Charles Williams : The New Christian Year: St. Bernard

This is a reprint of 2 devotionals, "The New Christian Year" (1941) and "The Passion of Christ: Being the Gospel Narrative of the Passion with Short Passages Taken from the Saints and Doctors of the Church" (1939), both chosen by Charles Williams, an English poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and teacher. Charles Walter Stansby Williams was most often associated with the Inklings (a group of christian writers including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), Williams was also cited as a major influence on W.H. Auden's conversion to christianity and he was a peer and friend of T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers and Evelyn Underhill. These devotionals collect writings from throughout the history of christian thought. His choices were novel at the time, referencing Kierkegaard just as his translations were appearing in english print (Williams helped edit the first translations in England) and drawing upon the little known sermons of the poet John Donne. For each day of the Church year (starting in Advent), quotes will be posted as they appeared in the 1941 edition of "The New Christian Year". They are categorized by the source on the left, so that readers can read more from each author. I will also add links to websites about each source. During lent the "The New Christian Year" will be supplemented by quotes from "The Passion of the Christ". This text has passages from the Gospel accounts of the passion supplemented by quotes from the "Saints and Doctors of the Church".

What, then, is God? As regards the universe, He is the final end; in respect of election, He is salvation; as regards Himself, He is self-knowledge. What is God? He is almighty will moved by loving-kindness, virtue, eternal light, incommunicable reason, highest blessedness; He is the creator of minds to enjoy Himself; He endows them with life to perceive Him, disposes them to long for Him, enlarges them to receive Him, justifies them to be worthy of Him, fires them with zeal, fertilizes them that they may bear fruit, guides them into sweet reasonableness, moulds them into loving-kindness, regulates them for wisdom, strengthens them for virtue, visits them for consolation, illuminates them for knowledge, preserves them for immortality, fills them for happiness, is about their path for safety.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

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26th Saturday after Trinity (Nov. 26th, 2005)

He says to men, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." We are said to love, so is God: we are said to know, so is God: and much to the same purpose. But God loves like Charity, knows like Truth, sits in judgement like Equity, rules like Majesty, governs like Authority, guards like Saftey, works like Virtue, reveals like Light, stands by us like Affection.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

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Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

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