“He loves, and we believe, and those are the ingredients of the cake. Again, our neighbor believes and is expecting our love. We, then, should love him, too, and not let him look and wait for us in vain. The one is the same as the other: Christ helps us, so we help our neighbor, and all are satisfied.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 17.
“Christ was obedient to his father in this, that he lived and served us. Because you are full and rich, you have no other commandment according to which you serve and obey Christ, except that you direct all your works so that they are good and useful to your neighbor, exactly as Christ’s works are good and useful to you … The purpose is that we, in turn, do likewise, not to him — he is not in need of it — but to our neighbor.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 16-17.
“See to it that you make his birth your own, and that you make an exchange with him, so that you rid yourself of your birth and receive, instead, his. This happens, if you have this faith. By this token you sit assuredly in the Virgin Mary’s lap and are her dear child. This faith you have to practice and to pray for as long as you live; you can ever strengthen it enough. That is our foundation and our inheritance; on it the good works are to be built.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 16.
“Christ willed to be born so that we might be born in a different manner, as he says in John 3:3-6. This happens through faith, as James 1:18 says: ‘He has born us of his own will through his word of truth, so that we begin to be his new creation.’ In this manner Christ takes to himself our birth and absorbs it in his birth; he presents us with his birth so that we become pure and new in it, as if it were our own, so that every Christian might rejoice in this birth of Christ and glory in it no less than if he, too, like Christ, had been born bodily of Mary. Whoever does not believe this or has doubts about it, is not a Christian.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 15.
“The birth happened to her [the Virgin Mary] exactly as to other women, consciously with her mind functioning normally and with the parts of her body helping along, as is proper at the time of birth, in order that she should be his normal natural mother and he her natural normal son. For this reason her body did not abandon its natural functions which belong to childbirth, except that shes gave birth without sin, without shame, without pain, and without injury, just as she had conceived without sin. The curse of Eve, which reads: ‘In pain you shall bear your children’, did not apply to her. In other respects things happened to her exactly as they happen to any woman giving birth. For grace does not destroy or impede nature and nature’s works; indeed grace improves and promotes them.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 11-12.
“This lesson is just like the sun: in a placid pond it can be seen clearly and warms the water powerfully, but in a rushing current it cannot be seen as well nor can it warm up the water as much. So if you wish to be illumined and warmed here, to see God’s mercy and wondrous deeds, so that your heart is filled with fire and light and becomes reverent and joyous, then go to where you may be still and impress the picture deep in your heart.”
Martin Luther. ‘The Gospel for Christmas Eve’ from the Christmas Postil. Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 52. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. 8-9.
“We live in time and space; God exists beyond time and space. Prayer can best help us toward an in-depth understanding of this mystery of the alliance between the temporal and the timeless. When we pray, we are in time that goes beyond time, and without leaving the space we occupy, we go beyond it. We are in this world, but not of it. All true prayer, whatever its form, admits us the paschal mystery of Christ who dies and rises again each day in this world.”
Okumura, Augustine Ichiro. Awakening to Prayer. Translated by Theresa Kazue Hiraki and Albert Masaru Yamato. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1994), p. 63.
“Praying and working are two different things. Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer. Just as it is God’s will that man should work six days and rest and make holy day in His presence on the seventh, so it is also God’s will that every day should be marked for the Christian by both prayer and work. Prayer is entitled to its time. But the bulk of the day belongs to work. And only where each receives its own specific due will it become clear that both belong inseparably together. Without the burden and labor of the day, prayer is not prayer, and without prayer work is not work. This only the Christian knows.”
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), p. 69-70.
“Thus the Gospel proclaims, offers, and sets before contrite and terrified conscience the grace of God, reconciliation and remission of sins freely on account of the merit of Christ; and it is His will that everyone should lay hold of and apply this benefit of the Mediator to himself. The ministry of private absolution applies this general promise of the Gospel to the penitent individually, in order that faith may be able to state all the more firmly that the benefits of the passion of Christ are certainly given and applied to it.”
Chemnitz, Martin. Examination of the Council of Trent. Part II. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1978), p. 556-557.
“One word suggests itself here before any other: you must simplify your life. You have a difficult journey before you — do not burden yourself with too much baggage. Perhaps you are not absolutely free to do this, and so you think there is no use laying down rules. That is a mistake. Given the same external circumstances, a desire for simplification can do much, and what one cannot get rid of outwardly, one can always remove from one’s soul.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), p. 41.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 