Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our read more

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our needs should come second.

One who receives this Word, and by it salvation, receives along with it the duty of passing this Word on... read more

One who receives this Word, and by it salvation, receives along with it the duty of passing this Word on... Where there is no mission, there is no Church, and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.

Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878 Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly read more

Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878 Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross. He hath many desirous of consolation, but few of tribulation. Many love Jesus so long as no adversities befall them.

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 The Hebrew word, nabi, translated "prophet" in English Bibles, has the read more

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 The Hebrew word, nabi, translated "prophet" in English Bibles, has the connotation of "message bearer". The prophets were men called by God to serve as His messengers to a stubborn and unheeding people. They were always careful to point out that they were not voicing their own wisdom. Their warnings, entreaties, and promises were always prefaced by the awesome proclamation: "Thus says the Lord..." When the prophets did engage in prognostication, they usually were concerned with events which were fairly close at hand, such as the Assyrian conquest of Israel and the Babylonian conquest of Judah (both of which they foretold with deadly accuracy). But occasionally a prophet's vision ranged farther into the future, to the day when God would enter into a new covenant with his rebellious children. The hope of reconciliation was often linked with the coming of a very particular person, a Messiah or Savior. What made the prophets so sure that they had a right--nay, a duty, to speak in the name of God? It is clear from their writings that they were not megalomaniacs who confused their own thoughts with the voice of God. On the contrary, they were humble men, awe-stricken by the responsibilities thrust upon them... The prophets minced no words in their indictments of the sins of Israel and Judah, and they trod especially hard on the toes of the rich, the powerful, and the pious. The Establishment responded then as some church members are wont to respond now when a preacher speaks out on controversial public issues: "One should not preach of such things!" (Micah 2:6).

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.

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding read more

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding religion as a compilation of statutes, and not as an internal principle, that it soon comes to be considered as being conversant about external actions rather than about habits of mind. This sentiment sometimes has even the hardiness to insinuate and maintain itself under the guise of extraordinary concern for practical religion; but it soon discovers the falsehood of this pretension, and betrays its real nature. The expedient, indeed, of attaining to superiority in practice by not wasting any of the attention on the internal principles from which alone practice can flow, is about as reasonable, and will answer about as well, as the economy of an architect who should account it mere prodigality to expend any of his materials in laying foundation, from an idea that they might be more usefully applied to the raising of the superstructure. We know what would be the fate of such an edifice.

To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a true man, and Christ was a true man. read more

To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a true man, and Christ was a true man. His prayer in Gethsemane, his sweat of blood, show that the preceding anxiety is a part of human affliction, which we must try to accept with some sort of submission.

The real conviction of the living Christ was not carried to the world by a book nor by a story. read more

The real conviction of the living Christ was not carried to the world by a book nor by a story. Men might allege that they had seen the risen Lord; but that was nothing till they themselves were known. The witness of the resurrection was not the word of Paul (as we see at Athens) nor of the Eleven; it was the new power in life and death that the world saw in changed men... The legend of a reputed resurrection of some unknown person in Palestine nobody needed to consider; but what were you to do with the people who died in the arena, the reborn slaves with their newness of life in your own house? And when you "looked into the story", it was no mere somebody or other of whom they told it. The conviction of the people you knew, amazing in its power of transforming character and winning first the goodwill and the trust and then the conversion of others, was supported and confirmed by the nature and personality of the Man of whom they spoke, of whom you read in their books. "Never man spake like this man", you read, nor thought like this man, nor like this man believed in God. I can not but think that the factors that make a man Christian to-day were those that won the world then, our age and that age, in culture, in hopes and fears in loss of nerve, are not unlike. [Continued tomorrow].

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in read more

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.