Daily Reading for March 1 • The First Sunday in Lent

Soon after Jesus had been baptized, he performed a fast of forty days by himself, and he taught and informed us by his example that, after we have received forgiveness of sins in baptism, we should devote ourselves to vigils, fasts, prayers and other spiritually fruitful things, lest when we are sluggish and less vigilant the unclean spirit expelled from our heart by baptism may return, and finding us fruitless in spiritual riches, weigh us down again with a sevenfold pestilence, and our last state would then be worse than the first. Let us be wary that we do not relight the fires of old obsessions which would wreck us on our new voyage. Whatever sort of flaming sword it is that guards the doorway of paradise has been already effectively extinguished for each of the faithful in the font of baptism. For the unfaithful, however, the gate remains always formidable, and also for those falsely called faithful though they have not been chosen, since they have no fear of entangling themselves in sins after baptism. It is as though the same fire put out in baptism has been rekindled after it had been once extinguished.

From Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for March 2 • Chad, Bishop of Lichfield, 672

One day Chad was alone in his house with a brother whose name was Owini, his other companions having had occasion to return to the church. This Owini was a monk of great merit, who had renounced the world with the pure intention of winning a heavenly reward, so that he was altogether a fit person to receive a revelation of God’s secrets, and one whose word everyone could trust. He had accompanied Queen Etheldreda from the province of the East Angles, and had been her chief thane and steward of her household. Growing in devotion to the Faith, he decided to renounce the world, which he did in no half-hearted fashion; for he rid himself so completely of worldly ties that he abandoned all his possessions, put on a simple garment, and carrying in his hand an axe and an adze, set off for the reverend father Chad’s monastery at Lastingham. This he did to show that he was entering the monastery not for the sake of an idle life, as some do, but in order to work, and he demonstrated this in practice; for since he found himself less able to meditate on the Scriptures with profit, he undertook a larger amount of manual labour. In short, recognizing his reverence and devotion, the bishop admitted him to his house among the brethren; and whenever they were engaged in study, he used to busy himself in essential tasks out of doors.

One day, while Owini was working outside and the other brethren had departed to the church, the bishop was reading and praying alone in his oratory. Suddenly, he heard the sound of sweet and joyful singing coming down from heaven to earth. . . . He listened with rapt attention to what he heard, and after about half an hour he heard the song of joy rise from the roof of the oratory, and return to heaven as it had come with inexpressible sweetness. Owini stood astonished for a while, turning over in his mind what this might portend, when the bishop threw open the oratory window and, clapping his hands, as he often used to do if someone was outside, summoned him indoors. When he hurried in, the bishop said: ‘Go at once to the church, and fetch these seven brethren here, and come back with them yourself.’ On their arrival, he first urged them to live in love and peace with each other and with all the faithful, and to be constant and tireless in keeping the rules of monastic discipline that he had taught them and they knew him to observe. . . . He then announced that his own death was drawing near, saying: ‘The welcome guest who has visited many of our brethren has come to me today, and has deigned to summon me out of this world. Therefore return to the church, and ask the brethren to commend my passing to our Lord in their prayers. And let each prepare for his own passing by vigils, prayers, and good deeds; for no man knows the hour of his death.’ Having said this and much besides, he gave them his blessing, and they left him sadly.

From A History of the English Church and People by Bede, translated by Leo Sherley-Price (Penguin Books, 1968).

Daily Reading for March 3 • John and Charles Wesley, Priests, 1791, 1788

[John] Wesley’s friend and fellow preacher George Whitefield had begun preaching in the open air to anyone who would stop to listen, and he appealed to Wesley for assistance. Preaching out of doors was not an idea Wesley took to immediately. “I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he [Whitefield] set me an example this Sunday,” Wesley wrote on March 29, 1739. “I had been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.” But Wesley, like Whitefield, had a passion to preach, so he preached his first outdoor sermon on April 2, 1739—“I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation,” he wrote. Thus began a half century of preaching, three and four times a day, never repeating a sermon, in fields, highways, streets, and village squares, in churches when invited, wherever he could gather a crowd. And gather them he did, often in the thousands. . . .

Wesley’s problems with the Church of England did not diminish once he took to the open air. . . . In a time of massive social upheaval, with factories opening, agriculture declining, and city populations rising rapidly, vast numbers of people among the poor and laboring classes had never heard the Christian gospel and were entirely untouched by the ministry of the established church. These were the people Wesley was reaching. The problem was not so much ill will on the part of church authorities as that the Church of England was set up to maintain an existing system rather than to adapt to a new social reality.

From “John Wesley: Outside Agitator,” quoted in Glorious Companions: Five Centuries of Anglican Spirituality by Richard H. Schmidt (Eerdmans, 2002).

Daily Reading for March 4 • David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544 (transferred from March 1)

Pilgrim, faint and tempest-beaten,
Lift thy gaze, behold and know
Christ the Lamb, our Mediator,
Robed in vestments trailing low;
Faithfulness his golden girdle;
Bells upon his garments ring
Free salvation for the sinner
Through his priceless offering.

Think on this when to your ankles
Scarce the healing waters rise—
Numberless shall be the cubits
Measured to you in the skies.
Children of the resurrection,
They alone can venture here;
Yet they find no shore, no bottom
To Bethesda’s waters clear.

O the deeps of our salvation!
Mystery of godliness!
He, the God of gods, appearing
In our fleshly human dress;
He it is who bore God’s anger,
In our place atonement made,
Until Justice cried ‘Release him,
Now the debt if fully paid’.

Blessed hour of rest eternal,
Home at last, all labours o’er;
Sea of wonders never sounded,
Sea where none can find a shore;
Access free to dwell for ever
Yonder with the One in Three;
Deeps no foot of man can traverse—
God and Man in unity.

