Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I have seen and read somewhat of the read more

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I have seen and read somewhat of the writings of learned men concerning the state of future glory; some of them are filled with excellent notions of truth, and elegancy of speech, whereby they cannot but much affect the minds of those who duly consider what they say. But -- I know not well whence it comes to pass -- the things spoken do not abide nor incorporate in our minds. They please and refresh for a little while, like a shower of rain in a dry season, that soaketh not unto the roots of things; the power of them doth not enter into us. Is it not from hence, that their notions of future things are not educed out of the experience which we have of the beginnings of them in this world? Yea, the soul is disturbed, not edified, in all contemplations of future glory, where things are proposed to it whereof in this life it hath neither foretaste, sense, experience, nor evidence. No man ought to look for anything in heaven, but what one way or other he hath some experience of in this life.

When compassion for the common man was born on Christmas Day, with it was born new hope among the multitudes. read more

When compassion for the common man was born on Christmas Day, with it was born new hope among the multitudes. They feel a great, ever-rising determination to lift themselves and their children our of hunger and disease and misery, up to a higher level. Jesus started a fire upon the earth, and it is burning hot today, the fire of a new hope in the hearts of the hungry multitudes.

The idol-maker may know, more or less clearly, that he is only giving shape to the half-formed concept of God read more

The idol-maker may know, more or less clearly, that he is only giving shape to the half-formed concept of God in his head; that his images are solid metaphors -- what we call symbols. The skeptical Greek philosopher may remind us that, after all, the image of Athena is only a symbol, only a means of fixing one's rambling thoughts upon the spirit that is Athena. Yet the idolater will persist in losing sight of the forest for the trees, and the god for the image. The gold and ivory statue of Athena becomes holy in itself, an answerer of prayer, a mysterious source of power, a material object somehow different from other objects. The crucifix, the plaster image, the saint's relic or miraculous medal or cheaply and illegibly printed Bible may become themselves things considered holy and magical, able to stop a bullet. Worse yet, the god confined in an image is a shrunken and powerless god. Because you have limited your concept of God to a man shape on a carved crucifix, you may be in danger of inferring that you are free to outrage the man shapes walking and breathing around you. Because you worship the god in a specially baked wafer and a specially designed chalice, you may forget to worship the God of all bread and all wine.

Christianity is a source; no one supply of water and refreshment that comes from it can be called the sum read more

Christianity is a source; no one supply of water and refreshment that comes from it can be called the sum of Christianity. It is a mistake, and may lead to much error, to exhibit any series of maxims, even those of the Sermon on the Mount, as the ultimate sum and formula into which Christianity may be run up.

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.

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 read more

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890 Be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate the heavenly to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, not that humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master. But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not. Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge, and take no thought for the test. For he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you have not.

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.

I will attempt no historical or theological classification of [George] Macdonald's thought, partly because I have not the learning to read more

I will attempt no historical or theological classification of [George] Macdonald's thought, partly because I have not the learning to do so, still more because I am no great friend to such pigeon-holing. One very effective way of silencing the voice of conscience is to impound in an Ism the teacher through whom it speaks; the trumpet no longer seriously disturbs our rest when we have murmured '..Thomist', 'Barthian', or 'Existentialist'. And in Macdonald it is, always the voice of conscience that speaks. He addresses the will: the demand for obedience, for "something to be neither more nor less nor other than done" is incessant. Yet in that very voice of conscience every other faculty somehow speaks as well -- intellect and imagination and humour and fancy and all the affections; and no man in modern times was perhaps more aware of the distinction between Law and Gospel, the inevitable failure of mere morality.

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Prodigal sons, forgiven and reconciled with their heavenly Father, could read more

Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Prodigal sons, forgiven and reconciled with their heavenly Father, could they do other than forgive one another? A fellowship of prodigal sons came into being -- the church of Christ. Love begets love. A new power ... was let loose upon our suffering world, the power to love those who have not deserved love, the unworthy, the unlovely and unlovable, a man's enemies, and even his torturers. Christians, in imitation of the Saviour, became, as it were, Christs to one another and to the world.