Daily Reading for July 1

The path I walk, Christ walks it.
May the land in which I am be without sorrow.
May the Trinity protect me wherever I stay,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The ninefold people of heaven of holy cloud,
the tenth force of the stout earth.
Favorable company, they come with me,
so that the Lord may not be angry with me.

May I arrive at every place, may I return home;
may the way in which I spend be a way without loss.
May every path before me be smooth,
man, woman, and child welcome me.

A truly good journey!
Well does the fair Lord show us a course, a path.

A Celtic journey prayer, quoted in Celtic Spirituality, translated and introduced by Oliver Davies, a volume in The Classics of Western Spirituality series (New York: Paulist Press, 1999).

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Daily Reading for July 2

“Do not worry about anything,” Paul writes to the Philippians, and then continues, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God” (4:6). This compact direction contains some very specific words about developing a life of prayer in the face of debilitating distractions. To begin with, Paul uses two words for prayer, one general and one particular. The general word proseuche refers to the overall process of praying. You do this when you simply place yourself consciously in the presence of God. It may or may not involve words. Thanksgiving, confession, intercession, praise, meditation, and contemplation are all included under the heading of proseuche, and when you pray you may do all, some, or none of these things. . . . In other words, prayer does not necessarily accomplish anything, at least anything of immediate benefit. When you pray, you’re hanging out with God, and that’s a sufficient end in itself.

The second word, deesis, has a narrower focus. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates it as “supplication,” and that captures something of the flavor. It has to do with bringing particular requests to God’s attention. Paul says that we rid ourselves of anxiety by turning over to God the source of those anxieties, presenting him our supplications. . . . Both Paul and Jesus urge us to bring our deepest concerns to God, to place them in the Father’s care, and to leave both the results and the timing to him.

From Joy in Disguise: Meeting Jesus in the Dark Times by Edward S. Little. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for July 3

It is the contemplative saints who most know the fear and pain as well as the joy and freedom of entering emptiness; they have chosen to confront that which has to be thrust upon the rest of us. They have stretched and yielded themselves to experience cleanly and clearly the hunger and brokenness of their own hearts and of our world. They have willingly sought to deprive themselves of anesthesia. They have claimed their desire to bear the beams of love, regardless of the cost.

At the turn of the fifteenth century, Julian of Norwich wrote, “I learned to be afraid of my instability. For I do not know in what way I shall fall. I would have liked to have known that—with due fear, of course. But I got no answer.” She faced her fear and was able to continue: “Both when we fall and when we get up again we are kept in the same precious love. The love in which God made us never had beginning. In it we have our beginning.”

Spaciousness is always a beginning, a possibility, a potential, a capacity for birth. Space exists not in order to be filled but to create. In space, to the extent we can bear the truth of the way things are, we find the ever-beginning presence of love. Take the time, then; make the space. Seek it wherever you can find it, do it however you can. Seek the truth, not what is comfortable. Seek the real, not the easy.

From “Entering the Emptiness” by Gerald May, in Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective, edited and compiled by Michael Schut. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Living the Good News, a division of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for July 4 • Independence Day

O God, mightily we pray for wisdom, courage, and strength to serve thee and this nation faithfully in the days that lie ahead. Remind us of our duty to promote the general welfare, to secure the blessings of liberty for all, to see to it that justice and compassion reign from sea to shining sea, and that the bountiful resources of a favored land are not only thankfully received but also gladly shared with the whole human family.

From a prayer by William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1983), quoted in An American Prayer Book, compiled and edited by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for July 5 • The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Perhaps, as in the case of metallic substances, there exists in some a natural attraction toward some other thing, as in the magnet for iron, and in naphtha for fire, so there is an attraction in such faith toward the divine power according to what Jesus said: “It you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, ‘Move to another place,’ and it shall be moved.” Matthew and Mark wished to present the all-surpassing value of that divine power as a power that works even in those who do not believe. But they did not deny that grace works even more powerfully among those who have faith. So it seems to me that they accurately said not that the Lord did not do any mighty works because of their unbelief, but that he did not do many there. Mark does not flatly say that he could do no mighty work there at all, and stop at that point, but added, “except that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” Thus the power in him overcame even their unbelief.

