Daily Reading for September 1 • David Pendleton Oakerhater, Deacon and Missionary, 1931

I was very glad indeed to hear from you; I am far from you and have never seen your faces, but you have given me a good gift and made me very thankful. I wish I could see you all in my own eye and shake hands with each one of you, but I say thank you, my kind friends, ever so much. I visit the sick almost every day, with prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ, and read the Bible to the Indians, and tell about the history that he is the Son of God. I am glad to tell them of that Blessed Lord who hast caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of the holy words we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. They are all very glad to hear them.

I keep doing that work God has given to me to do and for that reason though I am an Indian and you are of a different people, yet your faith is my faith and in all the earth there are many different races, yet to all alike God has given his one Spirit, and one life, and one faith, and one Saviour.

Excerpts paraphrased from a letter from David Pendleton Oakerhater, dated June 6, 1885; found at http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Oakerhater/Letters/DPO06061885.html

Daily Reading for September 2 • The Martyrs of New Guinea, 1942

Now I would like a heart-to-heart talk with you. As far as I know, you are all at your posts and I am very glad and thankful about this. I have from the first felt that we must endeavour to carry on our work in all circumstances no matter what the cost may ultimately be to any of us individually. God expects this of us. The Church at home, which sent us out, will surely expect it of us. The Universal Church expects it. The tradition and history of missions requires it of us. Missionaries who have been faithful to the uttermost and are now at rest are surely expecting it of us. The people whom we serve expect it of us. We could never hold up our faces again, if, for our own safety, we all forsook Him and fled when the shadows of the Passion began to gather around Him in His Spiritual Body, the Church in Papua. Our life in the future would be burdened with shame and we could not come back here and face our people again; and we would be conscious always of rejected opportunities. The history of the Church tells us that missionaries do not think of themselves in the hour of danger and crisis, but of the Master who called them to give their all, and of the people they have been trusted to serve and love to the uttermost. His watchword is none the less true today, as it was when he gave it to the first disciples—“Whosoever will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's shall find it.”

No one requires us to leave. No one has required us to leave. The reports some of you have heard of orders to this effect did not emanate from official or authoritative sources. But even if anyone had required us to leave, we should then have had to obey God rather then men. We could not leave unless God, who called us, required it of us, and our spiritual instinct tells us He would never require such a thing at such an hour. Our people need us now more than ever before in the whole history of the mission. We shall not leave. We shall stand by our trust. We shall stand by our vocation.

We do not know what it may mean to us. Many think us fools and mad. What does that matter? If we are fools, “we are fools for Christ's sake.” I cannot foretell the future. I cannot guarantee that all will be well—that we shall all come through unscathed. One thing only I can guarantee is that if we do not forsake Christ here in Papua in His Body, the Church, He will not forsake us. He will uphold us; He will strengthen us and He will guide us and keep us though the days that lie ahead. If we all left, it would take years for the Church to recover from our betrayal of our trust. If we remain—and even if the worst came to the worst and we were all to perish in remaining—the Church would not perish, for there would have been no breach of trust in its walls, but its foundations and structure would have received added strength for the future building by our faithfulness unto death.

I know there are special circumstances which may make it imperative for one or two to go (if arrangements can be made for them to do so). For the rest of us, we have made our resolution to stay. Let us not shrink from it. Let us not go back on it. Let us trust and not be afraid.

To you all I send my blessing. The Lord be with you.

From “Message to Mission Staff,” a radio broadcast given January 31, 1942 by Bishop Philip Strong, Bishop of New Guinea and quoted in The New Guinea Diaries of Philip Strong, 1936-1945, edited by David Wetherell. Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/aus/png/strong_message1942.html

Daily Reading for September 3 • Prudence Crandall, Teacher and Prophetic Witness, 1890

Everybody is an Abolitionist now. There is not, probably, in any part of Europe or the United States a single human being who would now defend slavery as an institution. But it is only twenty-six years since it was abolished in the United States of America. The time is well within the memory of many persons now living when to be an Abolitionist, even in the New England States, was to be hated and reviled, to render one’s self the object of the bitterest persecution, to risk comfort, happiness, and even life. . . . Anti-slavery opinions were at that time in deep disrepute in the United States; they were "vulgar," and those who held them were not noticed in society, and were insulted and injured as often as possible by genteeler people and more complaisant republicans.

