Daily Reading for April 1 • The Annunciation (transferred)

I once heard an old piece of folklore about Mary. Imagine, this story goes, that the angel of God had been wandering the earth sine the beginning of time, asking people if they would be willing to bring God’s child into the world. Mary was not the most pure, most holy, most beautiful; she was simply the only one gutsy enough to say “yes.”

I love that little addition to the Gospel narrative because it makes us look at the story from a different angle. The Church has traditionally taught us that Mary was selected by God for the most important task of all time, the birth of Christ. Mary is seen as the most pure, the most devout woman in the world. She was selected, out of all the women of all time, to be the mother of God. It’s almost as if Mary is the valedictorian of devotion, she was the best, and she was awarded the greatest honor. But what if her role was awarded to her because she alone was willing, because she agreed? What if it was Mary’s willingness that set her apart?

In the Gospel of Luke, Mary says to the angel Gabriel, “Here am I.” These are words repeated by some of the most devout lovers of God in Scripture. Abraham says, “Here I am.” Isaiah says, “Here I am.” These are the words of those who volunteer to submit themselves to the will of God. These are the words of true devotion. After uttering these words, no one ever stands still.

From Between Two Worlds: Daily Readings for Advent by Kate Moorehead (Cowley Publications, 2003).

Daily Reading for April 2 • James Lloyd Breck, Priest, 1876

From what I have now written you, you will learn, Christian brethren, that plants are ripening here for the harvest that comes on apace, before the reapers can be prepared to enter in. But you will like to know something further, viz., in what have the two years promised fruit, where we have been laboring? Seeds of glorious light have been sown, and they are even now shooting forth branches which promise, in due time, an abundant harvest.

Enter with me now, please, the near squared-log church. It is the very picture of simplicity and solemnity. Ever kept sacred to the Divine homage, it is always in that perfect order which becometh his sanctuaries. These Indians call Christians the “praying people,” and the church building the “Wigwam of Prayer.” . . . It is a week-day; fifty-six natives are present. The average number of daily attendants is over forty—quite frequently there are fifty; as large a number as you would see at their medicine dance, which occurs but twice in the year! Pagan is well translated into Ojibwa by one word, which signifies the people who do not pray! The small handful of whites you observe in the church are my fellow missionaries in the Lord, who have, male and female, come thither to instruct the heathen in the better way of things, both temporal and spiritual. . . . I am thankful to say I am able to read the liturgy in their own tongue, and thus appear before them in the true light of a clergyman. The interpreter gives the sermon and other instructions by word of mouth to the people, and also leads in the Ojibwa responses, which the people commit to memory and say orally. . . .

How exceedingly thankful, then, should we be, in this remote corner of the wilderness, to see not only a Christian temple built, but a body of daily worshippers in it, to the number that I have stated; not only so, but amongst them three Indians and one white young man actually going through a course of preparation for the ministry. How thankful, I say, should we be for all this evidence of life in the use of all those divers helps which the Lord hath appointed in his church on earth.

From a report by James Lloyd Breck describing his ministry among Native Americans, quoted in A Year With American Saints by G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 3 • Richard, Bishop of Chichester, 1253

Born at Droitwich, Richard of Wyche became chancellor of Canterbury under Archbishop Edmund Rich. King Henry III refused permission for Richard to be consecrated Bishop of Chichester, until the Pope threatened to excommunicate the King. Richard was a deeply spiritual man and an excellent administrator. The Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester, which has recently been set to music by several composers, is now one of the most popular in the English language.

Praise to thee, Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits thou has won for me,
for all the pains and insults thou has borne for me.
Most merciful redeemer,
friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly, day by day. Amen.

From Richard of Wyche (1197-1253), quoted in 2000 Years of Prayer, compiled by Michael Counsell. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 4 • Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights Leader, 1968

How deeply King understood the role of forgiveness in the creation of his beloved community is seen in his assertion that the struggle for justice and the resistance against evil is not a struggle against other persons. It is rather a struggle against the structures of evil that entrap not only the oppressed but the oppressors as well. Thus the struggle against racism was not a campaign of hatred against racists but a militant resistance against racism itself which sought to release those caught on both sides of the battle from the sin of racism. Revenge was to be foreign, forgiveness commonplace.

Christianity, for Dr. King, required not only that we have our own sins forgiven but that we, through forgiveness, dismantle what holds all of us in bondage. The power of forgiveness is a gift of Christ bestowed upon the community for the purpose of ushering in the kingdom, the beloved community. The power to forgive is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

In the process we must be willing to take on suffering ourselves rather than inflict harm on others. We must renounce not only the use of physical violence but the internal spirit of violence as well. We must genuinely love our enemies, not sentimentally, not because we like them or find their actions comprehensible, but because we have been challenged to do so by the Gospels. In this we find cosmic accompaniment, which, King believed, was aligned ultimately with the emergence of justice.

