Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 I look on all the world as read more

Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 I look on all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre read more

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and -- leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins and risings above thanksgiving and petition and confession -- to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God's naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Himself, He is. To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every wonder of Christ's revelation of Him. [Excerpt continued tomorrow.].

Ascension He has gone away, the Well-Beloved, For our sake! He is risen, the Well-Beloved, For our sake! read more

Ascension He has gone away, the Well-Beloved, For our sake! He is risen, the Well-Beloved, For our sake! He has prayed, the Well-Beloved, For our sake! He has spoken, He has sung, The Word was with God. Praises of the Father, Substance of the Father, The stamp and issue forever, In Love! Word of Love!

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 A Better Resurrection I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart read more

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 A Better Resurrection I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears. Look right, look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf: O Jesus, quicken me. My life is like a faded leaf, My harvest dwindled to a husk: Truly my life is void and brief And tedious in the barren dusk; My life is like a frozen thing, No bud nor greenness can I see: Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring; O Jesus, rise in me. My life is like a broken bowl, A broken bowl that cannot hold One drop of water for my soul Or cordial in the searching cold; Cast in the fire the perished thing; Melt and remould it, till it be A royal cup for Him, my King: O Jesus, drink of me.

Some have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the read more

Some have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the self that was given; and second, upon the depths of the giving. Friend and foe alike are agreed on the question of the character of Jesus Christ... Whatever our creed, we stand with admiration before the sublime character of Jesus. Character is supreme in life, and hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing -- so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code, but a character.

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 read more

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 The more we study the early Church, the more we realize that it was a society of ministers. About the only similarity between the Church at Corinth and a contemporary congregation, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is that both are marked, to a great degree, by the presence of sinners.

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, read more

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience. Stipendiary clergy cut off by training and life from that common experience are constantly struggling to get close to the laity by wearing lay clothing, sharing in lay amusements, and organizing lay clubs; but they never quite succeed. To get close to men, it is necessary really to share their experience, and to share their experience is to share it by being in it, not merely to come as near to it as possible without being in it.

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event read more

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth -- the very thing that the whole story has been about. Since it happened only once, it is by Hume's standards infinitely improbable. But then, the whole history of the Earth has also happened only once: is it therefore incredible? Hence the difficulty, which weighs upon Christian and atheist alike, of estimating the probability of the Incarnation. It is like asking whether the existence of nature herself is intrinsically probable. That is why it is easier to argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the probability of its occurrence.

Concluding a series on the church: The task to which we are called is not the sacrifice of any read more

Concluding a series on the church: The task to which we are called is not the sacrifice of any principle in which we firmly believe. It is rather to return to Christ not a figure of the imagination, but the Christ of the Scriptures and to listen to His voice in obedience, to discover afresh what is the Truth. All unpretentious Bible study, every effort to disseminate a true scriptural theology, and every earnest prayer is part of the task of promoting that unity which is truly Christian. We must not envisage Christian Unity as consisting of faroff and doubtful schemes, but as something very nigh which affects us all. If we are really to seek for Christian Unity, we must be prepared to pay the cost. For it must be based upon love, and love is always costly. It will never be attained until there is "far more humility, far more thought, far more self-sacrifice, and far more prayer, than there is at present." (Streeter) If we are right in the conclusion that such disunion as has been sinful in the history of the Church has been due to pride, selfassertion, and contempt for God's Word and commandment, then it follows that the way to the unity which God wills [is] through humility, love of the brethren, and obedience to the Divine Revelation. When Christians pray to be shown where they have been wrong, proud, complaisant, or censorious, and to be put right; when they meet for common counsel and study of the Word, in the spirit of obedience and prepared to subject their individual opinions to the guidance of the Spirit; where the strong are willing to foster and strengthen the weak; and where all are seeking the common good rather than their own sectional interests: then the pathway to unity will become plain, and God will grant His blessing.