In 1833, William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the American Abolitionists, received a letter from a young Quaker lady, Miss Prudence Crandall, who asked his advice under the following circumstances: Two years previously she had bought a large house at Canterbury, in the State of Connecticut, and had started there a boarding school for girls. She wrote to Garrison and asked his advice about changing her white scholars for coloured ones. She says in her letter, very simply, not giving herself any airs of martyrdom, “I have been for some months past determined, if possible, during the remainder of my life to benefit the people of colour.” Under these quiet words lay a firmness of purpose that would have supported her to the stake if need be. . . .

The people of Canterbury opposed the school with great vigour, for they feared it would bring disgrace and ruin on the whole town. But the hazard was not so much to the town of Canterbury as to the young woman, who was the object for two years of the most relentless persecution. She all the while maintained her quiet dignity, causing Garrison to exclaim in a letter to a friend, “Wonderful woman! as undaunted as if she had the whole world on her side! She has opened her school and is resolved to persevere.” One of her friends wrote to Garrison: “We shall have a rough time, probably, before the year is out. The struggle will be great, no doubt, but God will redeem the captives. . . . We are all determined to sustain Miss Crandall if there is a law in the land enough to protect her. She is a noble soul!”

From Some Eminent Women of Our Times: Short Biographical Sketches by Millicent Garrett Fawcett (New York: Macmillan, 1889).

Daily Reading for September 4 • Paul Jones, Bishop and Peace Advocate, 1941

After thus studying again [Jesus’] life and teaching, I find it quite impossible to believe that people can be true to the things which He taught and the example which He gave and at the same time take part in war; for war is the organized destruction of our enemies and it is always accompanied by hatred and bitterness, thus necessitating an attitude of mind and course of conduct the opposite of that enjoined by Christ. . . .

It is unthinkable that [Saints Paul, James, Peter, or John] would have taken any part in a war or in preparation for one. And I need only to refer to the example of the Christians of the early centuries who preferred to die rather than go into the army and cause someone else’s death, to show that they all interpreted our Lord’s teaching in the same way. . . . ”

The day will come when, like slavery which was once held in good repute, war will be looked upon as thoroughly un-Christian. At present it is recognized as an evil which nobody honestly wants, but not yet has it received its final sentence at the bar of Christian morality. Only when Christian men and women and churches will be brave enough to stand openly for the full truth that their consciences are beginning to recognize, will the terrible anachronism of war . . . be done away.

From a pamphlet written by Bishop Paul Jones in the Diocese of Utah, quoted in Bishop Paul Jones: Witness for Peace by John Howard Melish (Forward Movement Publications, 1992).

Daily Reading for September 5 • Gregorio Aglipay, Priest and Founder of the Philippine Independent Church, 1940

Primary among mainstream indigenous religious movements is Father Aglipay’s church, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) which in a real sense was the fruition of the friar prejudice against Filipinos, especially the native priests. The IFI’s roots were planted in a bedrock reaction against the execution of the three martyr priests in 1872 and were nurtured in the soil of Philippine nationalism. In the spiritual vacuum created by the forced and abrupt departure of the Spanish friars, the schism grew rapidly, especially because in its earliest days the new church made no claim to a radical theology but simply separated the Philippine church from the authority of Rome. While most native priests were hesitant to affiliate with the schismatic movement and feared being accused of heresy, Aglipay was joined by some clerics, especially those from his native region of the Ilocano provinces to the north. Aglipay was also supported by a number of secular nationalist leades who had been involved in the failed fight against the United States, so the IFI became a conduit channeling the smoldering embers of the lost nationalist cause. Soon, however, the new church introduced practices within the culture’s folk tradition, such as formally making Jose Rizal and the three martyr priests from 1872 saints of the new church. To this day, nationalist icons of various sorts are displayed in many IFI churches.

