Saints have their power, their brilliance, their victory, their attraction, and have no need of carnal or intellectual greatness, where these have no place since they neither add nor subtract anything. They are recognized by God and the angels, and not by bodies nor curious minds. God is enough for them. Blaise Pascal
Herewith the first Visual Faith Reflection: Mary Anointing the Feet of Jesus. The file can be viewed here: Mary Anointing the Feet of Jesus
It is almost impossible to describe in words what Nelson Mandela meant to us as South Africans. Someone akin more to a king than a leader or a statesman, we clung to him because he defined our new identity. What held us in awe was not his political mind, but the power and the breadth […]
“Africa, your sufferings have been the theme that has arrested and engaged my heart. Your sufferings no tongue can express, no language impart.” (William Wilberforce) See my paper “The Crisis of the Secularization of Society, What Africa has to offer the world: Implausibility structures and the deconstruction of defeater beliefs”, which you can read […]
Another damp and drizzly day in the North-West and I am longing for the desert … “Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited in the night. We were waiting for the rescuing dawn–or for the Moors. Something, I know not what, lent this […]
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can […]
This paragraph from Rowan Greer*: The paradox of the Christian life is that the evils we suffer in our earthly pilgrimage must be taken with absolute seriousness, but so must the destiny that awaits us in the City of God. There are no victories or defeats in the present that really matter. All that counts […]
HAUERWAS* on Jenson, forgiveness and time: “God’s eternity, as Robert Jenson maintains, is not the simple contradiction of time: The biblical God’s eternity is his temporal infinity. What he transcends is not having of beginnings and goals and reconciliations, but any personal limitations in having them. What he transcends is any limit imposed on […]
“[T]o be human is to worship. We reflect God’s glory by our worship of Him, which means to hold Him as the object of our deepest desires and as worthy of our imitation. Worship is not just singing songs in church; it’s how we live our lives every moment of every day — every thought, […]
“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.” AW Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship?
This recently in the news: A Vatican official has welcomed a European Court of Human Rights ruling on the display of crucifixes in Italian classrooms. Crucifixes displayed publicly in Italy, including in classrooms, are a sign of Christianity’s key contribution to European culture and civilisation, said Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for […]
Guess what? This week we had a ray of sunshine in the house for the first time in about three months, I think! Maybe it is true. Maybe spring will come one day after all!
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but […]
To listen to this and other messages from Cates Hill Chapel, go to http://www.cateshillchapel.com/#/media Christmas Eve Meditation “For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger […]
At the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, each year, time pauses to remember all who fought, died and have been affected by war. It was a very special privilege for me to offer a prayer on behalf of the island community on the day, and also to honour my grandfather, James […]
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