From Origen’s Commentary on Matthew 10.19, 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 July 6

Freedom from the idolatry of money, for a Christian, means that money becomes useful only as a sacrament—as a sign of the restoration of life wrought in this world by Christ. The sacramental use of money has little to do with supporting the church after the manner of contributing to conventional charities and even less with the self-styled stewardship that solicits funds mainly for the maintenance of ecclesiastical salaries and the housekeeping of church properties. . . . The offertory is integral to the sacramental existence of the church, a way of representing the oblation of the totality of life to God. No more fitting symbol of the involvement of Christians in the everyday life of the world could be imagined, in American society at least, than money, for nearly every relationship in personal and public life is characterized by the obtaining or spending or exchange of money. If then, in worship, human beings offer themselves and all of their decisions, actions, and words to God, it is well that they use money as the witness to that offering. Money is, thus, used sacramentally within the church and not contributed as to some charity or given because the church, as such, has any need of money.

The sacramental use of money in the formal and gathered worship of the church is authenticated—as are all other churchly sacramental practices—in the sacramental use of money in the common life of the world. . . . The charity of Christians in the use of money sacramentally—in both the liturgy and in the world—has no serious similarity to conventional charity but is always a specific dramatization of the members of the Body of Christ losing their life in order that the world be given life. For members of the church, therefore, it always implies a particular confession that their money is not their own because their lives are not their own but, by the example of God’s own love, belong to the world.

From “Money” by William Stringfellow, in Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective, edited and compiled by Michael Schut. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Living the Good News, a division of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for July 7

St. Columbanus called Christians "hospites mundi," guests of the world. He gives the classic statement of peregrinatio when he speaks of it as going into exile, seeking the place of one’s resurrection, the pilgrimage to heaven, the true home. “Therefore let us concern ourselves with heavenly things, not human ones, and like pilgrims always sigh for our homeland, long for our homeland. It is the end of the road that travelers look for and desire, and because we are travelers and pilgrims through this world, it is the road’s end, that is of our lives, that we should always be thinking about. For that road’s end is our true homeland. . . . Don’t let us love the road rather than the land to which it leads, lest we lose our homeland altogether. For we have such a homeland that we ought to love it. So then, while we are on the road as travelers, as pilgrims, as guests of the world, let us not get entangled with any earthly desires and lusts but fill our minds with heavenly and spiritual things: our theme song ‘When shall I come and appear before the face of my God?’. Christians must travel in perpetual pilgrimage as guests of the world.”

From Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition by Esther de Waal. Copyright © 1991. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for July 8

A journey, a quest, the search for the holy, answers a deep need in all of us, the outer journey which reflects the inner journey. The twentieth century has brought easier travel and made it possible for people in their thousands to visit all the great shrines and places of pilgrimage. Even if they cannot always precisely articulate what it is that they are seeking, they still find themselves drawn to holy places. The Celtic tradition of peregrinatio may have little in common with today’s travel, yet they still have an important contribution to make towards the understanding of the purpose that underlies the journey: to find the place of one’s resurrection, and the equally profound insight, that unless we also carry within our hearts the God whom we are seeking, we will not find him.

From Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition by Esther de Waal. Copyright © 1991. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for July 9

Benedictines frame their day with times of public prayer and private prayer. Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours may be celebrated two or three times daily, or upwards of seven times per day. Benedict advised his followers on how he recommended the day be framed, then encouraged his followers to do what they deem best for their communities. The point is not how monastic communities gather for the Divine Office, but that the community gathers daily with forethought and prayerful consideration. The Divine Office supports the communal and individual search for God. Like water slowly dropping on rock until that rock’s shape has changed, the daily mundane task of chanting the Divine Office slowly works on an individual’s heart, shaping the person into the image of Christ. . . .

Benedictines seek to balance, however imperfectly, silence and solitude with the common life and healthy communication. Work, creative endeavors, and holy leisure also support and build the foundation of Benedictine spirituality. Today most Benedictines are aware that an ascetical practice is a response to the gift of asceticism we receive. In order to cultivate compassion towards ourselves and others, it is necessary to say no to some of the demands made by others seeking our time and talents. Being able to love others because we remove ourselves when appropriate is the way we practice modern asceticism. In an age that craves more and more, interior simplicity reveals a mature heart.

From The Benedictine Tradition: Spirituality in History, edited and introduced by Laura Swan, a volume in the Spirituality in History Series (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2007).

Daily Reading for July 10

Founded as it is on the Gospel, the Rule, like the Gospel itself, never grows old or goes out of fashion. Like the Gospel it is full of both urgency and compassion. Benedict has such a respect for each one of us, created as unique son or daughter, made in the image of Christ, that he shows a very real concern about stifling that God-given freedom and responsibility. This respect for my own self-worth puts a huge responsibility on me. It is up to me to respond or not. The Rule is addressed to the heart, to the disposition of the heart, and that can never become some closed system to be learned or acquired. As Michael Casey says, Benedict is giving us “not a series of prescribed actions but an invitation to remain alert to the challenge of the Word of God.” And so the Rule remains something totally open-ended. Perhaps I should think of it as presenting me with a series of open doors.

