If Christians are ever to be united, they must be united in Christ, their living head and the source of read more

If Christians are ever to be united, they must be united in Christ, their living head and the source of their spiritual life.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, read more

And thus we rust Life's iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God's eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone. And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper's house With the scent of costliest nard. Ah! happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor read more

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action -- you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to get to heaven, to do good, or to be good -- you are called to belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging. The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a Person.

Concluding a short series on education: The devout student is the best of all students. There are too read more

Concluding a short series on education: The devout student is the best of all students. There are too many who are devout, but not students. They will not accept the discipline of study and of learning, and they even look with suspicion upon the further knowledge which study brings to men. There are equally too many who are students, but not devout. They are interested too much in intellectual knowledge, and too little in the life of prayer and in the life of service of their fellow men. A man would do well to aim at being not only a student, and not only devout, but at being a devout student.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud, He would hardly have us on such terms.

It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on read more

It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on the inheritance of victories of faith: not enough to build the sepulchres of those who were martyred by men unwilling, in their day of trial as we may be in our own, to hear new voices of a living God. Our duty is to see whether God is with us; whether we expect great things from Him; whether we do not practically place Him far off, forgetting that, if He is, He is about us, speaking to us words that have not been heard before, guiding us to paths on which earlier generations have not been able to enter. There is -- most terrible thought! -- a practical atheism, orthodox in language, reverent in bearing, which can enter a Christian church and charm the conscience to rest with shadowy traditions; an atheism which grows incessantly within us if we separate what cannot be separated with impunity, the secular from the divine, the past and the future from the present, earth from heaven, the things of Caesar from the things of God.

Feast of Henry Martyn, Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India & Persia, 1812 Continuing a series on the read more

Feast of Henry Martyn, Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India & Persia, 1812 Continuing a series on the church: The apostle asked the converts of Apollos one question: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" and got a plain answer. His modern successors are more inclined to ask either "Did you believe exactly what we teach?" or "Were the hands that were laid on you our hands?", and -- if the answer is satisfactory -- to assure the converts that they have received the Holy Spirit even if they don't know it.

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.

Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not read more

Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not their capacity for meditation, but their capacity for suffering and love. For there is a hard and costly element, a deep seriousness, a crucial choice, in all genuine religion.