Christianity

"Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents."

"I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true."

"All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School."

"I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard — even to vomiting — in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role."

"I teach Sunday School, motherfucker."

"What I recalled of Sunday School was that the more difficult something became, the more rewarding it was in the end."

"ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop."

"Of course clergymen and other paid teachers and moralists admonished us to be upright and unselfish, and for people with good incomes it was easy to condemn those living on the edge of poverty as inferior, impractical, shiftless, and lacking respect for the social code. It was easy to shout thief at the other fellow when you had no temptation to steal-I mean steal in a petty way. But stealing in a big way was often accepted as good business judgment."

"He that would speak Divine things in a language which living men of to-day can comprehend, must keep up with the researches and discoveries of men who study nature, and put her words into the speech of the present."

""He commanded that something should be given her to eat." Has any body's daughter or any body's son been raised from spiritual death in your congregation, or in your class recently? If so, give the revived soul something to eat."

"This is the ministry and its work — not to drill hearts and minds and consciences into right forms of thought and mental postures, but to guide to the living God who speaks."

"What is ministerial success? Crowded churches, full aisles, attentive congregations, the approval of the religious world, much impression produced? Elijah thought so; and when he discovered his mistake, and found out that the Carmel applause subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives, and obedient, humble hearts, unseen worth recognized in the judgment-day."

"One great want of the times is a commanding ministry — a ministry of a piety at once sober and earnest, and of mightiest moral power. Give us these men, " full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," who will proclaim old truths with new energy, not cumbering them with massive drapery nor hiding them beneath piles of rubbish. Give us these men! men of sound speech, who will preach the truth as it is in Jesus, not with faltering tongue and averted eye, as if the mind blushed at its own credulity — not distilling into it an essence so subtle and so speedily decomposed that a chemical analysis alone can detect the faint odor which tells it has been there — but who will preach it apostlewise, that is, "first of all," at once a principle shrined in the heart and a motive mighty in the life — the source of all morals, and the inspiration of all charity — the sanctifier of every relationship, and the sweetener of every toil. Give us these men! men of zeal untiring — whose hearts of constancy quail not although dull men sneer, and proud men scorn, and timid men blush, and cautious men deprecate, and wicked men revile."

"It is not the way to convert a sinner to knock him down first and then reason with him."

"Learn in Christ how possible it is to be strong and mild, to blend in fullest harmony the perfection of all that is noble, lofty, generous in the soldier's ardor of heroic devotion; and of all that is calm, still, compassionate, tender in the priest's waiting before God and mediation among men."

"Your great employment is to bring the individual souls of men to Christ."

"I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life."

"As preachers we are to promote Christian culture, by bringing the dead branches to the living Vine, that, grafted into it, without a rag of human righteousness between, the life of Him may enter them; and by keeping them, as far as teaching and example can do it, abiding in Him, that they may bring forth fruit."

"That pastor effects the most in the end who comes into closest personal contact with his charge. No amount of organizing, no skill in creating machinery and manipulating "committees" is a substitute for this. Who feels the power of a tear in the eye of a committee?"

"The minister, who would be most like the Master, must go and, like Him, lay the warm, kindly hand on the leper, the diseased, the wretched. He must touch the blind eyes with something from himself. The tears must be in his own eyes over the dead who are to be raised to spiritual life. Jesus is our great exemplar."

"The minister is to be a live man, a real man, a true man, a simple man, great in his love, great in his life, great in his work, great in his simplicity, great in his gentleness."

"We are to be neither book-worms nor male gossips, but Christian gentlemen, with a side towards mental culture, and a side to practical life. We are to learn how to talk to the people by being with the people, and we are to learn how to raise them up by raising ourselves. We are never to forget that ministry is service, not mastery. "Ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.""

"I find on inquiring among successful pastors, successful in the sense of winning men to Christ in profession, that they depend largely on personal contact."

"If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground."

