Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

Sexagesima Thursday (January 31st, 2008)

What is Sexagesima?

If we were a little severe with ourselves at the beginning, we should afterwards be able to do all things with ease and delight.

Thomas à Kempis: Imitation.

We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.

Pascal: Pensées.

Sexagesima Wednesday (January 30th, 2008)

What is Sexagesima?

Herein lies the true ground and depth of the uncontrollable freedom of our will and thoughts: they must have a self-motion and self-direction, because they came out of the self-existant God.  They are eternal, divine powers that never began to be, and therefore cannot begin to be in subjection to anything.  That which thinks and wills in the soul is that very same unbeginning breath which thought and willed in God, before it was breathed into the form of the human soul; and therefore it is, that will and thought cannot be bounded or constrained.
  Herein also appears the high dignity and never ceasing perpetuity of our nature.

William Law: An Appeal.

Sexagesima Tuesday (January 29th, 2008)

What is Sexagesima?

The earth was made, but the earth itself which was made is not life.  In the Wisdom of God however there is spiritually a certain Reason after which the earth was made.  This is Life.

St. Augustine, quoted in Aquinas: Catena Aurea.

It is not that we keep His commandments first, and that the He loves; but that he loves us, and then we keep His commandments.  This is that grace, which is revealed to the humble, but hidden from the proud.

St. Augustine, quoted in Aquinas: Catena Aurea.

Sexagesima Monday (January 28th, 2008)

What is Sexagesima?

Human nature, even though it summed not, could not shine by its own strength simply; for it is not naturally light, but only a recipient of it; it is capable of containing wisdom, but is not wisdom itself.

Origen: Homilies.

How could we know what God wants to do with us when we cannot even know what we are nor who we are?

Léon Bloy: Letters to his Fiancée.

Sexagesima Sunday (January 27th, 2008)

What is Sexagesima?

The soul cannot enter into the night of itself, because no one is able of his own strength to empty his heart of all desires, so as to draw near unto God.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

In all our deaths, and deadly calamities of this life, we may justly hope of a good issue from Him: and all our periods and transitions in this life, are so many passages from death to death.

John Donne: Sermons.

Septuagesima Saturday (January 26th, 2008)

What is Septugaesima?

It is not in the power of the devil to do so much harm, as God can do good; nay, we may be bold to say, it is not in the will, not in the desire of the devil to do so much harm, as God would do good.

John Donne: Sermons.