life on planet earth on Enlightenment

Descend upon our hearts, Spirit of God, For our wills are weak, and we need your power. Our spirits are dry, and we need your refreshment. Our minds cannot comprehend, and we need your enlightenment....

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

O heavenly Father, the author and fountain of all truth, the bottomless sea of all understanding, send, we beg you, your Holy Spirit into our hearts, and lighten our understandings with the beams of y...

O Lord, heavenly Father, in whom is the fullness of light and wisdom, enlighten our minds by your Holy Spirit, and give us grace to receive your Word with reverence and humility, without which no o...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. And God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. In ...

Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nat...

We believe, O Lord, that you have not abandoned us to the dim light of our own reason to conduct us to happiness, but that you have revealed in Holy Scriptures whatever is necessary for us to believe ...

Holy and gracious God, may your Holy Spirit give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know the hope to which Christ has called us, the riches ...

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,     according to thy word; For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,     which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, To be a light to lig...

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.

Leader: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; People: The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment...

Leader: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; People: The commandment...

Lord, may your glorious Majesty surround us, the blessed Trinity protect us, and the eternal Godhead preserves us. Your unlimited mercy support us; your loving kindness encompass us; your favor c...

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

From a historical perspective it is atheism that was old and the Christian faith and its good news that burst on the world as new. Once commonly called “atomism,” the genealogy of atheism can be trace...

Salt and light are indispensable household commodities. Several commentators quote Pliny’s dictum that nothing is more useful than ‘salt and sunshine’ (sale et sole). The need for light is obvious. Sa...

The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...

The [true] story is told that Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher, was speaking at the funeral of an aristocrat. In the speech he declared, “He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal ...

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

O Light eternal, surpassing all created brightness, flash forth the lightning from above and enlighten the inmost recesses of my heart. Cleanse, cheer, enlighten, and enliven my spirit with all its po...

Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodnes...

The engaged mind, illuminated by truth, awakens awareness; the engaged heart, affected by love, awakens passion. May I say once more - this essential energy of the soul is not an ecstatic trance, high...

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

To secure one's freedom the Christian must experience God's light which is God's truth.

For most of us it takes a long time for the Spirit of freedom to cleanse us of the subtle urges to be admired for our studied goodness. It requires a strong sense of our redeemed selves to pass up the...

The myth of progress has deep roots in contemporary Western culture, and some of those roots are Christian…This utopian dream is in fact a parody of the Christian vision. The kingdom of God and the ki...

One discovery was a time-released revelation to me. On my way to classes each week, I had been passing Emerson Hall, the building that houses the philosophy department at Harvard. The enormous inscrip...

Arise, shine, for the Light of the World has come! Darkness covers the earth and its people, but the radiance of God's Light burns away its shadows, illuminates the smallest corner, and heral...