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for April 5

I see flames of orange, yellow and red
shooting upwards to the sky, piercing the whole clouds.
I see the clouds themselves chasing the flames upwards,
and I feel the air itself reaching for the heavens.

Down below I see great, grey rocks beating against the earth,
as if they were pushing their way down to hell.
At your resurrection that which is light and good rises up with you,
and that which is heavy and evil is pushed downwards.

At your resurrection goodness breaks from evil,
life breaks free from death.

“Easter” by Adam of St. Victor, in The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of Saint Victor, translated by D. S. Wrangham (Kegan, Paul & Co., 1881). Quoted in 2000 Years of Prayer, compiled by Michael Counsell. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 6 • The Third Sunday of Easter

Without the resurrection the Christian movement would have petered out in ignominy and there would have been no Christianity. Without the resurrection Christianity would not be itself, as the distinctiveness of Christianity is not its adherence to a teacher who lived long ago but its belief that “Jesus is Lord” for every generation through the centuries. . . .Something happened so as to vindicate for the apostles the meaning of the cross, and to make the person of Jesus contagious to them. The evidence for a stupendous happening, which the New Testament writers mention, was the survival of the church, the appearances of Jesus in a visible and audible impact on the apostles, and the discovery that the tomb was empty. The several elements in this threefold evidence no doubt had different degrees of evidential weight for different people, and they have such varying degrees still. . . .

The Emmaus story illustrates the various ingredients of belief in the resurrection. There was the climax, Jesus known and recognized in the breaking of the bread and vanishing from their sight: it was the moment of faith and encounter. But there had been previously the reflection on the divine purpose in scriptures which the stranger had unfolded to them on the road. There had been the report that the tomb had been found empty, and that the discovery had been corroborated by other observers. There was the corroboration of the two disciples’ seeing of Jesus at Emmaus by the news that the apostles in Jerusalem had also seen him.

I am suggesting not that the Emmaus story tells us exactly how the Easter faith began, but that it illustrates the apostolic church’s view of the factors in the creation of that faith for the original and subsequent believers. To value these evidential factors is not, as Bultmann suggests, to lapse into a worldly-minded historicism, for the Easter faith, existential as it is, was and is related to evidential history. Christians believe in the resurrection partly because a series of facts are unaccountable without it.

From God, Christ, and the World by Michael Ramsey, quoted in To Believe is To Pray: Readings from Michael Ramsey, edited by James E. Griffiss (Cowley Publications, 1996).

Daily Reading for April 7 • Tikhon, Patriarch of Russia, Confessor and Ecumenist, 1925

‘Come, receive the light!’

With these words, the entire church, previously waiting in darkness, lights up in splendour. People’s faces shine. It is Easter midnight. The night said to be brighter than any day. Everyone, young and old, whether born into or received into the Orthodox faith, knows by heart the chant that will be repeated over forty days,the song that colours the yearly cycle: ‘Christ is risen from the dead.’ In an age when we look for ways and moments to celebrate life, Easter marks the feast of feasts. . . .

The cross is indeed the final word. In the paradox of the cross, problems and difficulties do not disappear. They simply appear in a new light. They are appreciated in a new perspective. We know differently. They are perceived in the light of the final age that is to come. We understand that, through them and beyond them all, there exists the invincible power of Christ’s crucified love. The light of the cross is stronger than any darkness in the world.

The Greek word for Easter, Pascha, derives from the Hebrew meaning ‘passover’. The crucifixion and the resurrection are a ‘passing over’ from survival to fullness of life, and from mere life to life in abundance. The tomb of Christ was not empty. It was open! It remains for us an open invitation.

The thunderous response to the Easter greeting is: ‘Christ is truly Risen!’

From Light Through Darkness: The Orthodox Tradition by John Chyrssavgis (Orbis, 2004).

Daily Reading for April 8 • William Augustus Muhlenberg, Priest, 1877

A good Christian is always fit to partake of the Sacrament; but yet, in order to do it, he will desire to collect himself—to repair himself, as it were—to wipe off the dust and soil of the world, which are forever settling on the soul. . . .The communicant, though conscious of having the main qualification for meeting his Lord acceptably at the Holy Table, yet desires to examine it, again and again—to try himself, as the apostle bids him, “whether he be in the faith.” Every time he ventures into the presence of the King he endeavors to have his marriage garment cleaner and whiter, more thoroughly purified from the stains of earth. He feels as if he must repent anew—believe anew—love anew—make good resolutions anew, and begin, as it were, his whole Christian life anew. True, the grace which is to enable him to do all this, is the very thing he seeks in going to the Eucharist, yet the grace which he obtains is ever in proportion to that with which he comes. . . . So oft the grace of which the Eucharist is the means. The more we have to come with, the more we bring away. If none we bring, then none we gain.