A hymn by Ann Griffiths, eighteenth-century Welsh Methodist mystic and poet, quoted in Songs to Her God: Spirituality of Ann Griffiths by A. M. Allchin (Cowley Publications, 1987).

Daily Reading for March 5

“Once upon a time,” an ancient story tells, “the master had a visitor who came to inquire about Zen. But instead of listening, the visitor kept talking about his own concerns and giving his own thoughts. After a while, the master served tea. He poured tea into his visitor’s cup until it was full and then he kept on pouring. Finally the visitor could not bear it any longer. ‘Don’t you see that my cup is full?’ he said. ‘It’s not possible to get anymore in.’ ‘Just so,’ the master said, stopping at last. ‘And like this cup you are filled with your own ideas. How can you expect me to give you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’”

A monastic Lent is the process of emptying our cups. Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the spiritual stamina to say yes to its twists and turns with faith and hope. . . . Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.

From The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages by Joan Chittister (Crossroad, 1996).

Daily Reading for March 6

Listening to your heart is not simple. Finding out who you are is not simple. It takes a lot of hard work and courage to get to know who you are and what you want. I never knew what to say if someone asked me at a party, “What do you do?” Artist, writer, therapist, wife, mother—I would be judged by the label I chose. The Amish make no distinction. No one is labeled cook, quilter, or housewife. In fact, standing out would be a sign of false pride. I remembered Miriam saying, “Making a batch of vegetable soup, it’s not right for the carrot to say I taste better than the peas, or the pea to say I taste better than the cabbage. It takes all the vegetables to make a good soup!” . . .

“The first principle of a warrior is not being afraid of who you are,” a wise Tibetan leader once said. I was beginning to feel what he meant. And I have another choice—to accept what I didn’t get to choose. I could have wished for a calmer nature and on and on, a very long list, but what I finally get to choose is that tiny space between all the givens. In that tiny space is freedom. . . .

The need to be special and stand out, the need for communality, to be part of the whole, the hunger to belong, to be one among the many—these equally competing, conflicting values are all part of me. All the contradictions are still there. I still feel the pulls. I don’t want to go and live on a farm, but I long for a simpler life. To reconcile these seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is my constant challenge.

From Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989).

Daily Reading for March 7 • Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 202

Early Christians were all supposed to be martyrs—witnesses—although not all were expected to die. . . . The eagerness with which many early Christians sought a public occasion to give witness indicates that they had already been primed, indeed trained, for the opportunity. It is also likely that they already understood this giving witness in sacrificial terms, so that their witness became a ritual occasion—a sacrificial liturgy parallel to, and with some of the same effects as, the eucharist. Out of this ritual of exaltation in which a martyr became a saint grew the devotion to the saints in early Christianity, along with their relics and the public cycle of ceremonies devoted to their memories.

Early Christian authors, and the martyrs themselves, thus followed Jewish precedent when they construed martyrdoms as liturgical acts, offerings of themselves to God as redemptive sacrifices on their own behalf and on behalf of their congregation (and, indeed, of all humanity) that likewise provided a means for ascending to the throne of God in the manner of previous Jewish prophets and visionaries. What is new in early Christianity is the way in which these martyrdoms are understood as the appropriation of the identity of another through mimesis, thus accomplishing a mass or common exaltation in Jesus. The way of ascent and exaltation is thereby opened not just to a priesthood or restricted class of trained visionaries, but potentially to every Christian. . . . Martyrs, through their actions and the narratives about them, became the quintessential representatives of Christian identity. They blazed a trail into death and the kingdom of God and were understood to mediate God’s favors while they served the community and stood as exemplars of brave faith. . . .

The unordained, sometimes unlearned martyrs were frequently viewed as direct rivals of the bishops, as we see in the works of Cyprian of Carthage, whose authority was challenged by those preparing for martyrdom, or in the dream of Perpetua, in which the bishop abases himself before her as a sign of her higher authority as martyr. The social position of the martyrs, therefore, could be described as inherently ambiguous: selected by the divine will rather than by membership in a socially restrictive association, not required to be learned or even literate, not restricted to wealthy male citizens, martyrs were still, in most Christian textual sources, regarded as the most completely or faithfully Christian members of the church.

From “Martyrdom as Exaltation” by Robin Darling Young, in Late Ancient Christianity, edited by Virginia Burrus, volume 2 in the series A People’s History of Christianity (Fortress Press, 2005).

Daily Reading for March 8 • The Second Sunday in Lent

These are the words of Jesus taken from St Mark’s Gospel: ‘Anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind; he must take up his cross and come with me.’ Now we meditate to do just that: to obey that absolutely fundamental call Jesus makes, which is the basis of all our Christian faith, to leave self behind in order that we can indeed journey with Christ in His return to the Father. . . .

In our own day we have perhaps lost our understanding of what it really means to renounce self. Self-renunciation is not an experience with which our contemporaries are familiar or which they even understand very clearly, mainly because the tendency of our society is to emphasize the importance of self-promotion, self-preservation, self-projection. The materialism of our consumer society puts ‘What I want’ at the centre of our life, and it renders ‘the other’ merely an object which we see in terms of our own pleasure or advantage. But the other is only really Other if approached with reverence for itself and in itself. We must learn to pay complete attention to it and not to its effect upon us. If we begin to objectify the other then its reality, its uniqueness, and essential value escape us and it becomes not the other, but a projection of ourselves. . . .

We can only turn to the Other, we can only make this movement of self, if we leave self behind, that is, if we take our consciousness away from its involvement with me and direct it on the thou. Self-obsession is the means of restricting and limiting the self. Self-renunciation, on the other hand, is the means of liberating the self for its real purpose which is loving the Other.