Over time Father Aglipay’s personal theological beliefs became identified with Unitarianism even while the majority of his priests and followers remained firmly in the Roman Catholic tradition. After Aglipay’s death in 1940 and the conclusion of the Second World War, a struggle broke out within the IFI over its theological direction. Eventually, those priests identified with mainline Christian values emerged supreme, and by 1960, the church had reformed its doctrinal beliefs to a sufficient degree so that it entered into an alliance with the American Episcopal Church.

From Culture and Customs of the Philippines by Paul Rodell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002).

Daily Reading for September 6 • The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The ordinary workmen will come to the son of Joseph singing:

“Blessed be your coming,
O master of workers everywhere.
The imprint of your labor is seen in the ark,
And in the fashioning of the tabernacle
Of the congregation that was for a time only!
Our whole craft praises you, who are our eternal glory.
Make for us a yoke that is light, even easy,
for us to bear.
Establish that measure in us
in which there can be no falseness.”

From Hymns on the Nativity 6 by Ephrem the Syrian, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for September 7 • Elie Naud, Huguenot Witness to the Faith, 1722

The remains of many Huguenots repose among the innumerable dead of old Trinity church-yard, that vast home of the departed; and where can be found their memorials of honor, patriotism, and exalted piety. Here lie the ashes of the Rev. Elias Neau, near its northern porch. He was a man of more than ordinary eminence; his life useful, beneficial, and religious. Mr. Neau was the paternal ancestor of Mrs. Commodore Oliver H. Perry, of Rhode-Island.

Previous to his escape from France, he suffered confinement for several years in the prisons and galleys, and while in his dungeons, learned by heart the liturgy, and became attached to the English Church service. When the Rev. Mr. Vesey was rector of Trinity, Mr. Neau was appointed catechist of that church. For a number of years, he faithfully discharged the duties of this important appointment among the Indians and the slaves, of whom some fifteen hundred were catechumens in the city of New-York. He could only collect them together on Sunday nights, after the last public services; and when properly prepared, would present them to Mr. Vesey, for baptism. Mr. Neau may be said to have founded the Free School of Trinity, an institution so useful and well known among the noble charities of New-York. Its former tablet is still preserved among the mementoes of the olden time. This excellent Huguenot closed his useful life in 1722, resting from his earthly labors alongside of God's holy temple, where he had so long worshiped and served him.

From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (August, 1862); found at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19927/19927.txt.

Daily Reading for September 8 • Nikolai Grundtvig, Bishop and Hymnwriter, 1872 and Søren Kierkegaard, Teacher and Philosopher, 1855

The Lord is in His holy place,
Let all the earth be still;
Be still and know that He is God,
And wait to do His will.
We need a sacred watchfulness,
An earnest deep desire for grace,
Our lives with true content to fill.

So hear and heed His faithful Word,
And trust His promise long,
For they who seek Him life shall find,
And shall in Him be strong;
We need a perfect faith in Him,
With understanding never dim,
To fill our daily lives with song.

This text for the hymn Som Hønen klukker mindelig is by Nikolai F.S. Grundtvig; found at http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/o/r/lordisin.htm.

Daily Reading for September 9 • Constance, Nun, and Her Companions, 1878

Biblically, vocation does not have any connotation limited to work. Vocation pertains to the whole of life, including work, of course, if and when there is work, but embracing every other use of time, every other engagement of body or mind, every other circumstance in life. In the gospel, vocation does not mean being professionally religious, it has no special reference to the ecclesiastical occupations, it does not imply “full-time Christian service” (as some preachers still put it); it is not about honesty, sobriety, thrift, loyalty, or similar homely virtues on the job, it does not concern positive attitudes and is alien to the success ethic. Moreover, in the gospel, vocation always bears an implication of immediacy—there is really no such thing as preparing to undertake one’s vocation when one grows up or when one graduates or when one obtains a certain position or when one gets to a certain place. Vocation is always here and now, without anxiety where one might be tomorrow, what regard there is for tomorrow and tomorrow’s issues are sufficiently anticipated, so far as vocation is concerned, in today’s unconditional involvement in life as it is. Vocation has to do with recognizing life as a gift and honoring the gift in living. To that, the question of whether another day will be added to one’s life, and if that comes to pass, how the gift will be spent on the morrow, is a distraction or diversion from living of the gift today.

From A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow, edited by Bill Wylie-Kellerman (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994).

