It is a human weakness of ours to be always crying out for complete novelty ...

It is a human weakness of ours to be always crying out for complete novelty, an entire disservice from our past. Our old traditions have become so dusty with neglect, so rusted with abuse, that we are for casting them on the scrap-heap and forgetting that they ever existed. The Church conserves; she bears traces still of the Jewish atmosphere in which she was cradled; traces, too, of the old heathen civilization which she conquered. And in her own history it is the same; nothing is altogether forgotten; every age of Christianity recalls the lineaments of an earlier time. People think of her as if she kept a lumber room; it is not so; hers is a treasure-house from which she can bring forth when they are needed things old as well as new.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

Romans, Christians, and Virginity

It would be hard to estimate, I think, how much of its unpopularity in Roman society the Christian faith owed to its tradition of virginity. You know the horror the world feels when somebody becomes a Catholic; you know the horror the world feels when somebody goes into a convent: combine those two, and transplant them into a society which is heathen and regards the Christian religion as a dangerous and debased cult and you will realize what the pagans thought of a resolution like St. Cecilia's.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

That statement seems shockingly appropriate for our times as well as those of St. Cecilia.

Catholics' standard of purity

The world knows that Catholics have a high standard of purity. But the world is not going to be impressed unless it is assured that Catholics keep it.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

It is a curious thing ...

It is a curious thing about the attitude of our non-Catholic friends towards the Catholic Saints; they always strive to discredit, in one of two ways, their witness to the faith. Either they will say: "This was a very unpleasant, narrow-minded man, of ridiculous personal habits; and it that is what Saints are like we would sooner hear no more of them," or they will say: "Yes, this man was indeed a Saint; but then he was not really a roman Catholic. He was just a good Christian, as my wife and I are; he only happened to be in communion with the Pope because everybody was in those days." ... And the Church gets no credit either way.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

Fascinating. He nailed it.

We are like men fighting a fire ...

We Catholics, in our effort to convert England, are not like furniture removers, paid by the hour, slowly and gingerly piling things onto a van. We are like men fighting a fire, desperately keeping at bay, here and there, the flames of unbelief and social disorder, while we hurriedly rescue all that we have time to rescue. The fire will get ahead of us if we stop to contemplate our work.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

Boy oh boy, do I know how he feels. Our whole culture feels as if it is on fire while we dart in and out trying to rescue all we can.

Offering what will cost you something

Virginity is an ideal which the pagans had no right to misunderstand. For, in theory, they too, honoured it; and it should have commended itself to their heathen instinct for sacrifice. For the point os a sacrifice is that the victim should be spotless, the best of its kind. You must not offer what you can well afford to spare, but what will cost you something. ... In order to give up something to God, we forego not the sinful pleasures whch we have no right to in any case, but the lawful pleasures which he has given us to enjoy if we will.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames

Talk about setting modern ideas on their ear with an argument that is completely logical.

You live in an age that is twisted out its true pattern

...you must work to earn your salvation, in anxious fear. Both the will to do it and the accomplishment of that will are something which God accomplishes in you, to carry out his loving purpose. Do all that lies in you, never complaining, never hesitating, to shew yourselves innocent and single-minded, God's children, bringing no reproach on his name. You live in an age that is twisted out of its true pattern, and among such people you shine out, beacons to the world, upholding the message of life.

Philippians 2:12-15, Knox translation

This phrase, You live in an age that is twisted out of its true pattern, really struck me. Because there is nothing new under the sun. Paul lived in those times and so do we. I needed that reminder and also his encouragement, do all that lies in you, never complaining, never hesitating. Good stuff.