From “Leaving Self Behind” by John Main, quoted in Word into Silence by John Main OSB (Paulist Press, 1981).

Daily Reading for March 9 • Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, c. 394

Now the divine nature, as it is in itself, according to its essence, transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and it cannot be approached or attained by our speculation. Men have never discovered a faculty to comprehend the incomprehensible; nor have we ever been able to devise an intellectual technique for grasping the inconceivable. For this reason the great Apostle calls God’s ways ‘unsearchable’, teaching us by this that the way that leads to the knowledge of the divine nature is inaccessible to our reason; and hence none of those who have lived before us has given us the slightest hint of comprehension suggesting that we might know that which in itself is above all knowledge.

Such then is God whose essence is above every nature, invisible, incomprehensible. Yet he can be seen and apprehended in another way, and the ways of this apprehension are numerous. For we can see him, who has ‘made all things in wisdom’, by the process of inference through the wisdom that is reflected in the universe. It is just as in human works of art, where the mind can in a sense see the author of the ordered structure that is before it, inasmuch as he has left his artistry in his work. But notice that what we see here is not the substance of the craftsman, but merely the artistic skill that he has impressed in his work. So too, when we consider the order of creation, we form an image not of substance but of the wisdom of him who has done all things wisely.

From the On the Beatitudes, sermon 6 by Gregory of Nyssa, quoted in Spiritual Classics from the Early Church, an anthology compiled and introduced by Robert Atwell, OSB (London: National Society / Church House Publishing, 1995).

Daily Reading for March 10

The desert witnesses to the confrontation with God in terrible simplicity, it is the ‘primal scriptural symbol of the absence of all human aid and comfort’. Here, in the experience of waste and emptiness, of liberation through and from oppression, Christians have seen the foreshadowing of the redeeming work of God in Christ. The Exodus thus holds a central place in Christian liturgy and spirituality as we celebrate and experience inwardly our own deliverance from bondage. So St Gregory of Nyssa told his hearers: “Cross the Jordan, hasten towards the new life in Christ, to the land that bears fruit in happiness, flowing with milk and honey, according to the promise. Overthrow Jericho, your former way of life!. . . All these things are figures of the reality which is now made manifest.”

From Experiencing God: Theology as Spirituality by Kenneth Leech (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985).

Daily Reading for March 11

There are many voices competing for our attention in the world today—our families, our coworkers, the homeless and hungry, our politicians. We hear voices hounding us to buy more goods and services, voices instilling fear, hopeful voices, cynical voices, vengeful voices, our own voice of self-preservation. Which voices will we heed? Which words will become the springboards of our action and the source of our vision? I know how easy it is to become torn and scattered in a world of constant and often conflicting voices. My vision may become blurred with such competition for my heart. There are times when I feel imprisoned and voiceless in the midst of the endless demands for my commitment and loyalty. With so much demanding my attention and needing resolution, I often wonder where my place is. I sometimes feel helpless and powerless in the wake of the world’s needs. I must have the courage to stay the course when Jesus invites me, saying, “Make my word your home.”

It all begins in the silence of being present to God. The venue is my open and listening heart. Jesus said, “Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.” My goal is not success in holiness. It is longing to be faithful to the truth of Jesus’ words, regardless of the outcome. In the silence of prayer I have learned the meaning of perfect freedom, the only source of joy. It is what Jesus described as “abundant life,” but it is not a “possession.” Gregory of Nyssa, an early Christian mystic, bishop, and theologian of the church, learned from his own experience that life with God is never fully defined or completed; he speaks of the soul “continually making fresh discoveries.” God’s love for us is always expanding before our eyes and our desire for God is a never-ending journey. Prayer is a limitless vocation to live deeper and deeper into the mystery of God and our own authentic humanity. It is living with enthusiasm, in God.

From Come and See: The Transformation of Personal Prayer by David Keller. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 12 • Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, 604

Gregory the Great, writing over five hundred years after Paul, composed one of the first manuals on pastoral care and Christian leadership. This work, sent by Gregory to Leander of Seville, was highly praised and enjoyed a wide readership, including Alfred the Great and Charlemagne. Claudia Rapp writes in Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity that “with Pastoral Care, finally, we have a proper and complete manual for priests, a how-to guide for the discharge of the priestly office.” Furthermore, in the words of Bede, Gregory’s Pastoral Care “describes in clear terms the qualities essential to those who rule the Church, showing how they should live; with what discernment they should instruct their various pupils; and with what constant awareness they should daily call to mind their own frailty.”

Gregory, pope from 590 to 604 CE and credited with the conversion of England through Augustine of Canterbury, portrays a leader who is a physician of souls. As a physician of souls, the leader must “‘preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and doctrine,’ and both by precept and example guide souls in the way of salvation.” Gregory reminds leaders not to take their role lightly or to neglect the duties of their office. In order to be a physician of souls, the leader must practice what is preached and be an example to others. Bede writes with great admiration for Gregory, “for while other popes devoted themselves to building churches and adorning them with gold and silver, Gregory’s sole concern was to save souls.” In other words, Gregory’s pastoral leadership was to heal, transform, restore wholeness, and lead others into deeper relationship with God.

From “The Word of the Cross: Mission, Power, and the Theology of Leadership” by Jennifer Strawbridge, in Anglican Theological Review, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Winter 2009): 71-72.

Daily Reading for March 13 • James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, 1911

Saint Paul tells us that “that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” (1 Cor. xv., 66.) I have however reversed the order of things set forth by the apostle, and spoken of those facts first which show the spiritual claims that Haiti has upon American Christians. I come lastly to speak of the natural claims of that people upon the grateful remembrance of all patriotic American citizens.