"There are passages of the Bible that are soiled forever by the touches of the hands of ministers who delight in the cheap jokes they have left behind them."

"Our high mission, our noble calling, is to build up souls, to perfect the Christian life, and to make manhood acceptable to God, and radiant in the sight of all men."

"The clergy, they come in, And say it is a sin, That we should now begin Our freedom for to win."

"They seem to know no medium between a mitre and a crown of martyrdom. If the clergy are not called to the latter, they never deviate from the pursuit of the former. One would think their motto was, Canterbury or Smithfield."

"There are dons who care for the intellect and the imagination, and there are priests who care for the spirit; but broadly speaking the function of universities and churches alike is to trim and tame enthusiasm, to suppress curiosity, and, in short, to whittle immortal souls into serviceable props of the established order."

"Non est jam dicere, "Ut populus, sic sacerdos"; quia nec si populus, ut sacerdos."

"Manye chapeleyns arn chaste, ac charite is aweye; Are none hardere than hii whan hii ben avaunced: Unkynde to hire kyn and to alle Cristene, Chewen hire charite and chiden after moore – Swich chastite withouten charite worth cheyned in helle."

"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous...Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."

"I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular but some degree of persecution."

"Bible's the greatest book ever written. But I sure don't need anybody I can buy for six bits and a chew of tobacco to explain it to me. When I need preachers I buy 'em cheap."

"As the French say, there are three sexes – men, women, and clergymen."

"Q: Can the process for the appointment of new bishops be improved? Praedicate Evangelium states that "members of the people of God" must be involved. Is this happening? A: We had an interesting reflection among the members of the Dicastery on this issue. For some time now, not only some bishops or some priests, but also other members of the people of God are being heard. This is very important, because the bishop is called to serve a particular Church. Therefore, listening to the people of God is also important. If a candidate is not known by anyone among his people, it is difficult—not impossible, but difficult—for him to truly become pastor of a community, of a local Church. So, it is important that the process is a little more open to listening to different members of the community. This does not mean that it is the local Church that has to choose its pastor, as if being called to be a bishop was the result of a democratic vote, of an almost ‘political’ process. A much broader view is needed, and the apostolic nunciatures help a lot in this. I believe that, little by little, we need to open up more, to listen a little more to the religious, the laity."

"A priest is a man who is called Father by everyone except his own children, who are obliged to call him Uncle."

"A man who is good enough to go to heaven, is good enough to be a clergyman."

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."

"Though all good men be called God's servants in their general vocation, yet they cannot be called the minister of God but to a more special use."

"Minister doth not always import an inferior to him to whom he doth minister: for the Psalm saith, God hath made man paulo inferiorem Angelis; and yet in the first chapter to the Hebrews it is said, that the Angels are ministering spirits, sent forth for the good of God's saints."

"It is worth noting that Protestantism suppresses the clergy, and though it claims to uphold the authority of the Bible, it in fact ruins it by 'free inquiry'."

"[The priesthood] truly plays the role of 'mediator' between heaven and earth, and it is not without reason that in the Western traditions the priesthood in all its plenitude received the symbolic name of 'pontificate', for, as Saint Bernard says, 'the Pontiff, as indicated by the etymology of his name, is a kind of bridge [pont] between God and man.' If one then wished to go back to the primal origin of the priestly and royal powers, one must look to the 'celestial world'."

"CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones."

