Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for his temple.

Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of the heart. It does read more

Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of the heart. It does not always ask words, but it always wants work. The motives and not the means are the things on which it passes judgment. And the man who shows by his life that he is not ashamed of the Gospel will assuredly one day find that the Gospel is not ashamed of him. There is much more which might be said, but I refrain. Ere I close, you will let me add my emphasis to the fact that it is in our life and conduct that we must show our devotion to Christ. The silent Gospel reaches further than the grandest rhetoric.

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, with the read more

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, with the whole heart. It is not the understanding of the mind, not the theological opinion, not creed, not organization, not ritual. It is the koinonia of the whole personality with God and Christ, ... This experience of communion with Christ is itself the continual attitude of dependence on the Saviour which we call faith.

Even the Bible itself is interpreted and understood in various ways, and so always becomes the center of sectarianism. Just read more

Even the Bible itself is interpreted and understood in various ways, and so always becomes the center of sectarianism. Just in the same way, dogmas and creeds cannot bring Christian unity, because human minds are not so uniformly created that they can unite in a single dogma or creed. Even our understanding of Christ Himself cannot be the basis of unity, because He is too big to be understood by any one person or group, and therefore our limited understandings do not always coincide. One emphasizes this point about Christ, another that; and this again becomes the cause of divisions. If we will only take our fellowship with Christ as the center of Christian faith, all Christians will realize their oneness... All our fellowship, however varied, is with the same Lord, and the same Saviour is our one Head.

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE Every single time a sacrament is celebrated, God takes action, there and read more

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE Every single time a sacrament is celebrated, God takes action, there and then -- does something, not on Calvary, but in that church. And what He does is to come to each soul partaking in the Sacrament and to assure it that He stands to the best and biggest of His promises and to the fullness of His grace in Christ... de-universalizes the Scriptures and individualizes them, makes them a personal promise, couched no longer in general terms but offered to very you and very me, as individually as if they covered no other but referred to you and me alone. We may be cold and dead and unresponsive. None the less, something happens in the Sacrament. For God stands to His side of the Covenant, whether we stand to ours or not.

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The Church is her true self only when she exists for read more

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.

In an authority so high [as Scripture], admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage read more

In an authority so high [as Scripture], admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully to serve a purpose.

[The entire Old Testament] ground-plan is the whole scheme of Messianic prophecy, from the germinal revelation in Genesis concerning the read more

[The entire Old Testament] ground-plan is the whole scheme of Messianic prophecy, from the germinal revelation in Genesis concerning the suffering, yet triumphant Seed of the Woman to the coming to His Temple of the long-absent "Angel of the Covenant" in Malachi. That hope alone explains the Book, giving meaning and consistency to its story. Was it a chimera, an hallucination? According to the prophecy of Micah, the messianic Shepherd of Israel had to be born in Bethlehem. It is unthinkable that an heir to the throne of David could be born in Bethlehem now, and be also able to prove his legitimacy by documentary evidence. The event must clearly have taken place already, or Micah is a false prophet, a raiser of false hopes, along with the other writers in the Old Testament.

Every day is a little life: and our whole life is but a day repeated, whence it is that old read more

Every day is a little life: and our whole life is but a day repeated, whence it is that old Jacob numbers his life by days; and Moses desires to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, to number not his years but his days. [And so, those] that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it, desperate.