Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

The impossible is still temptation.
The impossible, the undesirable,
voices under sleep, waking a dead world,
so that the mind may not be whole in the present.

T. S. Eliot: Murder in the Cathedral.

6th Saturday after Trinity (July 30th, 2011)

Other sins find their vent in the accomplishment of evil deeds, whereas pride lies in wait for good deeds to destroy them.

St. Augustine: Epistle.

6th Friday after Trinity (July 29th, 2011)

How many maggots remain in hiding until they have destroyed our virtues.  These pests are such evils as self-love, self-esteem, rash judgement of others in small matters, and a want of charity in not loving our neighbour quite as much as ourselves.  Although, perforce, we satisfy our obligations to avoid sin, yet we fall far short of what must be done in order to obtain perfect union with the will of God.

St. Teresa of Avila: The Interior Castle.

6th Thursday after Trinity (July 28th, 2011)

Whoever has admitted this tyranny of pride within suffers this loss first of all, that from the eyes of his heart being closed, he loses the equitableness of judgement.  For even all the good doings of others are displeasing to him and the things which he has done, even amiss, alone please him.  He always looks down on the doings of others, he always admires his own doings; because whatever he has done he believes he has done with singular skill; and for that which he performs for desire of glory, he favours himself in his thought; and when he thinks he surpasses others in all things, he walks with himself along the broad spaces of his thought and silently utters his own praises.

St. Gregory the Great: On the Book of Job.

6th Wednesday after Trinity (July 27th, 2011)

For there is no pride, but that it may be healed through the meekness of God's Son; there is no covetize but that it may be healed through His poverty; no wrath but that it may be healed through His patience: nor malice but that it may be healed through His charity. And moreover there is no sin or wickedness, but that he shall want it and be kept from it, the which beholdeth inwardly and loveth and followeth the words and the deeds of that man in whom God's Son gave Himself to us into example of good living.  Wherefore now both men and women and every age and every dignity of this world is stirred to hope of everlasting life.

Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, translated by Nicholas Love.

6th Tuesday after Trinity (July 26th, 2011)

Scarcely is there any man that hath delight in worship, but that he is either in great peril of falling, or else fully fallen down into the pit of deadly sin, as we may see by many reasons: first, for also much as he that hath great delight is busy all times in his mind how he may keep his worship and made it more . . . Also he that loveth worship is busy to procure and get him friends that may keep him in his worship, and also further him to greater worship . . . Also commonly he hath indignation of others that be in worship and backbiteth them to make himself more worshipful and more worthy.  And so he falleth into hate and envy of his brother.

The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, translated by Nicholas Love.

6th Monday after Trinity (July 25th, 2011)

Lord, often have I thought with myself, I will sin but this one sin more, and then I will repent of it, and of all the rest of my sins together.  So foolish was I and ignorant.  As if I should be more able to pay my debts when I owe more: or as if I should say, I will wound my friend once again, and then I will lovingly shake hands with him: but what if my friend will not shake hands with me?

Thomas Fuller: Good Thoughts in Bad Times.

Fifth Sunday after Trinity (July 24th, 2011)

You must not reckon with sin, from the nativity, but the conception; when you conceived that sin in your purpose, then you sinned that sin, and in every letter, in every discourse, in every present, in every wish, in every dream, that conduces to that sin, or rises from that sin, you sin it over and over again, before you come to the committing of it, and so your sin is an old, an inveterate sin, before it is born, and that which you call the first, is not the hundredth time, that you have sinned that sin.

John Donne: Sermons.

5th Saturday after Trinity (July 23rd, 2011)

Three kinds of men see God.  The first see him in faith; they know no more of him than what they can make out through a partition.  The second behold God in the light of grace but only as the answer to their longings, as giving them sweetness, devotion, inwardness and other such-like things which are issuing from his gift.  The thrid kind see him in the divine light.

Eckhart: Sermons and Collations.

5th Friday after Trinity (July 22nd, 2011)

The only remedy for having given up a habit of recollection is to recommence it, otherwise the soul will continue to lose it more and more every day, and God grant it may realize its danger.

St. Teresa of Avila: The Interior Castle.