The Rule of Benedict is a way of life, a life-giving way. To encounter the text in all its fullness and complexity is like encountering a source and stream, always the same and yet always different, or like a tapestry where I follow first one thread and then another and in doing so get different glimpses of the whole. I return to it time and time again throughout my life. Benedict and his practical manual of the love of Christ is always there to help me on my journey, the coming home of the prodigal to the loving embrace of the Father.

From A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1995).

Daily Reading for July 11 • St. Benedict of Nursia, c 540

As God draws near in silence and we receive God into our hearts, we are transformed so that we become fully the persons we really are in Christ. We seldom notice this change while it is happening. Rather, we awake one morning and realize that something is different in us. We are gentler, less frantic and anxious, better able to enjoy small daily gifts, more delighted with others. For each of us, the specific shape of new life takes a slightly different form uniquely suited to our God-given essence. And for each of us, the form taken is so congruent with our longings that we wonder how we were able to manage before the change occurred. . . .

The gift of new life brings with it delight, manifesting itself in love for Christ everywhere. Gregory the Great described a moment in the life of Benedict that helps us see what an extraordinary integration of life and prayer is offered by Benedictine spirituality:

“The man of God was standing at his window, where he watched and prayed while the rest were still asleep. In the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than the sun and with it every trace of darkness cleared away. Another remarkable sight followed. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light.”

In the silence of the night, Benedict’s soul was so drawn into the mind and light of God that his spirit was enlarged, and he saw anew and welcomed the created world in God’s love.

Through the Rule, Benedict invites us to daily practices that can open to us this possibility of living ordinary lives in the fullness of God, alive to the glory thus manifest in us and the world. Persevering in Christ’s teachings, by patience we participate in his sufferings, but we will also partake in his kingdom. Silence is a central foundation for such a life.

From No Moment Too Small: Rhythms of Silence, Prayer, and Holy Reading by Norvene Vest (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1994).

Daily Reading for July 12 • The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Note well the weakness of the tyrant compared to the power of the one in prison. Herod was not strong enough to silence his own tongue. Having opened it, he opened up countless other mouths in its place and with its help. As for John, he immediately inspired fear in Herod after his murder—for fear was disturbing Herod’s conscience to such an extent that he believed John had been raised from the dead and was performing miracles! In our own day and through all future time, throughout all the world, John continues to refute Herod, both through himself and through others. For each person repeatedly reading this Gospel says: “It is not lawful for you to have the wife of Philip your brother.” And even apart from reading the Gospel, in assemblies and meetings at home or in the market, in every place . . . even to the very ends of the earth, you will hear this voice and see that righteous man even now still crying out, resounding loudly, reproving the evil of the tyrant. He will never be silenced nor the reproof at all weakened by the passing of time.

From On the Providence of God by John Chrysostom, 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 July 13

If it should perhaps happen that we swear carelessly to something which, if carried out, would have most unfortunate consequences, we should be willing to change it in accord with wiser counsel. There is an urgent necessity for us to break our oath, rather than turn to another more serious crime in order to avoid breaking our oath. David swore by the Lord to kill Nabal, a stupid and wicked man, and to destroy all his possessions. But at the first entreaty of the prudent woman Abigail, he quickly took back his threats, put back his sword into its scabbard, and did not feel that he had contracted any guilt by thus breaking his oath in this way. Herod swore that he would give the dancing girl whatever she asked of him, and, to avoid being accused of breaking his oath by those who were at his banquet, he defiled the banquet with blood when he made the reward for the dancing the death of a prophet.

From Bede’s Exposition on the Gospel of Mark 2.23, 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 July 14

It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient if the word as we read and understand it penetrates and dwells within us. As Mary pondered in her heart the tidings that were told by the shepherds, as what we have casually heard follows us for a long time, sticks in our mind, occupies, disturbs or delights us, without our ability to do anything about it, so in meditation God’s word seeks to enter in and remain with us. It strives to stir us to work and to operate in us so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long. Then it will do its work in us without our being aware of it.

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1984).

Daily Reading for July 15

The essence of prayer is to hear the voice of another, of Christ, but likewise to hear the voice of each person I meet in whom Christ also addresses me. His voice comes to me in every human voice, and his face is infinitely varied. It is present in the face of the wayfarer on the road to Emmaus; it is present in the gardener speaking to Mary Magdalen, it is present in my next-door neighbour. God became incarnate so that man might contemplate his face in every face. Perfect prayer seeks this presence of Christ and recognizes it in every human face. The unique image of Christ is the ikon, but every human face is an ikon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person.

From Catherine de Hueck Doherty, quoted in Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1984).

Daily Reading for July 16

I am giving Thee worship with my whole life,
I am giving Thee assent with my whole power,
I am giving Thee praise with my whole tongue,
I am giving Thee honour with my whole utterance.

I am giving Thee love with my whole devotion,
I am giving Thee kneeling with my whole desire,
I am giving Thee love with my whole heart,
I am giving Thee affection with my whole sense,
I am giving Thee my existence with my whole mind,
I am giving Thee my soul, O God of all gods.

A Celtic dressing prayer, quoted in Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1984).

Daily Reading for July 17 • William White, Bishop of Pennsylvania, 1836

When we bring before you, Brethren, the subject of public worship, you will of course suppose that it is principally with a view to the devotions, which, with an extraordinary degree of harmony and much previous deliberation, have been constituted our established Liturgy. Independently on the admirable prayer prescribed by our Lord himself, there is no fact equally ancient, of which we are more fully persuaded, than that the having of prescribed devotions is a practice that has prevailed from the earliest origin of our religion. We mean not that there were the same forms of prayer in all Churches; but that every local Church had its rule, according to the suitableness of time and place, and under the sanction of the Episcopacy of the different districts. And, we are further persuaded that the Christian economy in this matter was no other than a continuation of the Jewish, as prevailing in that very worship which was attended on, and joined in, by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles. This is a mode of worship that has been handed down to us through the channel of the Church of England; and we suppose that we may affirm, as a notorious fact, its being acceptable to our communion generally. . . .

But if this feature of our system is to be retained, we cannot but perceive that the order of divine service must be directed, not by individual discretion, but by public counsel: If, on the contrary, this principle is to cease to govern; we know of no plea for deviation tolerated in any Minister, which will not extend to the indulgence of the humour of every member of his congregation. For this is a necessary result of that property of our ecclesiastical system, which contemplates the exercises of prayer and praise as those of a social body, of which the Minister is the leader.

If there should be in any a rage for innovation, it would be the more deplored by us, from the circumstance that it often originates in the affecting of an extravagant degree of animal sensibility. . . . It is impossible that there should be composed forms for public use, and yet that individuals should not perceive instances in which, according to their respective habits of thinking, the matter might have been more judiciously conceived, or more happily expressed. . . . The dissatisfaction alluded to may affect either circumstantials, or the essence of the established Liturgy. If it apply to the former, submission of private opinion is one of the smallest sacrifices which may be exacted for the maintenance of order. But if any should lightly esteem the service, from the opinion, that it is below the dignity of the subjects comprehended in it, and unequal to the uses which prayers and praises point to, we have so much to oppose to such a sentiment, in the sense of wise and holy men of our communion in former ages, still shining as lights to the world in their estimable writings. . . . It is on this ground that we consider every Churchman as possessing a personal right to lift up his voice against the intermixture of foreign matter with the service; rendering it such, as can never be acceptable to the same judgments, or interesting to the same affections.

From “A Pastoral Letter to the Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from the House of Bishops of Said Church Assembled in General Convention at Baltimore, May 1808,” signed by William White, Presiding Bishop. Entire letter found at http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/wwhite/pastoral1808.html.

Daily Reading for July 18 • Macrina, Monastic and Teacher, 379 (transferred)

And pray how, I asked, does this belief in the existence of God prove along with it the existence of the human soul? For God, surely, is not the same thing as the soul, so that, if the one were believed in, the other must necessarily be believed in.

She replied: It has been said by wise men that man is a little world in himself and contains all the elements which go to complete the universe. If this view is a true one (and so it seems), we perhaps shall need no other ally than it to establish the truth of our conception of the soul. And our conception of it is this; that it exists, with a rare and peculiar nature of its own, independently of the body with its gross texture. We get our exact knowledge of this outer world from the apprehension of our senses, and these sensational operations themselves lead us on to the understanding of the super-sensual world of fact and thought, and our eye thus becomes the interpreter of that almighty wisdom which is visible in the universe, and points in itself to the Being Who encompasses it. Just so, when we look to our inner world, we find no slight grounds there also, in the known, for conjecturing the unknown; and the unknown there also is that which, being the object of thought and not of sight, eludes the grasp of sense.

I rejoined, Nay, it may be very possible to infer a wisdom transcending the universe from the skilful and artistic designs observable in this harmonized fabric of physical nature; but, as regards the soul, what knowledge is possible to those who would trace, from any indications the body has to give, the unknown through the known?

Most certainly, the Virgin replied, the soul herself, to those who wish to follow the wise proverb and know themselves, is a competent instructress; of the fact, I mean, that she is an immaterial and spiritual thing, working and moving in a way corresponding to her peculiar nature, and evincing these peculiar emotions through the organs of the body. For this bodily organization exists the same even in those who have just been reduced by death to the state of corpses, but it remains without motion or action because the force of the soul is no longer in it. It moves only when there is sensation in the organs, and not only that, but the mental force by means of that sensation penetrates with its own impulses and moves whither it will all those organs of sensation.

What then, I asked, is the soul? Perhaps there may be some possible means of delineating its nature; so that we may have some comprehension of this subject, in the way of a sketch.

Its definition, the Teacher replied, has been attempted in different ways by different writers, each according to his own bent; but the following is our opinion about it. The soul is an essence created, and living, and intellectual, transmitting from itself to an organized and sentient body the power of living and of grasping objects of sense, as long as a natural constitution capable of this holds together.

From a conversation between Macrina and Gregory of Nyssa, in “On the Soul and the Resurrection” by Gregory of Nyssa. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.x.iii.ii.html

Daily Reading for July 19 • The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

For me, to preach is first of all to immerse myself in the word of God, to look inside every sentence and underneath every phrase for the layers of meaning that have accumulated there over the centuries. It is to examine my own life and the life of the congregation with the same care, hunting the connections between the word on the page and the word at work in the world. It is to find my own words for bringing those connections to life, so that others can experience them for themselves. When that happens—when the act of preaching becomes a source of revelation for me as well as for those who listen to me—then the good news every sermon proclaims is that the God who acted is the God who acts, and that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in the world.

Understood in this way, preaching becomes something the whole community participates in, not only through their response to a particular sermon but also through identifying with the preacher. As they listen week after week, they are invited to see the world the way the preacher does—as the realm of God’s activity—and to make connections between their Christian faith and their lives the same way they hear them made from the pulpit. Preaching is not something an ordained minister does for fifteen minutes on Sundays, but what the whole congregation does all week long; it is a way of approaching the world, and of gleaning God’s presence there.

From The Preaching Life by Barbara Brown Taylor (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1993), 32.

Daily Reading for July 20 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman

These slaves from Maryland were the last that Harriet Tubman piloted out of the prison-house of bondage, and these “came through great tribulation.” Stephen, the husband, had been a slave of John Kaiger, who would not allow him to live with his wife (if there was such a thing as a slave’s owning a wife). She lived eight miles distant, hired her time, maintained herself, and took care of her children (until they became of service to their owner), and paid ten dollars a year for her hire. She was owned by Algier Pearcy. Both mother and father desired to deliver their children from his grasp. They had too much intelligence to bear the heavy burdens thus imposed without feeling the pressure a grievous one.

Harriet Tubman being well acquainted in their neighborhood, and knowing of their situation, and having confidence that they would prove true, as passengers on the Underground Rail Road, engaged to pilot them within reach of Wilmington, at least to Thomas Garrett’s. Thus the father and mother, with their children and a young man named John, found aid and comfort on their way, with Harriet for their “Moses.” A poor woman escaping from Baltimore in a delicate state, happened to meet Harriet’s party at the station, and was forwarded on with them. They were cheered with clothing, food, and material aid, and sped on to Canada.

Notes taken at that time were very brief; it was evidently deemed prudent in those days, not to keep as full reports as had been the wont of the secretary, prior to 1859. The capture of John Brown’s papers and letters, with names and plans in full, admonished us that such papers and correspondence as had been preserved concerning the Underground Rail Road, might perchance be captured by a pro-slavery mob. For a year or more after the Harper’s Ferry battle, as many will remember, the mob spirit of the times was very violent in all the principal northern cities, as well as southern (“to save the Union”). Even in Boston, Abolition meetings were fiercely assailed by the mob. During this period, the writer omitted some of the most important particulars in the escapes and narratives of fugitives. Books and papers were sent away for a long time, and during this time the records were kept simply on loose slips of paper.

