Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 No one who is read more

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 No one who is fit to live need fear to die. Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are! How we shall smile at our vain alarms, when the worst has happened! To us here, death is the most terrible word we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man. It will be what home is to the exile. It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it, a great solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God's great morning lighting up the sky.

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.

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 Matthew xi. 27. JESUS, the infinite I read more

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 Matthew xi. 27. JESUS, the infinite I AM, With God essentially the same, With him enthroned above all height, As God of God, and Light of Light, Thou art by thy great Father known, From all eternity his Son. Thou only dost the Father know, And wilt to all thy followers show, Who cannot doubt thy gracious will His glorious Godhead to reveal; Reveal him now, if thou art he, And live, eternal Life, in me.

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable read more

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable wish that other people should exhibit a similar contrition.

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Although read more

Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597 Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373 Although it is indisputable that our Lord founded a church, it is an unproved assumption that the church is an aggregation of visible and organized societies. The theory upon which the public worship of the primitive churches proceeded was that each community was complete in itself, and that, in every act of public worship, every element of the community was present.

Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 A Christian should always remember that the value read more

Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591 A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence, but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things. St. John of the Cross December 15, 2000 Two thousand years of failure have not taught some reformers that you can't stop sin by declaring it illegal. Two thousand years have not taught them that you can't save a man's soul by force -- you can only lose your own in the attempt. Drunkenness and gambling and secularism and lechery -- various hopeful churchmen have earnestly tried to outlaw them all; and what is the result? A drunken nation, a gambling nation, a secularist nation, an adulterous nation. And, often, a ruined Church.

It seems that Paul is here [I Cor. 4:2] outlining the very ultimate degree of Christ's self-identification with us, the read more

It seems that Paul is here [I Cor. 4:2] outlining the very ultimate degree of Christ's self-identification with us, the very lowest point to which he condescended when he took the form of a slave. He allowed himself (God allowed him) to be accounted sin by the Law. He refused to do what orthodox Jews of his day thought God had commanded them to do, (i.e.) seek to gain credit with God by keeping the Law. He lived by faith, not Law, and therefore repudiated the Law and the path of self-justification.... He stripped himself even of that claim to moral goodness which would have distinguished him from sinners. Short of becoming a sinner (and Paul shows that this idea is repudiated), how could God come closer to us sinners?

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered progressive change with the successive development of new faunal and floral assemblages through the changing epochs of our earth's history. There should be no real conflict between science, which is the search for truth, and Christ's teachings, which I hold to be truth itself. It is only when scientists remove God from creation that the Christian is faced with an irreconcilable situation.

When the will abandons what is above itself and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil -- not because read more

When the will abandons what is above itself and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil -- not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior thing.