Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration read more

Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667 Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910 Commemoration of Octavia Hill, Worker for the Poor, 1912 Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severe and useful employment: for lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; no easy, healthful, idle person was ever chaste if he could be tempted; but of all employments, bodily labour is the most useful, and of the greatest benefit for driving away the Devil.

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The end of all my labors has come. All that I have written appears to me as much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 The deepest need of men is not food and clothing and shelter, important read more

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 The deepest need of men is not food and clothing and shelter, important as they are. It is God. We have mistaken the nature of poverty, and thought it was economic poverty. No, it is poverty of soul, deprivation of God's recreating, loving peace. Peer into poverty and see if we are really getting down to the deepest needs, in our economic salvation schemes. These are important. But they lie farther along the road, secondary steps toward world reconstruction. The primary step is a holy life, transformed and radiant in the glory of God.

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 God usually answers our prayers so much more according read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 God usually answers our prayers so much more according to the measure of His own magnificence, than of our asking, that we do not recognize His benefits to be those for which we sought Him.

If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way of liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of read more

If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way of liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 It is of no use to say that Christ, read more

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been super-added by the tradition of his followers. Who among his disciples or among their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings of Jesus or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee; as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different sort; still less the early Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident than that the good which was in them was all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from the higher source.

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative read more

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative thought on the teachings of Jesus; and yet Jesus was never an inhabitant of the realm of speculative thought.

The Divine Perfections. How shall I praise th' eternal God, That Infinite Unknown? Who can ascend his high abode, read more

The Divine Perfections. How shall I praise th' eternal God, That Infinite Unknown? Who can ascend his high abode, Or venture near his throne? The great invisible! He dwells Conceal'd in dazzling light: But his all-searching eye reveals The secrets of the night. Those watchful eyes that never sleep, Survey the world around; His wisdom is the boundless deep, Where all our thoughts are drown'd. He knows no shadow of a change, Nor alters his decrees; Firm as a rock his truth remains, To guard his promises. Justice, upon a dreadful throne, Maintains the rights of God; While mercy sends her pardons down, Bought with a Saviour's blood. Now to my soul immortal King, Speak some forgiving word; Then `twill be double joy to sing The glories of my Lord.

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one read more

Maundy Thursday There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one has "come to himself" as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship.