Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

23rd Tuesday after Trinity (November 10th, 2009)

The soul, when it least uses its own proper ability, travels most securely, because it walks most by faith.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Sometimes, when the soul least thinks of it, and when it least desires it, God touches it divinely causing certain recollections of Himself.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

23rd Monday after Trinity (November 9th, 2009)

The Day of Jesus Christ is the Day of all days; the brilliant and visible light of this one point is the hidden invisible light of all points; to percieve the righteousness of God once and for all here is the hope of righteousness (Gal. v. 5) everywhere and at all times.  By the knowledge of Jesus Christ all human waiting is guaranteed, authorized, and established; for He makes it known that it is not men who wait, but God—in His faithfulness.

Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

Twenty Second Sunday after Trinity (November 8th, 2009)

The Gospel is not one thing in the midst of other things, to be directly apprehended and comprehended.  The Gospel is the World of the Primal Origin of all things, the Word which, since it is ever new, must ever be received with renewed fear and trembling.  The Gospel is therefore not an event, nor an experience, nor an emotion—however delicate!  Rather, it is the clear and objective perception of what eye hath not seen nor ear heard.  Moreover, what it demands of men is more than notice, or understanding, or sympathy.  It demands participation, comprehension, co-operation; for it is a communication which presumes faith in the living God, and which creates that which it presumes.

Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

This only is charity, to do all, all that we can.

John Donne: Sermons.

22nd Saturday after Trinity (November 7th, 2009)

Before the foundations of the worlds, and before all that can be called 'before', thou art, and art God and Lord of all which thou hast created: in thee abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things changeable, the springs abide in thee unchangeable; and in the live the external reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal.

St. Augustine: Confessions.

Unless the shape of his Manhood be withdrawn from our bodily eyes, the love of his Godhead may not fasten in our ghostly eyes.

The Epistle of Privy Counsel.

22nd Friday after Trinity (November 6th, 2009)

The faithfulness of God may be obscured, but we cannot be rid of it; His gifts may evoke no gratitude, but they will not be withdrawn; His goodness will bring under judgement those who withstand it, but it is His goodness none the less.

Karl Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

The benefits that God contrives to give in any one way are to be found and gotten in good ways one and all, and we ought to find in one way the good things common to them, not those peculiar to that one. For man must always do one thing, he cannot do them all.  He must always be one thing and in that one find all.

Eckhart: In Collationibus.

22nd Thursday after Trinity (November 5th, 2009)

Goodness procreates itself and all that is in the good soul: knowledge, love, energy, it pours them all forth to the good man, and the good man receives all his being, knowing, love and energy from the central depth of goodness and from that alone.

Eckhart: The Book of Benedictus.

22nd Wednesday after Trinity (November 4th, 2009)

I also wish thee to look at the Bridge of My only-begotten Son, and see the greatness thereof, for it reaches from Heaven to earth; that is, that the earth of your humanity is joined to the greatness of the Deity thereby.  I say, then, that this Bridge reaches from Heaven to earth, and constitutes the union which I have made with man . . . So the height of the Divinity, humbled to the earth, and joined with your humanity, made the Bridge and reformed the road.  Why was this done? In order that man might come to his true happiness with the angels. And observe that it is not enough, in order that you should have life, that My son should have made you this Bridge, unless you walk thereon.

St. Catherine of Siena: Dialogues.

He who desires to become a spiritual man must not be ever taking note of others, and above all of their sins, lest he fall into wrath and bitterness, and a judging spirit towards his neighbors.

Johannes Tauler: Sermons.

22nd Tuesday after Trinity (November 3rd, 2009)

It is nature which teacheth a wise man in fear to hide himself, but grace and faith doth teach him where.  Fools care not where they hide their heads . . . But because we are in danger like chased birds, like doves that seek and cannot see the resting holes that are right before them, therefore our Saviour giveth his disciples these encouragements beforehand, that fear might never so amaze them, but that always they might remember, that whatsoever evils at any time did beset them, to him they should still repair, for comfort, counsel, and succor.

Richard Hooker: Sermons.

I am not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge through my own reason of through my own will and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as to know anything concerning it.  I sought only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself.

Jakob Boehme: Aurora.

22nd Monday after Trinity (November 2nd, 2009)

Suddenly, I saw before my inward eyes these words—God only . . . they were at the same time a Light, an Attraction and a Power.  A Light which showed me how I could belong completely to God alone in this world, and I saw that hitherto I had not well understood this; an Attraction by which my heart was subdued and delighted; a Power which inspired me with a generous resolution and somehow placed in my hands the means of carrying it out.

Sister Lucie-Christine: Spiritual Journal.

In the Son of Man I see the Son of God, because Thou art so the Son of Man that Thou art the Son of God and in the finite attracted nature I see the Infinite Attracting Nature.

Nicholas de Susa: The Vision of God.

The Feast of All Saints (November 1st, 2009)

It is the feast-day of all those who loved Jesus Christ, who gave Him their souls and their blood for pure Love, who were without pride, without confidence in themselves, and who, because of that, shine with the greatest imaginable splendour.