From The Underground Railroad: A Record Of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &C., Narrating The Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes And Death Struggles Of The Slaves In Their Efforts For Freedom, As Related By Themselves And Others, Or Witnessed By The Author, by William Still (1872).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15263/15263-h/15263-h.htm

Daily Reading for July 21

Westerners may find Ubuntu—an African concept of personhood—a strange word with perhaps an even stranger meaning. Emphasizing the communal and spiritual dimension of human identity, the concept of Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOON-too) of necessity poses a challenge to persons accustomed to thinking of themselves as individuals. Imagine a fish trying to understand what it means to be wet, when all it has ever known is life in the water. Or imagine the desperation of an earthling landing on Mars without an oxygen tank. Becoming conscious of what we take for granted can be a strange, difficult—even painful—experience. Yet the winds of change that greet us as we begin the twenty-first century guarantee that Westerners will encounter non-Western assumptions about what it means to be human. The interconnection of identity on the personal, communal, and global levels is inescapable.

Ubuntu is an African concept of personhood in which the identity of the self is understood to be formed interdependently through community. Perhaps Desmond Tutu, the celebrated archbishop from South Africa, put it best when he said:

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”. . .

Ubuntu teaches us that salvation depends on interdependence and not conquest of the other. Christians around the world believe in a God who models Ubuntu. God’s three persons display a communal love within God which causes God to spill on us—to cast us in the image of God’s communal nature. This spillover looks like God reconciling a wayward creation to itself and its Creator.

From Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me by Michael Battle. Copyright © 2009. Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for July 22 • St. Mary Magdalene

God’s beauty is not a pleasure reserved for great saints and card-carrying mystics, religious geniuses who speak in blank verse. The most tongue-tied, feet-on-the-ground believer is capable of getting a kick out of God—and needs to do so. The reason is simple: it is the very pleasure for which we are made. . . . Enjoying God is a trait of the species, like being a biped, no more technically complex than enjoying sunshine or wisteria. As with wisteria and sunshine, though, we must slow down enough to notice, so that the quiet but nonetheless thrilling “pleasantness of God” may sink into our chilled hearts, refresh our jaded eyes with a warmth and beauty that knows no season. The psalmist has given us a prayer that establishes the proper order for what we ask of God, if we are to remain strong in God’s service:

May the pleasantness of the LORD our God be upon us;
and the work of our hands, make it prosper for us;
the work of our hands, O prosper it. (Ps. 90:17)

First pleasure, then work. Pleasure for ourselves in God’s company, God’s beauty, and only then support for our work in God’s service.

From Getting Involved with God by Ellen F. Davis (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 2001).

Daily Reading for July 23

Theology ponders the deep meaning of everyday life by seeing our lives as taking place within God’s life. There are certain moments when we just sense, almost intuitively, that what is happening is terribly significant or somehow holy—moments, in other words, when the mystery of things seems to well up before us and, like Abraham or Jacob, we know that we are in the presence of God. If you have ever watched the sun set over a silent purple northern lake with the sky so richly purple and red you could hardly breathe; or if you have ever walked quietly into a tiny child’s bedroom at night and watched her rustle gently under her blanket, so that for a moment you ache with the memory of your own distant past; or if you have ever watched and prayed as a young medical intern, gray with fatigue and lack of sleep, worked desperately through the night to save a patient in distress: if you have known any of these things, or a hundred others like them, then you have already begun to theologize.

You have begun to theologize, I think, because moments like these seem to put us at the edge of mystery. Whether we know it or not, we are standing all the time at the edge of mystery, in the presence of God. For Christians, the context of the world’s life is provided by the story of God’s life with the world. The story that opens in paradise and ends in the coming of God’s kingdom is the context we need. The story of God’s life with us is the deep landscape against which we begin to notice and recognize the mystery of love at work in everything.

From Mysteries of Faith by Mark McIntosh, Volume 8 of The New Church’s Teaching Series (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 2000).

Daily Reading for July 24 • Thomas à Kempis, Priest, 1471

O Lord my God, I wish to praise Thee; for I know that to praise Thee was the end for which I was created. Open Thou my lips to praise Thee, that I may worthily magnify Thy name.

Lift up my heart to Thee; keep me from being weary; shed forth upon me Thy grace; kindle in my heart the fire of Thy love; that so I may be able to render to Thee the thanks that are Thy due.

Take Thou away the iniquity of thy servant; wash me from all uncleanness, whether of the flesh or of the spirit; that so I may be made worthy to open my lips to glorify Thy name. . . .

May all the fervent desires of the saints, all the sweet utterances of the Doctors of the Church, all the several virtues put forth, and all the most perfect actions wrought, in honour of Thy name, join the universal melody of all created things, in praising and in magnifying Thee to the utmost of their power, blessing the most Holy Name of the Lord their God for ever and ever!