"The reform of the Roman calendar in 1969 regulated further the cults of saints and introduced a systematic selection by historical criteria for both universal veneration throughout the Roman Church and for purely local cult. The reform was part of the programme of aggorniamento initiated by John XXIII (1958-62) and continued by Paul VI (1963-78). It was widely held that the accumulation of saints in the calendar over many centuries had led to over-emphasis on their feast days as the expense of the more important Temporal Cycle of the calendar composed of Advent, Lent, and the Sundays throughout the year. Long before, particular Orders such as the Benedictines had enjoyed a more selective calendar than the Roman Church as a whole: it might be said that the effect of the reform was to bring the whole Church to a situation in several ways similar to that of the Benedictines. The opportunity was taken also to upgrade or downgrade certain feasts, to restore some of them to their original days, to transfer others from Lent and Advent, and to omit entirely some who had previously enjoyed a considerable cult. These included SS. Philomena and Margaret of Antioch at the same time saint were selected for universal veneration by deliberate choice from each century of the Church's history and from many countries. Examples of these include martyrs from Australasia, Uganda, Korea, and Vietnam. Their historical significance as representatives of particular non-European countries was duly considered. Others who had long been venerated everywhere in Christendom were approved for particular churches, countries, or religious orders. The committee charged with this selection was particularly severe on a number of early martyrs. Where historical scholarship has shown that there is no solid foundation for believing them to be martyrs, they are no longer venerated as such. The preponderance of saints of Roman origin has been ended, and the number of popes culted universally reduced to fifteen."

"The lives of the saints can be seen in Pauline terms as the fruits of the Spirit at work in human beings, or, in the words of John Henry Newman, as the proper and true evidence of the God of Christianity."

"Unauthorized cults did not entirely cease in the later Middle Ages but in the long run they were unlikely to survive if they lacked the papal approval which they should have had. A modern authority concludes: in canonization as in other matter medieval theory could not always be enforced in practice, and it was not until the Roman Church had lost the Northern peoples and had undergone the counter reformation, that the decrees of Urban VIII (1623-44) were able to bring about the complete control of the cult of the saints which had been so long desired. It is a paradox that among those who rejected the Roman obedience were the peoples who had been foremost in acknowledging papal authority in this sphere of Christian practice."

"Through the ages zealous bishops had intervened to suppress false cults, but only in the late 12th and 14th centuries did the authorization of new cults become juridically reserved to the Holy See. Not much could be done systematically about old cults or about the proliferation of relics by any authority except through exhortation, but at least the cults of new saints were put on to a legal basis which many of the best minds of the age helped establish and administer. This reserve was formerly believed to be the work of Alexander III (1159-81); recent scholarship has shown it to be the work rather of Innocent III (1199-1216), who in fact built on and consolidated the work of his predecessors. The growing centralization of the Church following the Gregorian Reform was also a powerful factor in establishing the new legal requirement. Papal commissions were appointed to investigate the life and miracles of candidates for canonization. Only if the life was seen to have been worthy were the miracles then examined. These two subjects of enquiry have remained standard from then until the present day, while the enquiries themselves were conducted according to the best standards of the time."

"During the 4th century devotion to the martyrs spread rapidly. This took place through entries in the calendar of one local church being shared by others. Also in the 4th century came the extension of cults to selected confessors and virgin; the ascetic, monastic life came to be regarded as something of a substitute for martyrdom, and those who pursued it faithfully as worthy of the same honour. Zealous bishops also were perceived as sharing the teaching role of Christ to a supreme degree. Whilst the earliest saints to be venerated had been martyrs such as Polycarp, Ignatius, and the Martyrs of Lyons soon Anthony and Athanasius in the East, with Augustine and Martin in the West were similarly honoured shortly after their death. For both categories the saint's tomb was the indispensable start of the cult."

"The public veneration of saints in the Christian Church is known to have existed in the 2nd century. As will be shown below, it developed in local communities; it was based on the saint's tomb; it was a consequence of the general belief that a martyr who shed his blood for Christ was certainly in Heaven and able to exercise intercessory prayer on behalf of those who invoked him. It has often been asserted that the cult of saints was both a borrowing from and a substitute for the polytheistic cults of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. In its crude form the theory is completely unconvincing, especially when the nature of the cults is considered and placed in its context of Christian doctrine, worship, and life. But it can readily be conceded that many eternal elements such as anniversaries, shrines, incubation, and iconography have all been at the very least deeply influenced by pagan Mediterranean models. Nevertheless, the cults of saints originated in the beliefs and practice of Jewry and early Christianity."