During the revolutionary war, by which the independence of the United States was triumphantly achieved, free colored men, then colonists of France, volunteered to fight in that war of freedom. A body of them, variously estimated at from 800 to 1,100 men, took part in the battle of Savannah, Ga., in 1779, and did effective service.

Inspired by the example of the American revolutionary forefathers, they inaugurated a war of independence in Haiti, then called Santo Domingo; successfully accomplished their object, and in 1804 established the second independent nation in the new world. Having thus secured their own national independence, they next lent a helping hand to Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America; by whom five other independent nations were established in the new world. Five thousand Haitians followed Bolivar from victory to victory until this end was accomplished. Twenty-five thousand dollars were contributed by the Haitian Government to meet the necessities of that great liberator. It was only when those several independent states were established in the western hemisphere, towards the accomplishment of whose independence Haitians had so largely contributed, that it became possible to formulate the Monroe Doctrine. When Washington warned his countrymen against “entangling foreign alliances,” this advice referred only to the European wars of Napoleon, then in progress. The whole of the new world, outside of the United States, was in a colonial position. But when so many other independent states had arisen here, it became necessary to formulate a new policy to meet the situation. Monroe formulated that policy to meet those modified circumstances. Haiti had done as much as, not to say more than, any other American State to create that new situation.

This policy, thus tentatively enunciated in the Monroe Doctrine, now forms an appropriate basis on which the United States, as a great power, may claim the new world as the “sphere” of her influence, and so offset the policy of the great nations of Europe, who have agreed among themselves to bring the whole continent of Africa within their respective “spheres” of influence. This simply means that Americans do not intend quietly to submit to the application of such a policy to the new world, and that they propose to resist all incipient attempts at the same on our shores. Obsta principiis.

Aid and encouragement to organize reformed autonomous churches on the primitive basis of the Anglican Reformation, will be a powerful means to establish the sphere of influence whose watchword is, “America for the Americans.” Hence, the work to which we have put our hands in Haiti, Mexico, Cuba and Brazil, should be strengthened and prosecuted with a large-hearted, patriotic zeal; and supported with an open-handed generosity.

From chapter XII, “Claims of Haiti on the American People” in Facts about the Church’s Mission in Haiti: A Concise Statement by Bishop Holly (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1897). http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/jtholly/facts1897.html

Daily Reading for March 14

In these days then of the holy fast, let us pursue even more fruitfully the works of compassion which must always be the aim of our zeal. “We must do good to all, and especially to those of the household of the faith,” so that in the very distribution of alms also, we may imitate the goodness of the heavenly Father “who causes his sun to rise on good people as well as evil, and his rain to fall of the just and unjust alike.” Although the poverty of the faithful ought especially to be helped, still those who have not yet received the Gospel must receive mercy in their troubles. We must love the mutual participation in human nature of all people, and it ought to make us benevolent to those also who are subject to us in whatever condition, especially if they are now reborn in the same grace, and redeemed at the same price of the blood of Christ.

We have this together with them, that we are created in the image of God, and they are not separate from us in bodily origin or in spiritual birth. We are sanctified by the same Spirit, we live by the same faith, we come together to the same mysteries. Let this unity not be despised, and let not such a deep communion be cheap to us, but let this very fact make us gentler in everything, that we share their subjection and with them are subjected to the one Lord in the same service. If any of these have hurt their masters by serious offenses, let them now receive leniency in the days of reconciliation. Let pity take away harshness, and let favor destroy vengeance. Let confinement hold no one, let prisons shut no one in, for our God has promised his own mercy on this condition, that people should know that their own sins will be remitted to them only if they remit those of others. Destroy the material of dissension, dearly beloved, and the sting of enmity. Let hatred cease, let envy give way, let all the members of Christ come together in the union of love.

From Sermon 41 of Leo the Great (21 February 443), quoted in The Fathers of the Church: St. Leo the Great, Sermons, translated by Jane Patricia Freeland, C.S.J.B. and Agnes Josephine Conway, S.S.J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

Daily Reading for March 15 • The Third Sunday in Lent

At first glance Jesus’ shocking actions in the temple hardly seem loving. Yet they reveal his inexhaustible passion for his Father, a passion and zeal that drives all his actions. The Father yearns to be with his children; he seeks our company and desires that we approach him in right ways.

Jesus knew that. He also knew the ways of the temple merchants actually hindered rather than helped people worship God. God seeks a clean, pure, authentic connection with us, an open channel of relationship. But we tend to clog that connection with human-concocted rules and regulations. We get so focused on the way we approach God that we neglect to actually do the approaching.

In this case, Jesus forcefully cleans out the garbage that chokes the channel of relationship with God. This cleansing is an act of love because its purpose is to restore the direct connection between God and God’s people.

What would Jesus find in your temple—your life, your body, your mind? Would he find something that needed to be cleaned out, overturned, and chased off before you could enjoy a connection with him?

Perhaps shame hinders you from coming to God, or irrational expectations of what should and shouldn’t happen when you fall into Jesus’ embrace. Or maybe busy habits or harmful behaviors distract you from the true way. Perhaps it’s a shattered dream or a broken heart, or a confused mind or a hectic schedule. Or it may be a simple misunderstanding of how one can approach God in faith.

Experiencing Jesus’ cleansing may be painful in the moment, but it is ultimately a loving act. Because it sets things right, it reopens the way to God by cleaning out the garbage in our soul. Jesus is zealous for you, consumed by love for you. He wants you wholly. And holy.