And may all Thy saints, and all Thy elect, whose names are written in the Book of Life, laud and magnify Thee with never-ending praise; and may their prayers obtain for me the full remission of my sins, a good death, a happy end, deliverance from the pains of Hell, and an entry into Heavenly glory, there to have the bliss of dwelling with Thee for ever!

From Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (Kessinger Publishing, 2007).

Daily Reading for July 25 • St. James the Apostle

Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer. In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace. The acts of the early Christian martyrs are full of evidence which shows how Christ transfigures for his own the hour of their mortal agony by granting them the unspeakable assurance of his presence. In the hour of the cruelest torture they bear for his sake, they are made partakers in the perfect joy and bliss of fellowship with him. To bear the cross proves to be the only way of triumphing over suffering. This is true for all who follow Christ, because it was true for him.

From The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. R.H. Fuller (London: SCM Press, 1959).

Daily Reading for July 26 • The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Five loaves are then set before the multitudes, and broken. While the apostles are dividing them, a succession of newly created portions passes—they cannot tell how—through their hands. The loaf which they are dividing does not grow smaller and yet their hands are continually full of the pieces. The speed of the process baffles the sight. You follow with the eye a hand full of portions, and in the meantime you see that the contents of the other hand are not diminished. And all the while the heap of pieces grows. The carvers are busy at their task, the eaters hard at work at theirs. The hungry are satisfied and the fragments fill twelve baskets. Neither sight nor any of the other senses can discover how such an amazing miracle happened. What did not exist was created; what we see passes our understanding. It only remains for us to believe that God can do all things.

From On the Trinity by Hilary of Poitiers, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVa, John 1-10, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for July 27 • William Reed Huntington, Priest, 1909

William was very much exercised as to what occupation he should enter on graduation. His mind was not at first inclined to enter the Church, as he loved science very dearly, and more so as time went on. But Mr. Cooke, devoted as he was to science, put all his influence on the side of the Church. And after the death of William’s mother, which occurred soon after his graduation, William’s mind never wavered from the idea of devoting himself to a religious life.

This idea is best expressed by his lines, “Before Ordination,” published later:

Thou callest, Lord, I hear Thy voice
And so in meekness come.
I falter, but not mine the choice.
Thou callest. I am dumb.
I only listen. I am least
Of all, and yet I know
Thou callest me to be Thy priest.
I argue not. I go.

All through the past Thy hand hath led;
Grant me this day to feel
That hand in blessing on my head,
As at Thy feet I kneel.

The years await me. What they hold
Thou knowest, Lord, not I.
On every side the cloud-banks fold
The edges of my sky.

But still within my ears there rings
One voice and only one,—
All courage to my heart it brings,—
Thy will, my God, be done.

He determined to begin his studies for the ministry as soon as possible.

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.

From A Few Memories of William Reed Huntington by his sister, Mary Huntington Cooke (privately printed at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1910). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/wrh/memories1910.html

Daily Reading for July 28 • The Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary (transferred)

The extent to which Anne was venerated in the Middle Ages came as a surprise to me, as did the realization of that I had “always” known, namely that she is nonbiblical, completely legendary, and apocryphal. . . . But she came to occupy an ever-growing place in popular piety. Legends proliferated, as affection for “God’s grandmother”—Godz grotemoder—grew. More than affection, there seemed to be a genuine need for Christ to have a grandmother and for his earthly family to be fleshed out. Anne was variously depicted as a wisdom figure, a mysteriously smiling sibyl, and a comfortably ample grandmother. Above all she was a matriarch, the center of a large and overwhelmingly feminine group of kin. Popular piety created “the Holy Kinship,” which expanded Christ’s family tree on the maternal side. According to legend, Anne married twice after Joachim’s death and gave birth to two more daughters, also named Mary. They became the mothers of six of the disciples: James the Greater, Judas the son of James, Barnabas, Simon, James the Less, and John the Evangelist. . . .

There are no Annes in the hagiography of our popular culture. Her brand of wisdom is not at home in the pages of popular magazines nor in the Pentagon—nor even in the church, Mother Teresa notwithstanding. It is time for us to rediscover and reclaim St. Anne, to recognize the truth, love, and ambiguity she personifies even as we accept her legendary status. The Anne of legend is strong and reliable, a source of wisdom born of long experience and closeness to ordinary human life. Perhaps what Anne represents has been rendered invisible and neglected, not just by the church but by the whole culture, because her beauty and (more important) her power are feared. To accept what Anne offers might call for letting go of old fears. It might call for new openness and willingness to change. . . . Like many grandmothers, she’s been around and has much wisdom to offer, wisdom about ways of living and working together and about ways of dying.