From The Weekly Eucharist by William Augustus Muhlenberg, quoted in A Year With American Saints by G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 9 • Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1945

In a few days it will be Easter. That makes me very happy. But do you think that either of us by ourselves could believe or would want to believe these impossible things that are reported in the gospels, if the Bible did not support us in our belief? Simply the Word, as God’s truth, which he vouches for himself. Resurrection—that is not a self-evident idea, an eternal verity. I mean, of course, resurrection as the Bible means it—as a rising up from real death (not sleep) to real life, from life without God to new life with Christ in God. God has said (and we know this through the Bible): “Behold I make all things new.” He made that come true at Easter. Must not this message appear much more impossible, distant, unreal than the whole story of King David, which, by comparison, is quite harmless?

There remains, then, only the decision whether we will trust the Bible or not, whether we will allow ourselves to be supported by it as by no other word, in life and death. And I believe that we can only be happy and at peace when we have made that decision.

From “The Bible Alone: A Letter to Dr. Rudiger Schleicher” (Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law and good friend), quoted in Meditating on the Word by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, translated and edited by David McI. Gracie, second edition (Cowley Publications, 1986).

Daily Reading for April 10 • William Law, Priest, 1761

Sometimes the light of God’s countenance shines so bright upon us, we are so affected with the wonders of the love and goodness of God, that our hearts worship and adore in a language higher than that of words, and we feel transports of devotion, which only can be felt. On the other hand, sometimes we are so sunk into our bodies, so dull and unaffected with that which concerns our souls, that our hearts are as much too low for our prayers; we cannot keep pace with our forms of confession, or feel half of that in our hearts which we have in our mouths; we thank and praise God with forms of words, but our hearts have little or no share in them.

It is therefore highly necessary to provide against this inconstancy of our hearts, by having at hand such forms of prayer as may best suit us when our hearts are in their best state, and also be most likely to raise and stir them up when they are sunk into dullness. For, as words have a power of affecting our hearts on all occasions, as the same thing differently expressed has different effects upon our minds, so it is reasonable that we should make this advantage of language, and provide ourselves with such forms of expression as are most likely to move and enliven our souls, and fill them with sentiments suitable to them.

From A Serious Call to the Devout and Holy Life by William Law, from the Treasures from the Spiritual Classics series, compiled by Roger L. Roberts (A. R. Mowbray and Co Ltd, 1981).

Daily Reading for April 11 • George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand, and of Lichfield, 1878

When George Augustus Selwyn went as bishop to New Zealand, where Queen Victoria had assigned him a large part of Polynesia as well as the two islands of New Zealand itself, he realized the need for synodical forms to be developed to give Anglicanism outside of the Church of England establishment a coherent theological structure. In the twentieth century those synodical forms became the pattern of church polity in all parts of what developed as the Anglican Communion, particularly as churches in Africa and Asia achieved self-government in a way which was often parallel with independence from colonial rule by Britain. With the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, there began the series of Lambeth Conferences which have been a chief means of holding together an increasingly widespread Communion now rooted in many different cultures, and freed from domination first by the British Empire, then by English education and language.

From Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, compiled by Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, and Rowan Williams (Oxford, 2001).

Daily Reading for April 12

Emmaus is where we go when life gets to be too much for us . . . the place we go in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.” . . . Emmaus may be buying new clothes or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred, that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.

From The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner (Harper & Row, 1966).

Daily Reading for April 13 • The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Most of what I know about sheep is hearsay, undocumented, and not flattering. They are reputed to be stupid, lacking in initiative, and likely to fall over cliffs or entangle themselves in brush. They are not playful. Lambs have an innocent charm, but the adult animal is stolid and a little boring. Rams are distinguished by their horns, and there may be some variation in color; but the average sheep looks just like the rest of the flock. To look into the face of one sheep is to have seen them all.

I am not really pleased to be grouped with the sheep. In this I suspect that I am not alone. We live in a society that places high value on ingenuity, creativity, and individuality. It is better to be a leader than a follower—can you imagine parents urging their children to be good sheep, to aim for mediocrity in things academic and athletic? We admire people with high levels of energy and a zest for exploration. No, to be a good sheep is not part of the American Dream.

