God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God read more

God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God is in all things; and that man is not serving God aright, who can only serve Him in his own self-chosen way.

What makes life worth living is the mutual enrichment of people through understanding, intelligence and affection. It is just here read more

What makes life worth living is the mutual enrichment of people through understanding, intelligence and affection. It is just here that our awareness that Jesus is our contemporary and that Calvary is relevant to our present human situation ought to help us greatly. And that is not merely because in his relationships with others during his earthly life in Palestine Jesus exemplified all that I have tried to say about human relationships. In every genuine human encounter with another person we may become aware of Jesus, and meet with him. This may sound fanciful, but there is much in the Scriptures and in Christian experience which suggests that Jesus is frequently met in the traffic of person with person, provided that there is a genuine encounter between them. Jesus himself showed that for this to happen demands courage and a willingness to move from a life that is centred in itself. So if we are to pass out of that lonely world of isolation then we must be prepared to take the risks that are always involved when we allow persons to confront us as persons and do not regard them as things. Yet, dangerous though it may be to live in this way, it is the only way to live.

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 The kingdom of heaven is not come even when read more

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God's will is our law; it is fully come when God's will is our will.

Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist The law of Christ, which it is our duty to fulfill, read more

Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist The law of Christ, which it is our duty to fulfill, is the bearing of the cross. Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian's duty to bear.

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 The mystery revealed, in a unique degree read more

Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221 The mystery revealed, in a unique degree and form, in Christ's life, is really a universal spiritual human law: the law of suffering and sacrifice, as the one way to joy and possession, which has existed, though veiled till now, since the foundation of the world.

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary If the Holy Spirit can take over the read more

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary If the Holy Spirit can take over the subconscious with our consent and cooperation, then we have almighty Power working at the basis of our lives, then we can do anything we ought to do, go anywhere we ought to go, and be anything we ought to be. Life is supplied with a basic adequacy... The conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions. Many Christians are Christians in their actions -- they don't lie, steal, commit adultery, or get drunk; but they react badly to what happens to them: they react in anger, bad temper, self-pity, jealousy, and envy... When the depths are upheld by the Holy Spirit, then the reaction is Christian.

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The very strength and facility of the pessimists' read more

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The very strength and facility of the pessimists' case at once poses us a problem. If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must have always been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held.

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 It is not that we keep His commandments first, and read more

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 It is not that we keep His commandments first, and that then He loves; but that He loves us, and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace, which is revealed to the humble, but hidden from the proud.

We cannot expect people to take seriously our belief in objective truth if, in our practice, we indicate only a read more

We cannot expect people to take seriously our belief in objective truth if, in our practice, we indicate only a quantitative difference between all men who are in ecclesiastical structures or who use theological language. I do not mean that we should not have open dialogue with men; my words and practice emphasize that I believe love demands it. But I do mean that we should not give the impression in our practice that, just because they are expressed in traditional Christian terminology, all religious concepts are on a graduated, quantitative spectrum -- that, in regard to central doctrine, no chasm exists between right and wrong.