what He says is not Please but Yes.

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: When on my day of life the night is falling, And, in read more

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: When on my day of life the night is falling, And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown, Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever-present, Be Thou my strength and stay! Be near me when all else is from me drifting; Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love that answers mine. I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if -- my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace - I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place.

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the read more

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered progressive change with the successive development of new faunal and floral assemblages through the changing epochs of our earth's history. There should be no real conflict between science, which is the search for truth, and Christ's teachings, which I hold to be truth itself. It is only when scientists remove God from creation that the Christian is faced with an irreconcilable situation.

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says "Amen" read more

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says "Amen" and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him your ideas.

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that read more

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own will. But it was because his will was capable of being bent to one side or the other, and was not given the constancy to persevere, that he fell so easily. Yet his choice of good and evil was free.

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my read more

Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304 I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith shall out-watch all this winter-night, and not nod or slumber, till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me.

[Christians], at their best, know that often they don't know. They do not have all the answers. They do not read more

[Christians], at their best, know that often they don't know. They do not have all the answers. They do not have God in their pocket. We cannot answer every question that any bright boy in the back row might ask. We have only light enough to walk by.

What else is the meaning of our present chaos, of humanity in sorrow, but this: that contemporary man is tried read more

What else is the meaning of our present chaos, of humanity in sorrow, but this: that contemporary man is tried before the bar of the Eternal, and found wanting? Nor can any nation survive, or re-establish lasting peace, if it rests on those foundations on which contemporary nations have been built, our own included. What are those crumbling foundations? Conceit, self-will, denial of discipline, self-expressionism, secularism, this worldliness, greed, entrenched privilege, defiance of God's desire. On base absurdities have we built. Have we now moral courage to face our common sin, or are we content to trust in one form of armed wickedness to overcome the evils of another form of the same mad folly? Merely by smashing our enemies we shall not remake the world. By Beelzebub no devils are cast out... (Continued tomorrow).