Category: Speaking to the Soul

He told me that God always gave us light in our doubts when we had no other design but to please Him and to act for His love.

Time is measured by a threefold division, past, present, and future. In all three we receive the munificence of the Lord. If you consider the present, it is through Him that you live; if the future, your hope that your expectations might be fulfilled in founded on Him; if the past, you realize that you did not even exist before He made you. Your very birth you have received as a benefit from Him;

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters”—the very beauty of this picture may serve only to hide from us the depths of its meaning. We seem to see the shepherd walking before his flock through fields decked out with green and gold and all the glory of a generous God,

While we were still under arrest, my father out of love for me was trying to persuade me and shake my resolution. “Father,” said I, “do you see this vase here, for example, or waterpot or whatever?”

When I read, “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves,” I recognize the promise of adventure and come along, at least in my imagination. I had read this story many times, repeatedly asking myself, “Why these three disciples?”

Years ago as a seminarian I had the happy experience of being mentored by the Rev. Charles Meyer at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas. Chuck was something of an iconoclast.

The Indians on Long Island, on the arrival of the white people, were found divided into distinct tribes, or perhaps more properly, collections of families, having different names, and exercising an independent authority or control over separate portions of territory; and these tribes had, moreover, each their chiefs and head men,

I mean by preaching the gospel, preaching the love of God to sinners, preaching the life, death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ, with all the blessings which, in consequence thereof, are freely given to true believers.

Theodore visited all the island, wherever the tribes of the Angles inhabited, for he was willingly entertained and heard by all persons; and everywhere attended and assisted by Hadrian, he taught the right rule of life, and the canonical custom of celebrating Easter. It was the first archbishop whom all the English church obeyed

Whoever seeks to be received into the discipline of the cenobium is never admitted until, by lying outside for ten days or more, he has given an indication of his perseverance and desire, as well as of his humility and patience.