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 March 16

For the faithful . . . Lent has a two-fold character. On the one hand, it is reparatory and restorative: the time when "all past slothfulnesses are chastised, all negligences atoned for" (Leo the Great, Sermon 39). Ideally, Leo maintains, “we should remain in God's sight always the same, as we ought to be found on the Easter feast itself.” But since few actually do so, “The Divine Providence has with great beneficence taken care that the discipline of the forty days should heal us and restore the purity of our minds, during which the faults of other times might be redeemed by pious acts and removed by chaste fasting” (Sermon 40). On the other hand, it affords opportunity for the virtuous to penetrate more deeply into that ever new life which knows no bounds. Because no one “is so perfect and holy as not to be able to be more perfect and more holy, let us all together,” urges Leo, “without difference of rank, without distinction of desert, with pious eagerness pursue our race from what we have attained to what we yet aspire to, and make some needful addition to our regular devotions” (Sermon 39). In either case the Christian must be ready for combat, trial, and strife, since the enemy of salvation grows more hostile as his reign is threatened. In this way the forty days become a period of spiritual warfare, a theme which Leo develops vividly on the first Sunday. “As we approach then, dearly beloved, the beginning of Lent, which is a time for the more careful serving of the Lord, because we are, as it were entering on a kind of contest in good works, let us prepare our souls for fighting with temptations, and understand that the more zealous we are for our salvation, the more determined must be the assaults of our opponents” (Sermon 49).

From Patrick Regan, O.S.B., “The Three Days and the Forty Days,” reprinted in Maxwell Johnson, editor, Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000).

Daily Reading for March 17 • Patrick, Bishop and Missionary of Ireland, 461

There is no other God,
there never was and there never will be,
than God the Father,
unbegotten and without beginning,
the Lord of the Universe,
as we have been taught,
and His son, Jesus Christ,
whom we declare to have always been with the Father
and to have been begotten spiritually by the Father
in a way that baffles description,
before the beginning of the world,
before all beginning;
and by Him are made all things
visible and invisible.

He was made man, defeated death
and was received into heaven by the Father,
who has given Him power over all names
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth;
and every tongue will acknowledge to Him
that Jesus Christ is the Lord God.
We believe in Him
and we look for His coming soon
as judge of the living and the dead
who will treat everyone according to their deeds.

He has poured out the Holy Spirit upon us in abundance:
the gift and guarantee of eternal life,
who makes those who believe and obey
children of God and joint heirs with Christ.

We acknowledge and adore Him as one God
in the Trinity of the Holy Name.

A Declaration of Faith attributed to Patrick, quoted in Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community (New York: HarperOne, 2002).

Daily Reading for March 18 • Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, 386

After [the Lord’s Prayer] the Priest says, “Holy things to holy men.” Holy are the gifts presented, having received the visitation of the Holy Ghost; holy are ye also, having been deemed worthy of the Holy Ghost; the holy things therefore correspond to the holy persons. Then ye say, “One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ.” For One is truly holy, by nature holy; we too are holy, but not by nature, only by participation, and discipline, and prayer.

After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate—no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ.

In approaching therefore, come not with thy wrists extended, or thy fingers spread; but make thy left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed thy palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen. . . .Then after thou hast partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth thine hands, but bending and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen, hallow thyself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ. And while the moisture is still upon thy lips, touch it with thine hands, and hallow thine eyes and brow and the other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks unto God, who hath accounted thee worthy of so great mysteries.

From Lecture XXIII (On the Mysteries.V): "On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion" by Cyril of Jerusalem. Quoted in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.xxvii.html

Daily Reading for March 19 • St. Joseph

We know little of Joseph. There were dramatic moments in his life, of course: Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, the temple episode, but my feeling at least is that for the essential Joseph, the body and substance of his life was in the ordinary, simple, working, family life in Nazareth. The child and his mother depended on him for food, a home, love, basic education, a place in the social fabric of their village. He seems to have been a simple man, hidden in his ordinariness, “only” Joseph the carpenter. He did not have any part in Christ’s public life of preaching. It would seem he was dead by then. More profoundly, his contribution to Christ’s work was situated at another level, at the level of his personal relationship with Christ, what he gave of himself to the human person of Jesus. We know how important this is in the development of the personality. Judging by the fruits, he loved much and wisely.

As a Brother, your contribution to the body of Christ which is the Church will have some of the same characteristics. It will be simple yet essential. It will be very much incarnated, yet the fruit of the Spirit. It will be concerned with the material well-being of a small group of Christ’s disciples, yet it will be Jesus whom you will serve in them. Its truth will be plain to see, verifiable in a very concrete obedience, effort, humility and charity, yet it will receive all its energy from within, from a deep, personal love of Christ and a willingness to carry the burdens of his cross as they present themselves in the vicissitudes of real life. Prayer and work will be inextricably interwoven in the silent world of the monastery, not the silence of absence of life, but the harmonious silence of well-ordered activity. Like Mary and Joseph you will follow the way, not of riches or power, but the humble hidden path of Nazareth and so enter, day by day, more deeply into the kingdom of God.

From “Receiving the Habit of a Converse Brother” in The Spirit of the Place by a Carthusian prior, quoted in Wisdom of the Cloister: A Monastic Reader, edited by John Skinner (Image Books, 1999).

Daily Reading for March 20 • Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 687

Always keep God’s peace and love among you, and when you have to seek guidance about your affairs, take great care to be of one mind. Live in mutual good-will also with Christ’s other servants, and do not despise Christians who come to you for hospitality, but see that you welcome them, give them accommodation, and send them on their way with friendship and kindness.

Cuthbert’s last words, quoted in A Holy Island Prayer Book: Morning, Midday, and Evening Prayer by Ray Simpson. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 21 • Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1711

Glory be to Thee, O heavenly Father, for first loving us, and giving the dearest thing Thou hadst for us: O help me to love again, and to think nothing too dear for Thee.

I believe, O my God, that Thou art a Spirit most pure and holy, and infinite in all perfections, in power, in knowledge, and goodness; that Thou art eternal, immutable; and omnipresent: all love, all glory be to Thee.