Daily Reading for September 10 • Alexander Crummell, 1898

So the man groped for light; all this was not Life,--it was the world-wandering of a soul in search of itself, the striving of one who vainly sought his place in the world, ever haunted by the shadow of a death that is more than death,--the passing of a soul that has missed its duty. Twenty years he wandered,--twenty years and more; and yet the hard rasping question kept gnawing within him, “What, in God’s name, am I on earth for?” In the narrow New York parish his soul seemed cramped and smothered. In the fine old air of the English University he heard the millions wailing over the sea. In the wild fever-cursed swamps of West Africa he stood helpless and alone. . . .The Valley of the Shadow of Death gives few of its pilgrims back to the world.

But Alexander Crummell it gave back. Out of the temptation of Hate, and burned by the fire of Despair, triumphant over Doubt, and steeled by Sacrifice against Humiliation, he turned at last home across the waters, humble and strong, gentle and determined. He bent to all the gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination, with that rare courtesy which is the armor of pure souls. He fought among his own, the low, the grasping, and the wicked, with that unbending righteousness which is the sword of the just. He never faltered, he seldom complained; he simply worked, inspiring the young, rebuking the old, helping the weak, guiding the strong.

So he grew, and brought within his wide influence all that was best of those who walk within the Veil. They who live without knew not nor dreamed of that full power within, that mighty inspiration which the dull gauze of caste decreed that most men should not know. And now that he is gone, I sweep the Veil away and cry, Lo! the soul to whose dear memory I bring this little tribute. I can see his face still, dark and heavy-lined beneath his snowy hair; lighting and shading, now with inspiration for the future, now in innocent pain at some human wickedness, now with sorrow at some hard memory from the past. The more I met Alexander Crummell, the more I felt how much that world was losing which knew so little of him. In another age he might have sat among the elders of the land in purple-bordered toga; in another country mothers might have sung him to the cradles.

He did his work,--he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor,--all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked,--who is good? not that men are ignorant,-- what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.

From “Of Alexander Crummell” in The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (1903). http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/W_E_B_DuBois/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk/index.html

Daily Reading for September 11 • Harry Thacker Burleigh, Composer, 1949

Soon after Antonín Dvořák came to America as director of the National Conservatory in York in 1892, he revealed his enthusiasm for the folk music of the land and called for the formation of an American school of composition. Dvořák became particularly fond of one of his black students, Harry Burleigh, and spent many hours listening to him sing the folksongs of his people and discussing with him the possibilities for utilizing the folk music as the basis for composition. Within three months of his arrival, Dvořák had begun work on a symphony, From the New World (No. 9 in E minor), that emplyed themes invented in the spirit of Negro and Indian folk melodies. Just before its New York premiere in 1893, Dvořák stated:

“I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States. . . . These are the folk-songs of America, and your composers must turn to them. . . . In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. They are pathetic, tender, passionate, melancholy, solemn, religious, bold, merry, gay, or what you will.”

Burleigh began composing about 1898, at first writing simple ballads in the style of the period, then turning to art songs and instrumental pieces. He left more than three hundred compositions, including arrangements of spirituals, art songs, and other forms. As an arranger of spirituals for the solo voice Burleigh made a unique contribution to the history of American music. Before he published his Jubilee Songs of the United States of America in 1916, spirituals were performed on the concert stage only in ensemble or choral arrangements. Burleigh’s achievement made available to concert singers for the first time Negro spirituals set in the manner of art songs. After Burleigh, many concert singers developed the tradition of closing their recitals with a group of Negro spirituals, sometimes intermixed with other arranged folksongs. Burleigh wrote about his aim: “My desire was to preserve them [the spirituals] in harmonies that belong to modern methods of tonal progression without robbing the melodies of their racial flavor.” In 1929 Burleigh published the Old Songs Hymnal, a collection of very simple arrangements of Negro songs for nonprofessionals “to be used in church and home and school, preserving to us this precious heritage.”

From The Music of Black America: A History by Eileen Southern, third edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997, 1983, 1971).

