Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop read more

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664 When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM". "I am that I am," says God, "I change not." Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point.

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, read more

Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651 Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725 Commemoration of John Bunyan, Spiritual Writer, 1688 Here in Pilgrim's Progress there is the ultimate human nostalgia for the City of God, which is the restless heart's true home. And even the cynical, the unbelieving and half-believing reader who goes with Christian to the end of the road must be a little shaken, may tremble to see something like a gate and also some of the glory of the place, and, glimpsing something of the company within the golden gates, may wish himself among them.

Feast of James the Apostle In the absence of so many vital points -- the spiritual understanding of read more

Feast of James the Apostle In the absence of so many vital points -- the spiritual understanding of the Law, and the consciousness of sin, the unity and all-sufficiency of Scripture, and the expectation of the Messiah -- we cannot wonder that the idea of God, as it lived in faithful Israel of old, was also obscured. Instead of the living, loving, self-manifesting God of the Old Testament Israel now took hold of the abstract idea of the unity, or rather the unicity, of God, as if that were God. Before -- when they lived in communion with God, when God was known to them as a Person, speaking, acting, blessing, who had chosen them, who was educating them, and who was going to fulfill His promises -- they declared, in opposition to the idolatrous nations that surrounded them, that this God of Israel was one God, that there are not many gods; but when they lost communion with God, in order to show what distinguished them from the nations of the earth, and especially from Christians, they emphasized that God in Himself was only one Person, and not as He is revealed to us in the Scripture: Sender, Sent, and Spirit. It is the boast of the modern Jewish synagogue that their great mission is to testify to the world the unity of God. But it is a striking fact that the Gentile nations who have, since the dispersion of Israel, been converted from idolatry, have been influenced, not by the synagogue, but by the congregations of Jesus Christ, and were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost... It is one thing to believe in justification by faith, it is another thing to be justified by faith; and so it is one thing to believe in God, who is One, and it is another to believe in the numerical abstraction, in the mere idea of unicity.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that read more

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner.

This therefore is a certain truth, that hell and death, curse and misery, can never cease or be removed from read more

This therefore is a certain truth, that hell and death, curse and misery, can never cease or be removed from the creation till the will of the creature is again as it came from God and is only a Spirit of Love that wills nothing but goodness. All the whole fallen creation, stand it never so long, must groan and travail in pain, till every contrariety to the divine will is entirely taken from every creature. Which is only saying, that all the powers and properties of nature are a misery to themselves, can only work in disquiet and wrath, till the birth of the Son of God brings them under the dominion and power of the Spirit of Love.

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 I am glad that you have read more

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 I am glad that you have been acquainted, from your youth, with the wrestlings of God, being cast from furnace to furnace; knowing, if you were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of him, he would not spend as much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to his image in suffering, Rom. viii.17, and some do more fully resemble the copy than others.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 Contempt of material things as such is, in fact, no more orthodox than pantheism -- it is the great dualist heresy which always lies in wait for an over-spiritualized Christianity.

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 There is a false self-distrust which denies the worth of its read more

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 There is a false self-distrust which denies the worth of its own talent. It is not humility -- it is petty pride, withholding its simple gifts from the hands of Christ because they are not more pretentious. There are men who would endow colleges, they say, if they were millionaires. They would help in the work of Bible study if they were as gifted as Henry Drummond. They would strive to lead their associates into the Christian life if they had the gifts of Dwight L. Moody. But they are not ready to give what they have and do what they can and be as it has pleased God to make them, in His service -- and that is their condemnation.

The more a man hath unity and simplicity in himself, the more things and the deeper things he understandeth; and read more

The more a man hath unity and simplicity in himself, the more things and the deeper things he understandeth; and that without labour, because he receiveth the light of understanding from above. The spirit which is pure, sincere and steadfast, is not distracted though it hath many works to do, because it doth all things to the honour of God, and striveth to be free from all thoughts of self-seeking.