Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 I apprehended it a Matter of great Necessity to imprint read more

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 I apprehended it a Matter of great Necessity to imprint true catholicism on the Minds of Christians, it being a most lamentable thing to observe how few Christians in the World there be, that fall not into one Sect or another .... And if they can but get to be of a Sect which they think the holiest (as the Anabaptists and the Separatists), or which is the largest (as the Greeks and the Romans), they think then that they are sufficiently warranted to deny others to be God's Church, or at least to deny them Christian love and communion.

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, read more

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 It is our great relief that God is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, that he looks at the motives, and accepts and blesses in spite of incidental errors.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can't, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God's care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.

OUR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS Often, though not always, they work in inadequate buildings, with limited budgets, with insufficient backing from read more

OUR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS Often, though not always, they work in inadequate buildings, with limited budgets, with insufficient backing from church officers, with indifferent support from parents, and at times even under a minister who cares for none of these things. Usually the workers themselves have had insufficient training for the job they are asked to perform. And always they work in a secularized culture, in the midst of spiritual illiteracy, where the most commonplace terms in the Bible and the most elemental ideas concerning the Kingdom of God sound strange even to otherwise well-educated adults.

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 Many people despise those who spend their health, strength read more

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 Many people despise those who spend their health, strength and money for the salvation of others, and call them mad. And yet it is they who will save many and be saved themselves.

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and read more

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and suspend its functions when it opens the New Testament. It cannot make itself the slave of men, not even though the men are Peter and Paul and John; no, not even though it were the Son of Man Himself. It resents dictation, not willfully nor wantonly, but because it must; and it resents it all the more when it claims to be inspired. If, therefore, the Atonement can only be received by those who are prepared from the threshold to acknowledge the inspiration and the consequent authority of Scripture, it can never be received by modern men at all.

The possibility of rejection was ever present. St. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching read more

The possibility of rejection was ever present. St. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching for years to men who refused to act on his teaching. When once he had brought them to a point where decision was clear, he reminded that they should make their choice. If they rejected him, he rejected them... He did not simply "go away"; he openly rejected those who showed themselves unworthy of his teaching. It was part of the Gospel that men might "judge themselves unworthy of eternal life". It is a question which needs serious consideration whether the Gospel can be truly preached if this element is left out.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 In addition to read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 In addition to the general situations in which men find themselves today, there are those things in personal life which have always tested faith: the inexplicable tragedies and injustices; the suffering of innocent people, especially of children; the seeming uselessness of prayer, and so forth. It is surely life itself that makes against belief in most cases. It is the contradiction in real life between any image of God as good -- whether God is "above", "beneath", or "within" -- that makes men atheists. Yet how few books and how few sermons touch on this basic problem! Our theological libraries are crammed with books devoted to every aspect of textual and higher criticism of the Bible; but of genuine theological thinking about the things which drive religion from men's hearts, there is appallingly little to be found. The archaeology of Christian origins seems largely to have replaced genuine theology.

Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304 Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988 The Bible read more

Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304 Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988 The Bible tells us very clearly that to "know" God is not an affair of the mind only, but an act in which our whole being -- heart, mind, and will -- is vitally engaged; so that sheer intellectual speculation would enable us to form certain ideas about God but never to know Him. To be grasped, God's will must be met with a readiness to obey.