Daily Reading for September 12 • John Henry Hobart, Bishop of New York, 1830

As the influences of the Divine Spirit are not irresistible, neither are they sensible—they are not to be distinguished from the acts of our own minds—we know them only by their fruits. The Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding, regulates the will, and purifies the affections. All this holy change in our souls is produced by a powerful indeed, but, except as to its effects, imperceptible agency. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.” We know the operation of the wind only by its effects. In like manner, according to this analogy, which our blessed Lord employed, the operations of the Holy Spirit are inscrutable, and to be known only by their fruits. This is a standard of judgment which cannot deceive us. The possession of the fruits of the Spirit is an infallible evidence of his sanctifying presence in our souls. By no other criterion can we determine whether we are led by the Spirit. No fervour of feeling is to be trusted but that which animates our love, our confidence, our hope in our God and Saviour; and these are among the principal fruits of the Spirit.

The Scriptures of truth lay down the infallible standard—“The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Let us test ourselves by this standard. Are our hearts animated and enlivened by supreme love to God and by love to mankind, by holy joy in the divine mercy and favour? Redeemed from all wrathful passions, are our souls the seat of peace? Are we long-suffering under the evils and provocations of the world, gentle and easy to be entreated? Does the principle of goodness inspire and animate all our actions? Is our intercourse with our fellow-men regulated by fidelity? In our tempers, in our conversation, and in our conduct, are we meek and lowly? And does temperance regulate the indulgence of our lawful appetites and passions? The soul, where these graces reign, must be the seat of that Divine Spirit whose agency alone can produce them. We are not then to expect any sensible demonstration of his presence, any overwhelming illumination or display of his power. When we crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts—when we are transformed by the renewing of our minds—when love to our God and Saviour, and love to our fellow-men, are the ruling principles of our hearts—when we study in all things to keep a conscience void of offence, and in simplicity and godly sincerity to have our conversation in the world—then we may be assured that we are led by the Spirit of God; and then we may rejoice in his holy comfort, in his all-powerful guidance and protection.

From the sermon “The Importance of Being Partakers of the Holy Ghost” by John Henry Hobart, quoted in Parochial Sermons: The Posthumous Works of the Late Right Reverend John Henry Hobart, D.D., Volume 3 (New York: Swords, Stanford, and Co., 1832). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/jhhobart/parochial/31.html.

Daily Reading for September 13 • The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

When the Lord tells us in the Gospel that anyone who wants to be his follower must renounce himself, the injunction seems harsh; we think he is imposing a burden on us. But an order is no burden when it is given by one who helps in carrying it out. To what place are we to follow Christ if not where he has already gone? We know that he has risen and ascended into heaven; there, then, we must follow him. There is no cause for despair—by ourselves we can do nothing, but we have Christ’s promise. . . .

One who claims to abide in Christ ought to walk as he walked. Would you follow Christ? Then be humble as he was humble. Do not scorn his lowliness if you want to reach his exaltation. Human sin made the road rough. Christ’s resurrection leveled it. By passing over it himself, he transformed the narrowest of tracks into a royal highway. Two feet are needed to run along this highway; they are humility and charity. Everyone wants to get to the top—well, the first step to take is humility. Why take strides that are too big for you—do you want to fall instead of going up? Begin with the first step, humility, and you will already be climbing.

From Sermons 159 of Caesarius of Arles, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for September 14 • Holy Cross Day

By nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low:

The sin of our first parent destroyed,
hell plundered,
resurrection bestowed,
the power given us to despise the things of this world,
even death itself,
the road back to the former blessedness made smooth,
the gates of paradise opened,
our nature seated at the right hand of God,
and we made children and heirs of God.
By the cross all these things have been set aright. . . .
It is a seal that the destroyer may not strike us,
a raising up of those who lie fallen,
a support for those who stand,
a staff for the infirm,
a crook for the shepherded,
a guide for the wandering,
a perfecting of the advanced,
salvation for soul and body,
a deflector of all evils,
a cause of all goods,
a destruction of sin,
a plant of resurrection,
and a tree of eternal life.

