Though you may think yourself ever so dull and incapable of sublime attainments, yet by prayer the possession and enjoyment read more

Though you may think yourself ever so dull and incapable of sublime attainments, yet by prayer the possession and enjoyment of God is easily obtained; for He is more desirous to give Himself to us than we can be to receive Him.

Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533 Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, read more

Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533 Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, 1897 As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. "I come to seek God because I need Him," may be an adequate formula for prayer. "I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet," is the only possible formula for worship.

We must face the recognition that what the early Christians saw in Jesus Christ, and what we must accept if read more

We must face the recognition that what the early Christians saw in Jesus Christ, and what we must accept if we look at him rather than at our imaginations about him, was not a person characterized by universal benignity, loving God and loving man. His love of God and his love of neighbor are two distinct virtues that have no common quality but only a common source. Love of God is adoration of the only true good; it is gratitude to the bestower of all gifts; it is joy in holiness; it is "consent to Being." But the love of man is pitiful rather than adoring; it is giving and forgiving rather than grateful. It suffers for them in their viciousness and profaneness; it does not consent to accept them as they are, but calls them to repentance. The love of God is nonpossessive Eros; the love of man pure Agape; the love of God is passion; the love of man, compassion. There is duality here, but not of like-minded interest in two great values, God and man. It is rather the duality of the Son of Man and Son of God, who loves God as man should love Him, and loves man as only God can love, with powerful pity for those who are foundering.

Is the leadership of the world-wide church in the hands of men and women who know how to lead others read more

Is the leadership of the world-wide church in the hands of men and women who know how to lead others one by one to Jesus Christ? We are so concerned with planning and administration that there is a danger lest we allow these things to serve as an excuse for not doing the one thing on which all else depends.

Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist Wherever God's Word may be preached, His precepts remain a letter read more

Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist Wherever God's Word may be preached, His precepts remain a letter and dead words so long as they are not received by men with a pure heart; only where they pierce to the soul do they become, so to speak, changed into Spirit.

Like summer seas that lave with silent tides a lonely shore, like whispering winds that stir the tops of forest read more

Like summer seas that lave with silent tides a lonely shore, like whispering winds that stir the tops of forest trees, like a still, small voice that calls us in the watches of the night, like a child's hand that feels about a fast-closed door; gentle, unnoticed, and oft in vain: so is Thy coming unto us, O God. Like ships storm-driven into port, like starving souls that seek the bread they once despised, like wanderers begging refuge from the whelming night, like prodigals that seek the father's home when all is spent; yet welcomed at the open door, arms outstretched and kisses for our shame; so is our coming unto Thee, 0 God. Like flowers uplifted to the sun, like trees that bend before the storm, like sleeping seas that mirror cloudless skies, like a harp to the hand, like an echo to a cry, like a song to the heart; for all our stubbornness, our failure, and our sin: so would we have been to Thee, O God.

I believe that pure thinking will do more to educate a man than any other activity he can engage in. read more

I believe that pure thinking will do more to educate a man than any other activity he can engage in. To afford sympathetic entertainment to abstract ideas, to let one idea beget another, and that another, till the mind teems with them; to compare one idea with others, to weigh, to consider, evaluate, approve, respect, correct, refine; to join thought with thought like an architect till a whole edifice has been created within the mind; to travel back in imagination to the beginning of the creation and then to leap swiftly forward to the end of time; to bound upward through illimitable space and downward into the nucleus of an atom; and all this without so much as moving from our chair or opening the eyes--this is to soar above all the lower creation and come near to the angels of God.

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary We cannot divide either man or the read more

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary We cannot divide either man or the universe... into two parts which move on different planes and have no vital relations; we cannot... limit the divine reaction against sin, or the experiences through which, in any case whatever, sin is brought home to man, to the purely spiritual sphere. Every sin is a sin of the indivisible human being, and the divine reaction against it expresses itself to conscience through the indivisible frame of that world, at once natural and spiritual, in which man lives. We cannot distribute evils into the two classes of physical and moral, and subsequently investigate the relation between them: if we could, it would be of no service here. What we have to understand is that when a man sins he does something in which his whole being participates, and that the reaction of God against his sin is a reaction in which he is conscious (or might be conscious) that the whole system of things is in arms against him.

Feast of Charles, King & Martyr, 1649 Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does not read more

Feast of Charles, King & Martyr, 1649 Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does not cease to exist. We can be sure of its presence by tasting the water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be made evident to others from the love which he imparts to us.