Most significantly, sheep need a shepherd. There is no such thing as an independent or self-made sheep. They need the shepherd if they are to be guided and cared for, and—in dire straits—to be rescued. There is nothing sentimental about this relationship: for the sheep it is a matter of survival, and for the shepherd it is a matter of economy. The sheep are not pets, to be cuddled and cosseted; rather, they are valuable property. The shepherd’s treasure, if you will.

There are no sheep on the streets of my neighborhood, but I am increasingly and keenly aware of those people whom we so easily turn into sheep, those people who “all look alike,” who are indistinguishable to the unloving eye. The boisterous, slightly threatening teenagers who rush onto the subway when school is out at three o’clock, the homeless who warm themselves on sidewalk grates and huddle in doorways, the frail aged lined up in their wheelchairs in nursing home corridors, the caged young men in our jails and prisons—they can become sheep, one like another, and easily replaceable. Or not missed, if one disappears. When I see pictures of refugees, those victims of indescribable suffering, they blur and begin to look alike. Even the individual child, with great pleading eyes and the bloated belly of starvation, begins to look like every other starving child, while the mother holding the body of her dead infant looks like all the other mothers.

I want to turn people into sheep because it is easier that way. It shields me from being touched by the depths of their pain and need, and it helps me deny my kinship with them. It lets me forget that I am a sheep too.

From “Sheep” in Just Passing Through: Notes from a Sojourner by Margaret Guenther. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 14

It’s quite all right to be a sheep, so long as we pay attention and hear the shepherd’s voice. The essential, crucial point is this: the good shepherd knows the sheep. This is not just a matter of a head count; each is of distinct value.

I yearn to be known, and at the same time I fear it. Most of the time, we let ourselves be known by bits and pieces, and we know others in the same way. My husband of nearly half a century thinks that he knows me, my children are sure they have me figured out, my colleagues and students and friends also would claim that they know me. Foolishly, I think I know myself. Even as I want to be known, I want to be known on my own terms—a carefully constructed and edited version, not as a sheep who gets lost, falls off cliffs, and gets hung up in the brambles. Certainly not as a sheep who can’t find her own way.

To be known, fully known, is not possible in our human relationships, but it is the foundation of our relationship with Christ. To be known, fully known, is both painful and profoundly comforting. It is to accept the humble status of sheep, to let the masks and defenses drop away, and to let ourselves be carried on the shepherd’s shoulders and occasionally poked by his staff. It means sometimes to be thwarted—the edge of that cliff doesn’t look too dangerous, and I wasn’t going to wander very far, honest!— and sometimes to be shut in a pen. It means to listen for the shepherd’s voice and to rejoice that he knows which one I am, in this great, blundering, well-intentioned, sheepish flock.

From “Sheep” in Just Passing Through: Notes from a Sojourner by Margaret Guenther. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 15

I once read about a doorman who worked at the same building in Manhattan for dozens of years. On the eve of his retirement, he was interviewed about his life experience as one who opened the door for so many New Yorkers. What struck me was his faithful service, even when he was essentially ignored. People would come and go, many of them so self-important they just walked through the open door without even a thank-you nod. A large number of them, however, came to appreciate him and often would chat with him as friends.

Regardless, he said, he came to know most everyone who lived in that building better than perhaps they knew themselves. As he did his job, he listened and observed carefully—not to be nosy, but to try to serve them better.

I think of that faithful doorman every time I read this passage. Commentators tell us that in Jesus’ time, shepherds would guard their flocks at night by lying across the opening of the pen, serving personally as the gate. That way they could watch over their sheep, ensure their safety, keep them in for rest and protection, and let them out for pasture and exercise.

Jesus says he does the same with his followers. As a true shepherd, Jesus has the best in mind for us, his loving followers. He came to give us something we could have no other way, something we yearn for from the depths of our being. He came to give us “real and eternal life, more and better life” than we could ever dream of. But we must first find our place in the sheep pen, under his protective care.

What sort of life are you dreaming of? One marked by love and joy, by purpose and meaning, peace and fullness? That is the life Jesus wants you to experience, day by day, forever.

How can you experience it? Pay attention to Jesus as he works in your life. Be aware of the Spirit working out the rough edges of your life, calling you to deeper faithfulness, opening up opportunities to learn about yourself, about God, about serving others. Let him reach out to you when you need to be held, watched over, protected and cared for, and filled with rest and peace.

And when you are ready, go through him, through the Gate and into the world, taking that same love and care and peace with you to share with others, always under his watchful eye. This is real life, eternal life, more and better life than you ever dreamed of.

