Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

Thursday after Christmas (December 31st, 2007)

We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reasons for thinking so, but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or no.  Be sure that in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing in your love for God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us, that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others in augmenting, in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.

St. Teresa of Avila: The Interior Castle.

God loves all existing things.

Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica.

Wednesday after Christmas (December 30th, 2010)

Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased with a man, and that a man can rejoice in God.  Only when grace is recognized to be incomprehensible is it grace.  Grace exists, therefore, only where the Resurrection is reflected.  Grace is the gift of Christ, who exposes the gulf which separates God and man, and, by exposing it, bridges it.

Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

Tuesday after Christmas (December 29th, 2009)

It shines everywhere, though not to all.  In a word, it shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not.  The light sees the darkness, for with it seeing and shining are the same thing; but it is not in turn seen by the darkness, because the darkness comprehends it not.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest."  And that is not true.

Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement."  And this is not true.  Illness comes.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us.  It is in God, both without us and within us.

Pascal: Pensées.

Monday after Christmas (December 28th, 2009)

Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the city of Destruction.

John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress.

"I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."  Not because they are so unlike your mortal experiences, but because they are so like.

Coventry Patmore: The Rod, the Root, and the Flower.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28th, 2009)

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth and God in man.
Great little one, whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.

Richard Crashaw: Nativity Ode.

Sunday after Christmas (December 27th, 2009)

Christ's human nature was so utterly bereft of Self and apart from all creatures as no man's ever was . . . Neither of that in him which belonged to God, nor of that which was a living human nature and a habitation of God, did he, as man, claim any thing for his own.  His human nature did not even take unto itself the Godhead, whose dwelling it was, nor anything that this same Godhead willed, or did or left undone in him, nor yet any thing of all that his human nature did or suffered; but in Christ's human nature there was no claiming of anything, nor seeking nor desire, saving that what was due might be rendered to the Godhead; and he did not call this very desire his own.

Theologica Germanica.

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist (December 27th, 2009)

He did lay aside His own nature in that He did make Himself poor of the fame of His holiness, goodness and innocence . . . He might have revealed himself in all the fame of holiness, so that He would have been universally held to be the greatest of all saints and one in whom there was no sin; but He did choose to take upon Himself the sins of us all and the fame of holiness did He give unto His servant John.

Angela of Foligno: The Book of Divine Consolation.