Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under read more

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under any law; in France, as here, they would be regular jail-birds. But I loved them better and better -- and still I knew how little was my love for them compared to Christ's. It is easy enough for a man to be honest and a "Good Christian" and keeper of "the moral law", when he has his own little room, his purse well filled -- when he is well shod and well fed. It is far less easy for a man who has to live from day to day, roaming from city to city, from factory to factory. It is far less easy for someone just out of jail, with nothing to wear but old down-at-the-heels shoes and a shirt in rags. All of a sudden, I understood our Lord's words: "I was in prison ... and you visited me not." All these men, lazy, outside the law, starving: these failures of all kinds -- they were dear to Christ -- they were Christ, waiting in prison for someone to lean over Him -- and if we were true Christians, we would do them every kindness.

Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our read more

Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our holiness is an effect, not a cause; so long as our eyes are on our own personal whiteness as an end in itself, the thing breaks down. God can do nothing while my interest is in my own personal character--He will take care of this if I obey His call. In learning to love God and people as He commanded us to do, obviously your sanctification cannot but come, but not as an end in itself. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn November 13, 2001 Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust... I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err... I am sure that whatever God may despise... He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 read more

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 Pain is a kindly, hopeful thing, a certain proof of life, a clear assurance that all is not yet over, that there is still a chance. But if your heart has no pain -- well, that may betoken health, as you suppose: but are you certain that it does not mean that your soul is dead?

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: If read more

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: If it be all for naught, for nothingness At last, why does God make the world so fair? Why spill this golden splendor out across The western hills, and light the silver lamp Of eve? Why give me eyes to see, and soul To love so strong and deep? Then, with a pang This brightness stabs me through, and wakes within Rebellious voice to cry against all death? Why set this hunger for eternity To gnaw my heartstrings through, if death ends all? If death ends all, then evil must be good, Wrong must be right, and beauty ugliness. God is a Judas who betrays His Son, And with a kiss, damns all the world to hell, -- If Christ rose not again. ... Unknown soldier, killed in World War I August 9, 2002 Feast of Mary Sumner, Founder of the Mothers' Union, 1921 Concluding a short series of verse on Christ: With this ambiguous earth his dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all the innumerable host of stars has heard How he administered this terrestrial ball. Our race has kept their Lord's entrusted Word. Of his earth-visiting feet none knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, Heart-shattering secret of his way with us. No planet knows that this, our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as its chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day, may his devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way Or his bestowal there be manifest. But in the eternities, doubtless we shall compare Together, hear a million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, and the Bear. O, be prepared, my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven. We are read more

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about "pie in the sky", and of being told that we are trying to "escape" from the duty of making a happy world here and now, into dreams of a better world elsewhere. But either there is "pie in the sky" or there is not. If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this doctrine, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or no.

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: We might read more

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: We might have said beforehand, if we had been told that God was coming into a man's life, ... "That must be something very terrible and awful. That certainly must rend and tear the life to which God comes. At least, it will separate it and make it unnatural and strange. God fills a bush with His glory and it burns. God enters into the great mountain, and it rocks with earthquake. When he comes to occupy a man, He must distort the humanity which He occupies into some inhuman shape." Instead of that, this new life into which God comes, seems to be the most quietly, naturally human life that was ever seen upon the earth. It glides into its place like sunlight. It seems to make it evident that God and man are essentially so near together, that the meeting of their natures in the life of a God-man is not strange. So always does Christ deal with His own nature, accepting His Divinity as you and I accept our humanity, and letting it shine out through the envelope with which it has most subtly and mysteriously mingled, as the soul is mingled with and shines out through the body.

Some relate ... that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if read more

Some relate ... that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if they cannot look steadily on, she rejects them as spurious. We may truly try our faith by immediate intuitions of the Sun of Righteousness. Direct faith to act itself, immediately and directly on the incarnation of Christ and His mediation; and if it be not the right kind and race, it will turn its eyes aside to anything else.

When Christ reveals Himself there is satisfaction in the slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in the greatest read more

When Christ reveals Himself there is satisfaction in the slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in the greatest fulness.

We must be ready, indeed eager, to see God's Name being hallowed outside the Church as well as inside. It read more

We must be ready, indeed eager, to see God's Name being hallowed outside the Church as well as inside. It may be that today the philosopher is honouring the Name af God when he insists that we should know what we mean when we utter our religious language and that we should be ready to have that meaning tested. It may be that other philosophers hallow the Name when they refuse to allow us to withdraw it to some supernatural realm, but insist on wrestling with the unknown God in the agony and joy of existence, crying with Jacob, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy Name." And is not the scientist honouring the Name when he patiently and obediently follows where the evidence leads? Or the social scientist when he asks us to understand what is before we begin pronouncing what ought to be? God does not spend all His time in Church.