From Toward Holy Ground: Spiritual Directions for the Second Half of Life by Margaret Guenther (Cowley Publications, 1995).

Daily Reading for July 29 • Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany

Taking pity on the tears of Mary and Martha,
Thou has said to them:
“He will be resurrected and he will rise up
Saying, ‘Thou art the Life and Resurrection.’”

In considering the tomb and those in the tomb, we weep,
But we should not; for we do not know whence they have come,
And where they are now, and who has them.
They have come from temporal life, released from its sorrows;
They are at peace, waiting for the receiving of divine light.
The Lover of man has them in His charge,
and He has divested them of their temporal clothing
in order that He may clothe them with an eternal body.

Why, then, do we weep in vain? Why do we not trust Christ, as He cries:
“He who believes on me shall not perish,
For even if he knows corruption, after that corruption,
He will be resurrected and he will rise up
Saying, ‘Thou art the Life and the Resurrection’”?

The man of faith always has power for whatever he wishes,
Since he possesses a faith which lends strength to all things;
From it, he gains power from Christ for whatever he asks.
This faith is a great possession; if a man have it, he has control of everything.
Mary and Martha had it and were renowned for it.

From Kontakion on the Raising of Lazarus 14.1-2, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb, John 11-21, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007).

Daily Reading for July 30 • William Wilberforce, 1833, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury, 1885, Prophetic Witnesses

To all the inhabitants of the British Empire, who value the favour of God, or are alive to the interests or honour of their country—to all who have any respect for justice, or any feelings of humanity, I would solemnly address myself. I call upon them, as they shall hereafter answer, in the great day of account, for the use they shall have made of any power or influence with which Providence may have entrusted them, to employ their best endeavours, by all lawful and constitutional means, to mitigate, and, as soon as it may be safely done, to terminate the Negro Slavery of the British Colonies; a system of the grossest injustice, of the most heathenish irreligion and immorality, of the most unprecedented degradation, and unrelenting cruelty.

At any time, and under any circumstances, from such a heavy load of guilt as this oppression amounts to, it would be our interest no less than our duty to absolve ourselves. But I will not attempt to conceal, that the present embarrassments and distress of our country—a distress, indeed, in which the West Indians themselves have largely participated—powerfully enforce on me the urgency of the obligation under which we lie, to commence, without delay, the preparatory measures for putting an end to a national crime of the deepest moral malignity.

The long continuance of this system, like that of its parent the Slave Trade, can only be accounted for by the generally prevailing ignorance of its real nature, and of its great and numerous evils. Some of the abuses which it involves have, indeed, been drawn into notice. But when the public attention has been attracted to this subject, it has been unadvisedly turned to particular instances of cruelty, rather than to the system in general, and to those essential and incurable vices which will invariably exist wherever the power of man over man is unlimited.

From An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire, in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies by William Wilberforce, Esq., M.P. (London: H. Hatchard and Son, 1823).

Daily Reading for July 31 • Ignatius of Loyola, Priest and Monastic, 1556

It was into this realization of the difference between daydreams and God dreams (as we might call them) that the gift of discernment was given to Iñigo. It was there that he discovered what we might call the “inner compass” of his heart, which was able to reveal to him which movements within him were capable of engaging his deepest vital energy, and which were leading him only to fleeting satisfactions that left him unchanged and unfulfilled. As he lay on his sickbed in his enforced stillness and solitude, he learned to notice his moods and feelings and reactions and to measure them against this unseen compass. In his inner silence, he listened with fresh awareness to an invitation coming from deep inside himself to enlist in the adventure of the service of God.

As he ventured more and more deeply into the stories that were inspiring his new kind of daydreaming, he was also finding a new way of exercising his imagination. He began to find himself, in imagination, present in the scenes, conversations, and stories of the Gospels, and he began to participate in the plots of these stories. It was the start, for him, of an adventure into imaginative prayer that was to become a most powerful catalyst for the growth of his personal relationship with God, a method of prayer that is just as vividly available to us today. . . .

The fruit of this experience and the wisdom that it engendered is recorded in an unassuming little book called the Spiritual Exercises. Iñigo’s notebook was to become a guide, based entirely on his own experience, on how to become increasingly sensitive to God’s action in our lives, how to discover and live true to the very deepest desires within us, how to make decisions that reflect God’s indwelling presence in the innermost freedom of our hearts, and how to join our lives consciously with the life of Jesus, God-made-man, through the living spirit of the gospel.

From Inner Compass: An Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality by Margaret Silf (Chicago, Ill.: Loyola Press, 1999).