From Living Loved: Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul by Peter Wallace. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 16

The faith in Jesus this prayer [the Collect for Easter 4] expresses is a quality of faith we possessed as a child, wish we possessed now, and, in rare moments of spiritual vision, do possess. When in those moments we do achieve this level of faith in our Lord, we allow him to be our good shepherd. This is what Jesus wishes to be, what he always has been, and what he waits in unrelenting love and patience for us to recognize. This simplicity and sureness of faith in him as God in human flesh is what he waits for his church to recapture and rejoice in again. Whenever and wherever the church does recapture this conviction, it finds that our Lord becomes again its good shepherd. It then becomes possible for him to lead us where he wishes us to go, and to give us grace to follow him into places we sometimes do not wish to go or have the will to go.

This prayer reminds us of something else. It tells us that when we hear the voice of the good shepherd, what we hear is the most powerful of all sounds in our ears—our own name. All our lives we hear our name as we hear nothing else. We hear it called in every conceivable tone and setting, and for reasons and purposes too numerous to mention. Our name has been spoken by voices we will never forget and by voices we wish we could forget and cannot. Our name has been called lovingly, sternly, harshly, gently, angrily, seductively. We have heard it whispered passionately and shouted in exasperation.

To know that our name is on the lips of our Lord is to possess the richest intimacy with him. To know that he speaks our name gives us our ultimate sense of who we truly are. When we know truly who we are we can respond to his invitation to live fully and courageously. As this prayer calls us to do, we become capable of following where he leads.

From Prayers for the Breaking of Bread: Meditations on the Collects of the Church Year by Herbert O’Driscoll (Cowley Publications, 1991).

Daily Reading for April 17

As long as we are alive, we are on the move. To become static is to stagnate and die. It is necessary for all living things to move and grow and change. Life is meant to be an adventure; change is a gift that we have to learn to use aright. In Celtic folk-tales a curse that could happen to a person was to enter a field and not to be able to get back out of it. To be stuck in that place for ever. It was seen as a definite curse to be unable to venture or to change. Yet we all know this experience in some small way; we all get ourselves stuck in routines and habits that can act like shackles. We all refuse to open our eyes to the vision that is before us; too often we select only what we want to see. In the same way we restrict what we hear and what we respond to. The open gate is the opposite to this. It is the invitation to adventure and to grow, the call to be among the living and vital elements of the world. The open gate is the call to explore new areas of yourself and the world around you. It is a challenge to come and discover that the world and ourselves are filled with mystery and with the glory of God. It is the ever present call to become pilgrims for the love of God, to take part in a romance that will enrich our hearts and our lives.

From The Open Gate: Celtic Prayers for Growing Spiritually by David Adam. Copyright © 1995. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 18

The open gate is the choice that God is always placing before us. It is a sign of the opportunity that is ours. It is to do with our basic freedom; we can choose to go that way or to ignore it and go along another path. We should look upon the open gate as a way to extend ourselves and our vision. Here we can see further and reach beyond where we have been before. It may take a great deal of discipline to get off the old familiar track and to break with old habits, but in return it offers the excitement of new ground and new vistas. What we have to learn is to recognize when an open gate is presented to us. There are many gates, physical, mental and spiritual, through which we can travel to the ‘other world’, or, as I would prefer, ‘to a greater vision of this world of ours.’ There are always deeper levels of reality to explore. To accept open gates is to accept the role of a frontiersperson, an adventurer going where no one has gone before. Yet there are those who have made like journeys, taken similar adventures, so we are not without guides and fellow travelers. Just as when you go to a new country you can buy a guidebook to help you to get around, so in the venture of life, you can get advice and direction from those who have traveled before and direction from those who have traveled before you. When you make this venture, you will discover riches that you never dreamed of. St. Brendan of Birr says, ‘If you become Christ’s you will stumble upon wonder upon wonder and every one of them true.’ We need to discover that Christ has opened up for us the gate of glory.

From The Open Gate: Celtic Prayers for Growing Spiritually by David Adam. Copyright © 1995. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 19 • Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Martyr, 1012

In this year,[1011] between the Nativity of St. Mary and Michaelmas, they beset Canterbury, and entered therein through treachery; for Elfmar delivered the city to them, whose life Archbishop Elfeah [Alphege] formerly saved. And there they seized Archbishop Elfeah, and Elfward the king’s steward, and Abbess Leofruna, and Bishop Godwin; and Abbot Elfmar they suffered to go away. And they took therein all the men, and husbands, and wives; and it was impossible for any man to say how many they were; and in the city they continued afterwards as long as they would. And, when they had surveyed all the city, they then returned to their ships, and led the archbishop with them.

Then was a captive
he who before was
of England head
and Christendom; —
there might be seen

great wretchedness,
where oft before
great bliss was seen,
in the fated city,
whence first to us
came Christendom,
and bliss ’fore God
and ’fore the world.

