Our self-abnegation is thus not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. And thus it is not to mere self-denial that Christ calls us, but specifically to self-sacrifice: not to unselfing ourselves, but to unselfishing ourselves.

Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving.

Feast of Harriet Monsell of Clewer, Religious, 1883 The fundamental note of the Old Testament, in other words, is revelation. Its seers and prophets are not men of philosophic mind, who have risen from the seen to the unseen and, by dint of much reflection, have gradually attained to elevated conceptions of Him who is the Author of all that is. They are men of God whom God has chosen, that He might speak to them and, through them, to His people. Israel has not, in and by them, created for itself a God: God has, through them, created for Himself a people.

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary The Old Testament does not occupy itself with how Israel thought of God. Its concern is with how Israel ought to think of God. To it, the existence of God is not an open question, nor His nature, nor the accessibility of knowledge of Him. God Himself has taken care of that He has made Himself known to His people, and their business is not to feel after Him if haply they may fumblingly find Him, but to hearken to Him as He declares to them what and who He is. [Continued].

Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving.

You are the most beautiful and perfect dream that is my realty. Your existence is proof that dreams can become real. Unicorns live on this planet