Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.
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Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 To worship is to quicken read more
Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.
Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 When everything read more
Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 When everything we receive from him is received and prized as fruit and pledge of his covenant love, then his bounties, instead of being set up as rivals and idols to draw our heart from him, awaken us to fresh exercises of gratitude and furnish us with fresh motives of cheerful obedience every hour.'.
The real presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but read more
The real presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament.
To live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by whom we live.
To live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by whom we live.
To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a read more
To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a Being whom men desired to find but could not. But such a formula, though it truly represented one side of their situation, can never represent the whole of any human situation. For God is also a Being whom it ill suits any of us to find but from whom we cannot escape. Part of the reason why men cannot find God is that there is that in Him which they do not desire to find, so that the God whom they are seeking and cannot find is not the God who truly is. Perhaps we could not fail to find God, if it were really God whom we were seeking. And indeed the deepest reality of the situation is that contained in the discovery, which alone is likely at last to resolve our perplexity, that when we were so distressfully seeking that which was not really God, the true God had already found us, though at first we did not know that it was He by whom we had been found. There is a saying, "Be careful what you seek; you might find it." And some who have sought God only as a complacent ally of their own ambitions have found Him a consuming fire.
Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 It is further objected that he hath left to us no example read more
Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 It is further objected that he hath left to us no example of that which by many is esteemed the only religious state of life, viz. perfect retirement from the world, for the more devout serving of God and freeing us from the temptations of the world -- such as is that of monks and hermits. This perhaps may seem to some a great oversight and omission. But our Lord in great wisdom thought fit to give us a pattern of a quite different sort of life, which was, not to fly the conversation of men and to live in a monastery or a wilderness, but to do good among men, to live in the world with great freedom and with great innocence. He did indeed sometimes retire himself for the more free and private exercise of devotion, as we ought to do; but he passed his life chiefly in the conversation of men, that they might have all the benefit that was possible of his instruction and example We read that "he was carried into the wilderness to be tempted," but not that he lived there to avoid temptation. He hath given us an example of denying the world without leaving it.
Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Concluding a short series on the Bible: Christ is read more
Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Concluding a short series on the Bible: Christ is the master; the Scriptures are only the servant.
Continuing a short series about the early church: As to the Emperor and the charge of high treason read more
Continuing a short series about the early church: As to the Emperor and the charge of high treason against us, Caesar's safety lies not in hands soldered on. We invoke the true God for the Emperor. Even if he persecute us, we are bidden to pray for them that persecute us, as you can read in our books, which are not hidden, which you often get hold of. We pray for him because the Empire lies between us and the end of the world. We count the Caesars to be God's vice-regents and swear by their safety (not by their genius, as required). As for loyalty, Caesar really is more ours than yours; for it was our God who set him up. It is for his own good, that we refuse to call the Emperor God; Father of his Country is a better title. No Christian has ever made a plot against a Caesar; the famous conspirators and assassins were heathen, one and all. Piety, religion, faith are our best offering of loyalty.
Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 We must try to be at one and the same time read more
Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 We must try to be at one and the same time for the Church and against the Church. They alone can serve her faithfully whose consciences are continually exercised as to whether they ought not, for Christ's sake, to leave her.