I believe Thy divine nature, O my God, to be in all respects amiable, to be amiableness in itself, to be love itself; and therefore I love, I admire, I praise, I fear, and I adore Thee. Thou, Lord, art my hope, my trust, my life, my joy, my glory, my God, my all, my love. . . .

I believe, O Thou communicative goodness, that Thou dost preserve, and sustain, and protect, and bless all things Thou hast made, suitably to the natures Thou has given them: all love, all glory, be to Thee.

I believe, O mighty wisdom, that Thou dost most sweetly order, and govern, and dispose all things; even the most minute; even the very sins of men, to conspire in Thy glory; O do Thou conduct my whole life, steer every motion of my soul, towards the great end of our creation, to love and to glorify Thee. . . .

Thy works, O Lord, are wonderful and amiable. I love, and admire, and praise Thy universal providence over the whole world: the perpetual flux of Thy goodness on every creature: all glory be to Thee. . . .

The longer I live, O my God, the more reason I have to love Thee, because every day supplies me with fresh experiments and new motives of Thy manifold love to me: and therefore all love, all glory, be to Thee.

From “An Exposition of the Church Catechism,” in The Prose Works of the Right Reverend Thomas Ken, D.D., collected and edited by the Rev. William Benham, B.D. (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1889).

Daily Reading for March 22 • The Fourth Sunday in Lent

For the prescribed forty days coincide in time with that season of the year when nature experiences a thaw; it is the business of fasting to produce a thaw in our soul. This is not a coincidence. God is sketching His will for us through the living motions of nature. The earth during the appointed forty days rids itself of winter’s harshness and is cut through by the plough that it might become suitable for earthly crops. We, during the forty days, give up the harshness of sin; fasting digs up our earth to render it receptive to heavenly seeds. And just as this is the season for the young twig of a tree to become fruitful and for new branches to produce buds so also at this time man’s lifeless hope revives and lost faith is restored to glory. Nature adorns herself with blossoms and seems to honor the great feast day with her splendor. We, likewise, should now produce roses from our thorns, that is, justice instead of sin, compassion in place of sternness, and instead of avarice, liberality. Only by fasting can we be free of the thorns of our sins. For fasting produces chastity, humility and moderation—the blossoms of our life which blossoms Christ finds fragrant.

From Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, quoted in Liturgical Practice in the Fathers by Thomas K. Carroll and Thomas Halton (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1988).

Daily Reading for March 23 • Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop and Missionary of Armenia, c. 332

Prayer Before Meals

The head of the table says:
O Christ our God, bless this food and this drink of your servants with a spiritual blessing, and make us healthy in soul and body; so that as we enjoy the food our bodies require in the modesty appropriate to our religious calling, we may share in your infinite blessings, and in the kingdom of heaven, together with your saints. So that in thanksgiving, we may glorify you, with the Father and with the all-holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

All respond:
Let us eat this meal in peace, which the Lord has given us as a gift. Blessed is the Lord for all his gifts. Amen.

Prayer After Meals

The head of the table says:
Glory to you, Lord. Glory to you, King of glory, for you have given us the food of joy and have filled our hearts out of the fullness of your all-satisfying mercy. Fill us now with your Holy Spirit, so that we may please you and not be ashamed. For you will come and reward us each according to our deeds. And you are worthy of glory, dominion and honor, now and always and unto ages of ages. Amen.

All respond:
May Christ our God, who has fed us and filled us, make the fullness of this table constant and abundant. Glory to him forever. Amen.

Daily prayers from the Armenian Church, found at their website, http://www.armenianchurch.net/prayer/daily.html

Daily Reading for March 24 • Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, and the Martyrs of El Salvador

One of the signs of the present time is the idea of participation, the right that all persons have to participate in the construction of their own common good.

For this reason, one of the most dangerous abuses of the present time is repression, the attitude that says, “Only we can govern, no one else; get rid of them.” Everyone can contribute much that is good, and in that way trust is achieved.

The common good will not be attained by excluding people. We can’t enrich the common good of our country by driving out those we don’t care for. We have to try to bring out all that is good in each person and try to develop an atmosphere of trust, not with physical force, as though dealing with irrational beings, but with a moral force that draws out the good that is in everyone, especially in concerned young people.

Thus, with all contributing their own interior life, their own responsibility, their own way of being, all can build the beautiful structure of the common good, the good that we construct together and that creates conditions of kindness, of trust, of freedom, of peace. Then we can, all of us together, build the republic—the res publica, the public concern—what belongs to all of us and what we all have the duty of building.

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, Copyright 2007 by Plough Publishing House. Used with permission. An e-book found at http://www.plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/ViolenceOfLove.pdf

Daily Reading for March 25 • The Annunciation

A humble person is one who, like the humble Mary, says, “The Powerful One has done great things in me.” Each of us has an individual greatness. God would not be our author if we were something worthless. You and I and all of us are worth very much, because we are creatures of God, and God has prodigally given his wonderful gifts to every person. And so the church values human beings and contends for their rights, for their freedom, for their dignity. That is an authentic church endeavor. While human rights are violated, while there are arbitrary arrests, while there are tortures, the church considers itself persecuted, it feels troubled, because the church values human beings and cannot tolerate that an image of God be trampled by persons that become brutalized by trampling on others. The church wants to make that image beautiful. . . .

Faith consists in accepting God
without asking him to account for things
according to our standard.
Faith consists in reacting before God as Mary did:
I don’t understand it, Lord,
but let it be done in me according to your word.