And the archbishop they kept with them until the time when they martyred him.

A.D. 1012. This year came Alderman Edric, and all the oldest counsellors of England, clerk and laity, to London before Easter, which was then on the ides of April; and there they abode, over Easter, until all the tribute was paid, which was 48,000 pounds. Then on the Saturday was the army much stirred against the bishop; because he would not promise them any fee, and forbade that any man should give anything for him. They were also much drunken; for there was wine brought them from the south. Then took they the bishop, and led him to their hustings, on the eve of the Sunday after Easter, which was the thirteenth before the calends of May; and there they then shamefully killed him. They overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk downwards with the blow; and his holy blood fell on the earth, whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of God. The corpse in the morning was carried to London; and the bishops, Ednoth and Elfhun, and the citizens, received him with all honour, and buried him in St. Paul’s minster; where God now showeth this holy martyr’s miracles. When the tribute was paid, and the peace-oaths were sworn, then dispersed the army as widely as it was before collected. Then submitted to the king five and forty of the ships of the enemy; and promised him, that they would defend this land, and he should feed and clothe them.

From The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Part 3: A.D. 920-1014, Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #17; http://omacl.org/Anglo/part3.html

Daily Reading for April 20 • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

The disciples were simple people. They were ordinary folks who worked for a living, paid bills, and had to fulfill all the mundane responsibilities of life. Some were married and had to take care of those relationships properly. A few certainly must have had children. They had all the ingredients for the recipe of ordinary, everyday people.

Just like us.

But Jesus called them. He called them to follow him, to be with him and learn from him. He called them to see him heal and touch and transform people’s lives and to hear him teach amazingly simple yet startlingly counterintuitive truths.

Just as he has called us.

So, the disciples followed him, and they were amazed to see Jesus’ astonishing works, to hear his challenging words. They’d never seen anyone do things like this. But Jesus told them that they would not only do the same work he did, but “even greater things.”

Greater things than Jesus did? It’s hard to believe. Yet Jesus really only touched the lives of a handful of people in a very small area of the planet. The disciples who followed him, and those who followed them even until today, have made an impact on the entire world, sharing the message of God’s loving forgiveness and gracious acceptance in word and deed. As a result of their simple acts of obedience, the world is a different place.

Jesus’ words are meant for us too. He challenges us to follow him, to do even greater things for him. It’s not about who we are—our personality or gifts or background. It’s about how willing we are. How touched we are by Jesus’ love. How filled we are by his Spirit.

So, what’s stopping you? Even greater things await you.

From Living Loved: Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul by Peter Wallace. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 21 • Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1109

In the year 1109, on the Wednesday in Holy Week, the Archbishop of Canterbury lay dying. His friends, knowing that they were at the death-bed of a saint, were ready to improve the occasion: ‘My lord and father,’ they said, ‘we cannot help knowing that you are going to leave the world to be at the Easter court of your king.’ But Anselm was not to be caught by pieties and sentimentalities. His reply is the key to his life and a way to begin to understand him: ‘And indeed,’ he replied, ‘if His will is set upon this I will gladly obey His will. However, if He would prefer me to stay among you, at least until I can settle a question about the origin of the soul which I am turning over in my mind, I should welcome this with gratitude, for I do not know whether anyone will solve it when I am dead.’

There is in this reply first the obedience of the monk—a joyful love of whatever might be God’s will for him. And secondly a true estimate of his own intellectual powers as a scholar, without false humility; a mind still employed to its utmost in understanding the things of God for the sake of the people of God. . . .

As a monk Anselm understood theology to be the dynamic reflection upon mysteries already accepted and believed, by which the whole person, engaging in an arduous and totally demanding task—an ascesis—would be transfigured, receiving more and more of the light which is God. Anselm was a man of profound learning and alert mind who made his intellectual genius an integral part of his commitment to God as a monk. . . . Fides quarens intellectum, or, as Hilary of Poitiers said: ‘Bestow upon us, O Lord, the meaning of words, the light of understanding, the nobility of diction, and grant that what we believe that we may also speak.’

From Anselm of Canterbury: A Monastic Scholar by Sister Benedicta Ward SLG (Fairacres Publication No. 62, 1973).

Daily Reading for April 22

O Christian soul, O soul rid of death’s burden and restored to life, O soul redeemed and liberated by the Blood of God from wretched servitude, exert thy faculties, remember how thou hast been raised, consider thy redemption and thy setting free! Ask of thyself anew what is the power that saved thee, and where it is found; make it thy business to ponder thy salvation, and thy delight to contemplate the same. Shake off disinclination, rouse thyself to effort, constrain thyself to think about these things. Enjoy the Saviour’s kindness, and let love for thy Redeemer kindle thee. Chew on his words, as on a honeycomb; suck out their flavour that is more than honey-sweet; swallow their healthful sweetness down. Chew by thinking, suck by understanding, swallow by loving and rejoicing. Chew happily, suck thankfully, swallow delightedly.