Léon Bloy: Letters to his Fiancée.

As verily as we shall be in the bliss of God without end, him praising and thanking, so verily we have been in the foresight of God, loved and known in his endless purpose from without beginning.  In which beginning love he made us; and in the same love he keepeth us and never suffereth us to be hurt (in any way) by which our bliss might be lost.  And therefore when the Doom is given and we be all brought up above, then (shall) we clearly see in God the privities which now be hidden to us.  Then shall none of us be stirred to stay in any wise: "Lord, if it had been thus, then it had been full well"; but we shall say all with one voice: "Lord, blessed mayest thou be, for it is thus: it is well; and now see we verily that all thing is done as it was then ordained before that anything was made."

Juliana of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love.

About him all the sanctities of heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance.

John Milton: Paradise Lost.

Twenty First Sunday after Trinity (November 1st, 2009)

The seeking is common—that every soul may have with his grace—and ought to have that discretion and teaching of the Holy Church.  It is God's will that we have three things in our seeking:—The first is that we seek wilfully and busily, without sloth, as it may be through his grace, gladly and merrily without unskilful heaviness and vain sorrow. The seconds is, that we abide him steadfastly for his love, without grudging and striving against him, to our life's end: for it shall last but a while.  The third is that we trust in him mightily of full sure faith, for it is his will.  We know he shall appear suddenly and blissfully to all that be his lovers.

   For his working is privy, and he willeth to be perceived; and his appearing shall be sweet and sudden; and he will be trusted.  For he is full kind and homely: blessed may he be!

Juliana of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love.

21st Saturday after Trinity (October 31st, 2009)

Jesus Christ, without riches, and without any external exhibition of knowledge, is in His own order of holiness.  He did not invent; He did not reign.  But He was humble, patient, holy, holy to God, terrible to devils, without any sin.  Oh! in what great pomp, and in what wonderful splendour, He is come to the eyes of the heart, which perceive wisdom!

Pascal: Pensées.

Here is the root then, the love of the Father, and the tree, the merit of the Son; except there be fruit too, love in us, to them again, both root and tree will wither in us, howsoever they grew in God.

John Donne: Sermons.

21st Friday after Trinity (October 30th, 2009)

When religion is in the hands of the mere natural man, he is always the worse for it; it adds a bad heat to his own dark fire and helps to inflame his four elements of selfishness, envy, pride, and wrath.  And hence it is that worse passions or a worse degree of them, are to be found in persons of great religious zeal than in others that make no pretences to it.  History also furnishes us with instances of persons with great piety and devotion who have fallen into great delusions and deceived both themselves and others.  The occasion of their fall was this; it was because they made a saint of the natural man.  My meaning is, they considered their whole nature as the subject of religion and divine graces; and therefore their religion was according to the workings of their whole nature, and the old man was as busy and as much delighted in it as the new.

William Law: Christian Regeneration.

21st Thursday after Trinity (October 29th, 2009)

A brother asked an old man, saying, "What is humility?"  And the old man answered and said unto him, "That thou payest not back evil for evil."  That brother said unto him, "And supposing that a man cannot attain to this measure what must we do?"  The old man said unto him, "Let us flee and follow after silence."

The Paradise of the Fathers.

He who owes everything to grace in such a degree that he understands he is superfluous must be all the more obedient.  True, all that exists is nothing in the hands of the Almighty who created it out of nothing; but that which by coming into existence attains nothing more than to be superfluous must understand most profoundly that is is nothing.

Søren Kierkegaard: Christian Discourses.

The Feast of St. Simon (October 28th, 2009)

The Body cannot feel gladness at the trouble of consent in the grief and in labouring for the remedy.  In a company of two is the Church; but the Church is Christ.

Tertullian: On Penitence.

The Feast of St. Jude (October 28th, 2009)

In the Christian Church He hath given us means to be better to-day than yesterday, and to-morrow than to-day.  That grace which God offers us in the Church does not only fill that capacity which we have; but gives us a greater capacity than we had: and it is an abuse of God's grace not to improve it, or not to procure such further grace as that present grace makes us capable of.

John Donne: Sermons.

Humility is not insipidity, but it is seasoned, as it were, with salt.

The Paradise of the Fathers.

21st Wednesday after Trinity (October 28th, 2009)

Let humility be always at work, like the bee at the honey-comb, or all will be lost.  But, remember, the bee leaves its hive to fly in search of flowers and the soul should sometimes cease thinking of itself to rise in meditation on the grandeur and majesty of its God.

St. Teresa of Avila: The Interior Castle.

21st Tuesday after Trinity (October 27th, 2009)

If thou hast not the prayer of the spirit, strive for the prayer of the body, and then shall be added unto thee the prayer in the spirit. If thou hast not humility in the spirit, strive for the humility which is in the body, and then shall be added unto thee the humility which is in the spirit.

The Paradise of the Fathers.