Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

1st Saturday after Christmas Week (December 28th, 2013)

"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.

1st Friday after Christmas Week (December 27th, 2010)

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 St. Stephen (December 26th, 2013)

Death is ugsome (loathsome) and very terrible unto the flesh; but joyful and welcome is it unto all such as are instructed in the secret science of God.

Miles Coverdale: Fruitful Lessons upon the Passion.

The Lord, having taken upon him all the infirmities of our body, is then covered with the scaret-coloured blood of all the martyrs.

St. Hilary of Poitiers, quoted by Thomas Aquinas: Catena Aurea.

Christmas Week Thursday (December 26th, 2013)

Charity is the great channel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankind.  For we recieve absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother.  This is the rule of our hopes, and the measure of our desire in this world; and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankind shall be transacted according to our alms, which is the other part of charity.  Certain it is, that God cannot, will not, never did, reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers; for God Himself is love, and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the Divine nature.

Christmas Day (December 25th, 2013)

This is the solemnity of all the Holy Trinity Father and Son and Holy Ghost by whom this soverign deed of the Incarnation was wrought and fulfilled . . . But sovereignly this day is a high feast and a special solemnity of all mankind: for this day was mankind sovereignly worshipped in that it was oned and knitted to the Godhead in Christ without departing.  And this day began the healing and the redemption of mankind, and the reconciling to the Father of heaven.  For unto this time God was wroth to mankind for the sin and the trespass of our forefathers.  But from this time forth he may no longer be wroth seeing his dear Son became man.  And therefore is this day skilfully called the plenty [plenteousness] of time to man.

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

But he was under a heavier law than the Greeks or Romans, the law of his Father and his own eternal decree.

John Donne: Sermons on Christmas Day, 1625.

Not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking of the manhood into God.

The Creed commonly called of St. Athanasius.