Every time the words "contrition" or "humility" drop from the lips of a prophet or psalmist, Christianity appears.

Every time the words "contrition" or "humility" drop from the lips of a prophet or psalmist, Christianity appears.

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to commit read more

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to commit into the hands of the Lord.

Life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, read more

Life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society... but rather where it understands itself as being a part of the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles of the whole Church. Every principle of selection, every separation connected with it that is not necessitated quite objectively by common work, local conditions, or family connections is of the greatest danger to a Christian community. When the way of intellectual or spiritual selection is taken, the human element always insinuates itself and robs the fellowship of its spiritual power and its effectiveness for the Church, and drives it into sectarianism.

Men perish with whispering sins--nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often read more

Men perish with whispering sins--nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin.

The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes read more

The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes of thought evokes an apprehension of the commanding vision. The worship of God is not a rule of safety: it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can't, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God's care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.

We have need of patience with ourselves and with others; with those below and those above us, and with our read more

We have need of patience with ourselves and with others; with those below and those above us, and with our own equals; with those who love us and those who love us not; for the greatest things and for the least; against sudden inroads of trouble, and under daily burdens; against disappointments as to the weather, or the breaking of the heart; in the weariness of the body, or the wearing of the soul; in our own failure of duty, or others' failure towards us; in every-day wants, or in the aching of sickness or the decay of old age; in disappointment, bereavement, losses, injuries, reproaches; in heaviness of the heart, or its sickness amid delayed hopes. In all these things, from childhood's little troubles to the martyr's sufferings, patience is the grace of God, whereby we endure evil for the love of God.

Briefly, that teaching contains the following elements: (1) There is one living and true God (i.9); (2) Idolatry is sinful read more

Briefly, that teaching contains the following elements: (1) There is one living and true God (i.9); (2) Idolatry is sinful and must be forsaken (i.9); (3) The wrath of God is ready to be revealed against the heathen for their impurity (iv.6), and against the Jews for their rejection of Christ and their opposition to the Gospel (ii.15,16); (4) The judgment will come suddenly and unexpectedly (v.2,3); (5) Jesus, the Son of God (i.1O), given over to death (v.10), and raised from the dead (iv.14), is the Saviour from the wrath of God (i.10); (6) The Kingdom of Jesus is now set up and all men are invited to enter it (ii.12); (7) Those who believe and turn to God are now expecting the coming of the Savior who will return from Heaven to receive them (i.10; iv.15-17); (8) Meanwhile, their life must be pure (iv.1-8), useful (iv.11-12), and watchful (v.14-8); (9) To that end, God has given them His Holy Spirit (iv.8; v.19). (Continued tomorrow).

The New Testament is uniformly consistent in seeing something as being wrong in man himself... These analyses of man are read more

The New Testament is uniformly consistent in seeing something as being wrong in man himself... These analyses of man are based on man's responsibility for his evil actions; they are not saying that it is simply his motions that have gone astray: it is man's will that is the central problem.