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, Copyright 2007 by Plough Publishing House. Used with permission. An e-book found at http://www.plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/ViolenceOfLove.pdf

Daily Reading for March 26 • James DeKoven, Priest, 1879 (transferred from March 22)

And so I assert that there are no less than six ways in which a man can believe in Eucharistic adoration—two of them which are not held in our Church at all, one of them which no logical mind can possibly hold, and the other three of which, I firmly believe, include in some one of their forms ninety-nine one-hundredths of the churchmen of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America; and therefore I assert that when a man says he does not believe in Eucharistic adoration, or asserts that it is tolerated or not tolerated, without further explanation, he says something that is totally unintelligible. . . . Now let me say, about the doctrine of the Eucharist, there is precisely this, that we have not arrived at a full and clear determination about it. Better a thousand times, my brethren, that rash and incautious expressions should be used, better that things should be said that the great heart of this Church may possibly condemn, than that we should hastily formulate this doctrine. . . .Let this Church on this doctrine preserve its equanimity. Let it study. Let it read. Let it pray. Let it think. Let men who have the grace and the gift of understanding pour forth their contributions; and if there are things that ought not to be said, we may be sure that free thought, free play, free consideration, and full consideration, never harmed the Church in any way; for, mark you, it is a philosophical truth, which no man can read ecclesiastical history without understanding, that no doctrine, though it be formulated never so often, becomes the doctrine of any Church until that doctrine receives the moral unanimity of its members; and if any one here should be tempted either by Rubric or by Article to attempt to take away from the doctrine of this Church on the Eucharist, it would only be endeavoring to do something which in time to come this Church will rise as one man, clerical and lay, and sweep away. . . .

Mr. President, we live in troublous times, and around us are all sorts of terrible questions. It does seem to me the need of the day is not now to legislate on nice points of doctrine, or to prescribe exactly the measure of a genuflexion, or the angle of inclination which can express an orthodox devotion. The answer to all this panic and all this outcry is one, and one only. It is Work; work for the cause of Christ; work for the souls of men; and a fuller, deeper, more noble sense of the obligation of the Church, developing its powers, and sending it forth to mould and form this mighty nation, and to give new life and vigor to every effort that is made for the salvation of men. I see the storm-cloud gathering. I see the lightnings flash. I hear the thunder roll afar. I hear the trumpet call. In my ears the bugle blast is ringing. And I call you, brethren, in a time like this, not to narrow-hearted legislation, but to broad, Catholic, tolerant charity, and to work, as never men worked before, for the souls of those for whom the Saviour died.

From The Canon on Ritual, and the Holy Eucharist; A Speech Delivered in the General Convention, October 26th, 1874, by the Rev. James DeKoven, D.D. Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/dekoven/canon.html.

Daily Reading for March 27 • Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Philippines, and of Western New York, 1929

The kind of a night we spend is in a large degree for us to determine. The Christian should at times leave everything in God’s hands, and do nothing but lie back on God’s bosom. The opportunity comes every night when we go to sleep. This is the season when the mind and soul should rest not less than the body. We can train ourselves to shed our cares into God’s arms if we try. So far from gaining anything, we lose much by submitting to wakefulness begotten of anxiety. Anxiety gnaws at the cords of good judgment and leaves us with a warped mind when the day dawns after a troubled night. Sweet sleep delights to respond to the invitation of a peaceful conscience and a mind whose last thoughts sway to and fro in the cradle of God’s love. A trustful consideration of God’s care of our concerns is frequently the only sleep-giving medicine necessary for distraught nerves.

O God, who hast drawn over weary day the restful veil of night, wrap our consciences in heavenly peace. Lift from our hands our tasks, and all through the night bear in Thy bosom the full weight of our burdens and sorrows, that in untroubled slumber we may press our weakness close to Thy strength, and win new power for the morrow’s duty from Thee who givest Thy beloved sleep. Amen.

Peace comes when we are assured that there is no earth-born cloud between our lives and God. Peace is the consequence of forgiveness, which in turn is God’s removal of that which hides or obscures His face, and breaks union with Him. The happy sequence culminating in fellowship with God is penitence, pardon, peace—the first of which we offer, the second we accept, and the third we inherit.

From “In the Evening,” part 3 of With God in Prayer by the Right Rev. Charles H. Brent (Philadelphia and London: George W. Jacobs and Co, 1907). http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/brent/withgod1907/03.html

Daily Reading for March 28

The earliest step in penitence is to give heed to good desires. They are the voice of our capacity crying out for fulfilment. Desires should crystallize into resolution. The human will is of great power to set the life free from bondage. We do not honour God’s power by depreciating the ability of the human will to do strong deeds. The whole of human advance, the entire process of self-improvement hinges on a stiff will. The first stage in penitence is to bend the will away from sin and stiffen it toward goodness. . . . Penitence springs from a consciousness of having pained a loving God, and continues in a sustained effort not to offend that love again. If the expression of penitence is in the will, the motive is in the heart.

O God, who requirest of me only such things as will turn to my profit, and who art pained by my least act of waywardness, warm my heart until it is aflame with love toward Thee, that my chief delight may be to bring Thee joy by my fidelity to Thy counsels; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. . . .

Pardon is valuable only so far as we use it. It introduces us into the near presence of God, with whom we may now hold familiar converse as with a friend. . . . Under the inspiration of a newly received gift the tongue becomes eloquent with gratitude.. . .

Thanksgiving is a preservative against fatalism. It relates the gift to the Giver and teaches us to see the hand of Providence in all that happens. Thanksgiving is pleasant to God. It lifts man up from the position of being a mere seeker of benefits to the dignity of one who aims to use his privileges as the Giver requires. The common gifts are the ones to specify first. But day by day it is good to pick out also at least one incident of special and personal bearing wherein to glorify God. The Psalter is the best possible handbook of thanksgiving and praise. The Psalms were not written for the specific purpose of aiding others: they were the natural expression of the soul pouring out its highest emotions before God. For this reason they are better fitted to serve humanity at large. . . .

