Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as read more

Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion, as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him in and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence.

The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and read more

The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose. Oh, that God would make me more fruitful and spiritual.

Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710 To think of the Communists as the executors of God's judgment should read more

Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710 To think of the Communists as the executors of God's judgment should not strike us as strange if we have read our Bibles. The same study should free us from the assumption that God will always be on our side whatever we do, will always protect His Church from temporal evil; or that He is only concerned with the faithful believers. It was precisely His concern for the wicked Ninevites that so distressed the prophet Jonah.

That Paul regarded the subsequent development of Christian life and character as in its totality the work of the Spirit read more

That Paul regarded the subsequent development of Christian life and character as in its totality the work of the Spirit is not questioned. All the Christian virtues are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22,23). He is the Spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:4), of sanctification (II Thess. 2:13), and of a new life (Rom. 7:6). Love, the greatest of the Christian graces, is the pre-eminent gift of the Spirit (I Cor. 13; Col. 1:8; Rom. 15:30), not only as the grace of character, but also as a principle of unity in the Church (Eph. 4:1-6; cf. 2:18, 22). The Spirit bestows wisdom and knowledge on the individual and in the Church. Paul spoke "God's wisdom in a mystery... through the Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (I Cor. 2:7-10). "For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit" (I Cor. 12:8). All Christian knowledge was derived from the Spirit, both by Paul and [the Apostle] John (Eph. 1:17, 23; 3:16-19; John 16:13; I John 2:20, 27; cf. James 1:5, 3:15, 17). (Continued tomorrow).

From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why read more

From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why doesn't He stop Hitler?", to the unspoken questioning in many a Christian heart when a devoted servant of Christ dies from accident or disease at what seems to us a most inopportune moment, there is this universal longing for God to intervene, to show His hand, to vindicate His purpose. I do not pretend to understand the ways of God any more than the next man; but it is surely more fitting as well as more sensible for us to study what God does do and what He does not do as He works in and through the complex fabric of this disintegrated world, than to postulate what we think God ought to do and then feel demoralized and bitterly disappointed because He fails to fulfil what we expect of Him.

Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 It is through dying to read more

Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 It is through dying to concern for self that we are born to new life with God and others; in such dying and rebirth, we find that life is lent to be spent; and in such spending of what we are lent, we find there is an infinite supply.

Holy Saturday All night had shouts of men and cry Of woeful women filled His way; Until that noon read more

Holy Saturday All night had shouts of men and cry Of woeful women filled His way; Until that noon of sombre sky On Friday, clamour and display Smote Him; no solitude had He. No silence, since Gethsemane. Public was death; but power, but might, But life again, but victory, Were hushed within the dead of night, The shuttered dark, the secrecy. And all alone, alone, alone He rose again behind the stone.

Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such read more

Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.