What, then, is the power and might that saved thee, and where is it found? Christ raised thee up from death, assuredly; he was the Good Samaritan who healed thee; he was the Good Friend who laid down his own life to buy thee back and set thee free. Christ, I say. The power that saved thee, therefore, is the power of Christ.

From “A Meditation on Human Redemption” by Anselm of Canterbury, in Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm (Mowbrays, 1952).

Daily Reading for April 23

The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb. You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide. Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.

He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death. What is left now is the emptiness. There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.

From “Easter” in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith by Frederick Buechner (HarperSanFrancisco, 2004).

Daily Reading for April 24

The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man’s life; and until he has realized it he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers. It is therefore the function of practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the total efficiency, the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to practice it. It will help them to enter, more completely than ever before, into the life of the group to which they belong. It will teach them to see the world in a truer proportion, discerning eternal beauty beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. It will educate them in a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism; it will confer on them an unconquerable hope; and assure them that still, in the hour of greatest desolation, “There lives the dearest freshness of deep down things.”

From Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, quoted in Wisdom of the Cloister: A Monastic Reader, edited by John Skinner (Image Books, 1999).

Daily Reading for April 25 • St. Mark the Evangelist

The authors of the New Testament were very much like the scribes who would later transmit those authors’ writings. The authors too were human beings with needs, beliefs, worldviews, opinions, loves, hates, longings, desires, situations, problems—and surely all these things affected what they wrote. They too were Christians who had inherited traditions about Jesus and his teachings, who had learned about the Christian message of salvation, who had come to believe in the truth of the gospel—and they too passed along the traditions of their writings. . . . Matthew, in fact, is not exactly like Mark; Mark is not the same as Luke; or Luke as John; or John as Paul; or Paul as James. Just as scribes modified the words of the tradition, by sometimes putting these words “in other words,” so too had the authors of the New Testament itself, telling their stories, giving their instructions, and recording their recollections by using their own words (not just the words they had heard), words that they came up with to pass along their message in ways that seemed most appropriate for the audience and the time and place for which they were writing. . . .

The point is that Luke changed the tradition he inherited. Readers completely misinterpret Luke if they fail to realize this—as happens, for example, when they assume that Mark and Luke are in fact saying the same thing about Jesus. If they are not saying the same thing, it is not legitimate to assume they are—for example, by taking what Mark says, and taking what Luke says, then taking what Matthew and John say and melding them all together, so that Jesus says and does all the things that each of the Gospel writers indicates. Anyone who interprets the Gospels this way is not letting each author have his own say; anyone who does this is not reading what the author wrote in order to understand his message; anyone who does this is not reading the Gospels themselves—he or she is making up a new Gospel consisting of the four in the New Testament, a new Gospel that is not like any of the ones that have come down to us.

From Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).

Daily Reading for April 26

Given the reality of medieval office politics (as real for us in the twenty-first century as it was in the thirteenth), Hadewijch offered two main pieces of advice: “be on your guard against instability” and “never abandon the true life of good works.” Hadewijch seems to understand how easy it is to lose one’s center, and how detrimental that can be to one’s spirituality. She writes, “For there is nothing so able and so quick to separate you from our Lord as instability.” As an antidote, she gives us a sort of mantra with a warning attached.

“Whatever troubles may come to you, do not commit the folly of believing that you are set for any other goal than the great God Himself, in the fullness of His being and His love; do not let folly or doubt deflect you from any good practice which can lead you to this goal. If you will confide yourself to His love, you will soon grow to your full stature, but if you persist in doubting, you will become sluggish and grudging, and everything which you ought to do will be a burden to you. Let nothing trouble you [as Teresa of Avila will also advise three centuries later], do not believe that anything which you must do for Him whom you seek will be beyond your strength, that you cannot surmount it, that it will be beyond you. This is the fervor, this is the zeal which you must have, and all the time your strength must grow.”

From Wisdom from the Middle Ages for Middle-Aged Women by Lisa B. Hamilton. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 27 • The Sixth Sunday of Easter

If you love me, Jesus says, you will do something and I will do something. You will do what I have set out for you to do: Love one another. Serve others humbly. Reach out to those in need. Be an agent of healing and life. And, if you love me, I will provide you with another Friend. I will not be with you in the flesh, but Someone will be with you always: the Spirit of Truth.