Father of lights, from whose unshadowed home above comes every good and perfect gift, I receive as from Thy hand my share in the common blessings which, without respect of persons, hourly descend upon mankind. I thank Thee for the special tokens of Thy friendship and personal care that have made me glad this day. Help me to use these and all Thy bounties according to Thy design, that my whole life may be a hymn of praise to Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From “In the Evening,” part 3 of With God in Prayer by the Right Rev. Charles H. Brent (Philadelphia and London: George W. Jacobs and Co, 1907). http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/brent/withgod1907/03.html

Daily Reading for March 29 • The Fifth Sunday in Lent

At all times and every day, dearly beloved, certain signs of the divine goodness are set up before us, and no part of the year is estranged from the holy mysteries, so that, while protections for our salvation meet us everywhere, we may always look more eagerly for the welcoming mercy of God. But whatever it is that is given in different works of grace, and in gifts for the restoration of human souls, all of it is now more clearly and more fully presented to us when things are not to be done one by one, but all are to be celebrated together.

When the Paschal Feast is nearing, we are in the great and holy fast, which announces its observance to the faithful without exception. None are so holy that they cannot be holier, none so devout that they ought not to be more so. Who is there, living in the uncertainty of this life, who is either immune to temptation or free from blame? Who is there who wishes to add no virtue or to remove no fault? Adversity harms us and prosperity corrupts us, and it is no less dangerous to lack what is desired than to be full of what is granted. There are snares in the abundance of wealth, there are snares in the distress of poverty; the former raises us to pride, the latter goads us into complaint. Health is a trial, infirmity is a trial, for the first is a reason of negligence, the second a cause of sadness. There is a trap in security, and a trap in fear, and it makes no difference whether the mind held by affections for earth is occupied by joys or cares, since the sickness is the same whether one is weakening under empty luxuries or suffering under anxious care.

From Sermon 49 of Leo the Great (21 February 443), quoted in The Fathers of the Church: St. Leo the Great, Sermons, translated by Jane Patricia Freeland, C.S.J.B. and Agnes Josephine Conway, S.S.J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

Daily Reading for March 30 • John Keble, Priest, 1866 (transferred from March 29)

My Dearest Child,

I have just been reading over your letter, and am more vexed than I can say, though not half so vexed as I ought to be, with myself, for not having answered it. I cannot say that engagements have hindered me. I might and ought to have written; neither am I quite so bad as to have forgotten you. It was the old bad habit. And now what can I say, more than you have heard and read in a much better form many times before? One thing I will say, for I am most firmly persuaded of it, that a great part of your dullness and dryness about holy things, probably the whole, so far as it is accountable for by human judgment, is a symptom of your illness: and I daresay you often feel the like distressing want of interest in other matters which you would fain take an interest in: I daresay you often have to rouse yourself up, and force yourself to be or seem amused with things which in former days would have taken hold of you without any effort. If it is so in ordinary things, then its not being so in religious services and meditations would be a merciful interference, more perhaps than one could reasonably expect; and its not being granted, ought not to dishearten one, nor make one think oneself the subject of a special judgment.

Another thing is, that all religious meditation has a tendency, if it be not its direct work, to turn the mind’s eye back as it were on itself; and this is necessarily a painful and wearisome effort, and causes a sort of aching which cannot well be endured when the frame or spirits are weakened by sickness of certain sorts: I suppose, then, that it is a provision of God’s mercy to disqualify the mind in such cases for meditation, and keep it in a kind of dullness, which however uncomfortable, may be as good for the soul and mind, as sleepiness (which is often also most uncomfortable) is for the body. . . . You must not take this, any more than other troubles, as a token of wrath, but as an earnest (how strange soever it may seem to us) of great Love hereafter to be revealed; pardoning Love, inexhaustible, everlasting Love. . . .

In the mean time I beg of you, do not be too severe, do not strain your inward eye by turning it too violently back upon itself: remember you are bound for others’ sake, as well as your own, to be, if you can, and not only to seem, comfortable and cheerful. Do not be afraid to take, as they come, the little refreshments and amusements which His mercy provides for you, and be not too nice in comparing your interest in these with the dullness you may possibly feel in direct religious exercises. Take a lesson from your little ones (may He be with them!) and be patient, or cheerfully thankful, as the case may be, without blaming yourself for what is in all probability God’s visitation, no direct fault of your own.

From Letter XIV, “To a Lady, On Spiritual Dryness” by John Keble, in Letters of Spiritual Counsel and Guidance, edited by Robert Francis Wilson (J. Parker, 1870).

Daily Reading for March 31 • John Donne, Priest, 1631

Sleep, sleep, old sun, thou canst not have repass’d,
As yet, the wound thou took’st on Friday last;
Sleep then, and rest; the world may bear thy stay;
A better sun rose before thee to-day;
Who—not content to enlighten all that dwell
On the earth’s face, as thou—enlighten’d hell,
And made the dark fires languish in that vale,
As at thy presence here our fires grow pale;
Whose body, having walk’d on earth, and now
Hasting to heaven, would—that He might allow
Himself unto all stations, and fill all—
For these three days become a mineral.
He was all gold when He lay down, but rose
All tincture, and doth not alone dispose
Leaden and iron wills to good, but is
Of power to make e’en sinful flesh like his.
Had one of those, whose credulous piety
Thought that a soul one might discern and see
Go from a body, at this sepulchre been,
And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen,
He would have justly thought this body a soul,
If not of any man, yet of the whole.

Desunt Caetera

“Resurrection, Imperfect” by John Donne, in Poems of John Donne. vol I., edited by E. K. Chambers (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896).