Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

5th Wednesday after Trinity (June 30th, 2010)

There is a moving absurdity about all human categories when they are applied to Christ; for if one could talk absolutely humanly about Christ one would have to say that the words: "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" are impatient and untrue.  They can only be true if God says them, and consequently also when the God-Man days them.  And indeed—since it is true, it is the very limit of suffering.

Søren Kierkegaard: Journals.

5th Tuesday after Trinity (June 29th, 2010)

Consider that Jesus suffered in His heart with all the knowledge of a God, and that in His heart there was every human heart and every form of suffering from Adam until the consummation of the world.
   Ah yes, to suffer for others can be a great joy if one has a generous soul, but to suffer in others is to really suffer!

Léon Bloy: Letters to his Fiancée.

5th Monday after Trinity (June 28th, 2010)

Though he were innocence itself, and knew no sin, yet there was no sin that he knew not, for, all our sins were his.  He was not only made man, and by taking (by admitting, though not by committing) our sins, as well as our nature, sinful man; but he was made sin for our sakes.

John Donne: Sermons.

Thy conversion is My affair; fear not, and pray with confidence as for Me.

Pascal: Pensées.

Fourth Sunday after Trinity (June 27th, 2010)

What is Christ's joy in us, but that He deigns to rejoice on our account?  And what is our joy, which He says shall be full, but to have fellowship with Him?  He had perfect joy on our account, when He rejoiced in the foreknowing, and predestinating us; but that joy was not in us, because then we did not exist: it began to be in us, when He called us.  And this joy we rightly call our own, this joy wherewith we shall be blessed; which is begun in the faith of them who are born again, and shall be fulfilled in the reward of them who rise again.

St. Augustine, quoted in Aquinas, Catena Aurea.

4th Saturday after Trinity (June 26th, 2010)

The ten Commandments, when written by God on the tables of stone and given to man, did not then first begin to belong to man; they had their existence in man, were born with him, they lay as a seed and power of goodness, hidden in the form and make of his soul and altogether inseperable from it, before they were shown to man on tables of stone.  And when they were shown to man on tables of stone, they were only outward imitations of that which was inwardly in man, though not legible because of that impurity of flesh and blood in which they were drowned and swallowed up.

William Law: The Spirit of Love.

4th Friday after Trinity (June 25th, 2010)

Abba John used to say, "We relinquish a light burden when we condemn ourselves, but we take upon ourselves a heavy burden when we justify ourselves."

The Paradise of the Fathers.

I love thee more ardently than thou hast loved thine abominations.

Pascal: Pensées.

4th Thursday after Trinity (June 24th, 2010)

Lord, before I commit a sin, it seems to me so shallow that I may wade through it dry-shod from any guiltiness; but when I have committed it, it often seems so deep that I cannot escape without drowning.

Thomas Fuller: Good Thoughts in Bad Times.

If thou knewest thy sins, thou wouldst lose heart.

Pascal: Pensées.