That’s quite a love gift.

So often we leave a token of our love for someone when we have to be away from them—a card, a stuffed animal, a piece of jewelry or a book that means something to us. I still have Taffy, the stuffed toy dog my parents gave me when I was five years old and had to stay alone in a children’s hospital—something to hug in their absence. But Jesus gives us something beyond our wildest imaginings: He gives us the very presence of God in the form of the Spirit. As a child of God and lover of Jesus, you have God’s Spirit with you, within you, and around you at all times.

You can’t see him. The world certainly is unable to see him. But you can know the Spirit is with you and in you, holding you up, giving you strength, showing you the road ahead, filling you with peace and purpose and love. The Spirit helps you do what Jesus has told you to do, to share and to serve. You aren’t on your own. You have a constant companion, a Friend to help you and guide you.

You can plumb the depths of even the simplest pronouncements of Jesus about the love relationship you share with him and still feel as though you never touch bottom. Understanding it—living it—requires a lifetime. But it all starts with your love for Jesus. And it will never end.

From Living Loved: Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul by Peter Wallace. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for April 28

The wisdom of the cross was, then, the disclosure not only of human morality but of divine love. Placing this at the center of his description of what Christ had done by his life and his death, Peter Abelard, in a sermonic essay entitled “The Cross,” emphasized that the love of God in Christ lay beyond “our own power to share in the passion of Jesus by our suffering and to follow him by carrying our own cross.” Therefore he insisted that it was unfair to accuse him of teaching that Christ had only provided an example for our imitation, as though such imitation were possible for the powers of an unaided human nature to achieve. On the contrary, the fundamental meaning of the wisdom of the cross was that contained in the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Such love had its ground and origin only in God; but from God it came to humanity, and it did so through the cross. For “by the faith which we have concerning Christ, love is increased in us, through the conviction that God in Christ has united our nature to himself and that by suffering in that nature he has demonstrated to us the supreme love of which he speaks.” Nowhere else but in Jesus and in his cross was the true nature of love visible. The purpose of the cross, therefore, was to bring about a change in sinners, to thaw their frozen hearts with the warmth of the sunshine of divine love. Christ did not die on the cross to change the mind of God (which, like everything about God, was unchangeable), but to “reveal the love [of God] to us or to convince us how much we ought to love him ‘who did not spare even his own Son’ for us.” True love was self-sacrificing love, and God had demonstrated it uniquely by giving up his own Son to the death of the cross. This exhibited the authentic nature of love and the depth of divine love, thus making human love, even self-sacrificing human love, possible.

From Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan (Perennial Library, 1985).

Daily Reading for April 29 • Catherine of Siena

A common trick a lot of midlife women play on ourselves is to feel, and act, responsible for everything. But Jesus, via Catherine of Siena, doesn’t recommend this: “I in my providence did not give to any one person or to each individually the knowledge for doing everything necessary for human life. No, I gave something to one, something else to another, so that each one’s need would be a reason to have recourse to the other.” In other words, there’s a divine plan for us to need each other. So don’t go trying to do everything for everybody all at once. Treat your psyche with care—mental illness is not in the divine plan for you.

Even Catherine of Siena felt overwhelmed sometimes, and tried to protect herself. Apparently, at least once she did so by retreating to the roof. Some local parents were worried that their baby was possessed by demons, so they set out to ask Catherine for help. When Catherine saw the three on their way to her cottage, she felt so overwhelmed that she hid herself on the roof, muttering all the while, “Alas, every day I am tormented by evil spirits: Do you think I want somebody else’s?” On Catherine’s less stressful days, she poked fun at the devil, calling him “the Old Pickpocket.” Then, as now, the devil could steal enjoyment of life from you—and one of Catherine’s strategies to keep him at bay was humor. . . . Clearly, Catherine viewed the incessant demands that could lead to depression, anxiety, and mental illness as the work of the devil. And she was determined to remain sane.

From Wisdom from the Middle Ages for Middle-Aged Women by Lisa B. Hamilton. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for April 30

The followers of Jesus came very early to the conclusion that he had lived in order to die, that his death was not the interruption of his life at all but its ultimate purpose. Even by the most generous reading, the Gospels give us information about less than a hundred days in the life of Jesus; but for the last two or three days of his life, they provide a detailed, almost hour-by-hour scenario. And the climax of that scenario is the account of Good Friday and of his three hours on the cross. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed recognized this when they moved directly from his birth “from the Virgin Mary” to his crucifixion “under Pontius Pilate.” What was said of the thane of Cawdor in Macbeth was true preeminently of Jesus: “Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving of it.”

From Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan (Perennial Library, 1985).