Hatred and darkness comes and will return again and again.  We may feel, as did the Pevensie children in Narnia, that it is ‘always winter but never Christmas.’

But there is always a time of darkness before the dawn of Christmas.  Christmas is coming, the reign of the Wicked Witch will end and we will find ourselves living with all those who have got home ahead of us who live now the sunlit uplands of Aslan’s own land.

Commonplace Christianity is often a very poor and trivial affair;  an affair of ceremonies and opinions and feelings; 

Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 1 – The Pure in Heart Shall see God Is it not promised for ever to the pure in heart that they shall see God?   Let any true man go into silence;  strip himself of all pretence, and selfishness, and sensuality, and sluggishness of soul;  lift off thought after thought, passion after passion, till… Continue reading Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 1 – The Pure in Heart Shall see God

When we finally learn that the pain of death is the brith pangs of the life after life, then we will dance… and not care if we are naked!

God’s heart goes forth to meet His erring children.   The Good Shepherd goes forth to seek His wandering sheep.

As nature with her old mosses and her new spring foliage hides the ruins which man has made, and gives to the fallen tower and broken cloister a beauty scarcely less than that which belonged to them in their prime so human love may be at work too,

Christ risen from the dead, raises all this common work belonging to the order of nature, up to the level of the joy of Grace.

Sincerity seems our only security against losing those who love us, the only cup in which those who are worth keeping will care to pledge us when youth is past. 

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.