Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 Without realizing what was happening, most of us read more

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 Without realizing what was happening, most of us gradually came to take for granted the premises underlying the philosophy of optimism. We proceeded to live these propositions, though we would not have stated them as blandly as I set them forth here: Man is inherently good. Individual man can carve out his own salvation with the help of education and society through progressively better government. Reality and values worth searching for lie in the material world that science is steadily teaching us to analyze, catalogue, and measure. While we do not deny the existence of inner values, we relegate them to second place. The purpose of life is happiness, [which] we define in terms of enjoyable activity, friends, and the accumulation of material objects. The pain and evil of life -- such as ignorance, poverty, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust for power -- are caused by factors in the external world; therefore, the cure lies in the reforming of human institutions and the bettering of environmental conditions. As science and technology remove poverty and lift from us the burden of physical existence, we shall automatically become finer persons, seeing for ourselves the value of living the Golden Rule. In time, the rest of the world will appreciate the demonstration that the American way of life is best. They will then seek for themselves the good life of freedom and prosperity. This will be the greatest impetus toward an end of global conflict. The way to get along with people is to beware of religious dictums and dogma. The ideal is to be a nice person and to live by the Creed of Tolerance. Thus we offend few people. We live and let live. This is the American Way.

Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus The blessed son of God only In a crib full poor did read more

Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus The blessed son of God only In a crib full poor did lie; With our poor flesh and our poor blood Was clothed that everlasting good The Lord Christ Jesu, God's son dear, Was a guest and a stranger here; Us for to bring from misery, That we might live eternally. All this did he for us freely, For to declare his great mercy; All Christendom be merry therefore, And give him thanks for evermore.

Seeing, then, it is no longer the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, but He who knoweth "the deep things of read more

Seeing, then, it is no longer the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, but He who knoweth "the deep things of God" (I Cor. ii. 10), the Holy Spirit, I mean, that striketh this lyre, let us hearken accordingly. For he will say nothing to us as a man, but what he saith, he will say from the depths of the Spirit.

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 Some men, not content with [Christ] read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 Some men, not content with [Christ] alone, are borne hither and thither from one hope to another; even if they concern themselves chiefly with him, they nevertheless stray from the right way in turning some part of their thinking in another direction. Yet such distrust cannot creep in where men have once for all truly known the abundance of his blessings.

Feast of the Holy Cross Teach me. O God, to use all the circumstances of my life read more

Feast of the Holy Cross Teach me. O God, to use all the circumstances of my life to-day that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin. Let me use disappointment as material for patience: Let me use success as material for thankfulness: Let me use suspence as material for perseverance: Let me use danger as material for courage: Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering: Let me use praise as material for humility: Let me use pleasures as material for temperance: Let me use pains as material for endurance.

When the bones have become most dry, when they are lying most scattered and separate from each other, there is read more

When the bones have become most dry, when they are lying most scattered and separate from each other, there is still a word going forth -- from Him who liveth for ever and ever -- the voice which says, "These bones shall rise." All struggles after union, though they may be of the most abortive kind, though they may produce fresh sects and fresh divisions, though they must do so as long as they rest on the notion that unity is something visible and material, yet indicate a deep and divine necessity which men could not be conscious of in their dreams if they were not beginning to wake.

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as read more

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

Feast of Teresa of Avila, Mystic, Teacher, 1582 We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring read more

Feast of Teresa of Avila, Mystic, Teacher, 1582 We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.