From Orthodox Faith by John of Damascus, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for September 15 • Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr of Carthage, 258, and James Chisholm, Priest, 1855

With respect to Mr. Chisholm’s capacity as a preacher, his finished and almost elaborate style of rhetoric, his brethren uniformly spoke in high terms. With respect to manner, there was an expression of deep reverence in his face, distinctness and earnestness in his tones of voice, never at any time absent from his public ministrations, which arrested and fixed the attention of his audience. And he carried the same manner into those services which he performed in the houses of the poorest of the people; and impressions were made by those services thus performed never to be forgotten. A recollection of one of them was expressed by the wife of a hardworking man (a former parishioner) who had moved to the lake country of Ohio, in a letter written upon reading a notice of his death in the public prints. “The news of his death opened the fountains of my tears. I wept and wept: old associations came to my mind. When mother was ill, and we all thought she was breathing her last, Mr. Chisholm came in. He kneeled by the bed, and in a strain of elevation repeated: ‘Though I walk through the dark valley and shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou, O God! art with me.’ Probably there was no one to do the same kind office for him when dying; but I believe the Angel of the Covenant was with him.”

It may have been inferred from some passages in this memoir, that Mr. Chisholm was of so meek and gentle a nature as to be wanting in firmness. He was not indeed always showing his firmness about trifles, or when there was no occasion for it; but when the occasion demanded it, he was not only firm, but unyielding and courageous; more too in others’ behalf than in his own. In the last and great act of his life some perhaps will think that he carried his firmness too far, especially when the condition of a child elsewhere would have fully justified him to the world for going to attend upon his dying-bed. There was also another reason which in the public mind would have justified him in leaving by perhaps the 25th of August—the fact that nearly every one if not every one of his own people who had remained were either dead or had passed through the fever. But his meekness is not more capable of defense than his resolution. The Christian pastor is naturally looked to in times of trouble not only by his own flock and the Christian people generally, but by a great many other persons. Where trouble was, there he was always, if wanted. His services, to which some value was attached, were in continued demand. Others were absent, disabled, or dead. There he was by divine providence, and surely if any were called to continue with such as could not leave, and minister to them in their distress, he felt it to be himself.

From Memoir of Rev. James Chisholm, A.M., Rector of St. John’s Church, Portsmouth, Virginia, with Memoranda of the Pestilence which Raged in that City during the Summer and Autumn of 1855 by David Holmes Conrad (New York: Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge, 1856).

Daily Reading for September 16 • Ninian, Bishop in Galloway, c. 430

As I reflect on the devout conversation of this most holy man, I am ashamed of our sloth, and of the laziness of this miserable generation. Which of us, I ask, even among servants, does not more frequently utter jestings than things serious, idle things than things useful, carnal things rather than things spiritual, in common conversation and intercourse. The mouths that Divine grace consecrated for the praise of God, and for the celebration of the holy mysteries, are daily polluted by back-biting and secular words, and they weary of the Psalms, the Gospel, and the Prophets. They all the day busy themselves with the vain and base works of man. How do they conduct themselves when journeying? Is not the body like the mind, all day in motion while the tongue is idle? Rumours and the doings of wicked men are in men’s mouths; religious gravity is relaxed by mirth and idle tales; the affairs of kings the duties of bishops, the ministries of clerics, the quarrels of princes, above all, the lives and morals of all are discussed. We judge every one but ourselves, and, what is more to be deplored we bite and devour one another, that we may be consumed one of another.

Not so the most blessed Ninian, not so, whose repose no crowd disturbed, whose meditation no journey hindered, whose prayer never grew lukewarm through fatigue. For whithersoever he went forth he raised his soul to heavenly things, either by prayer or by contemplation. But so often as turning aside from his journey he indulged in rest, either for himself or for the beast on which he rode, bringing out a book which he carried about with him for the very purpose, he delighted in reading or singing something, for he felt with the prophet, “O how sweet are thy words unto my throat! yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth.” Whence the Divine power bestowed such grace upon him, that even when resting in the open air, when reading in the heaviest rain, no moisture ever touched the book on which he was intent. When all around him was everywhere wet with water running upon it, he alone sat with his little book under the waters as if he were protected by the roof of a house.

From The Life of St.Ninian by Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx; http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/ninian.html

Daily Reading for September 17 • Hildegard of Bingen, 1179

There was no word that could quite express what Hildegard understood about God, so she made one up: viriditas. Viriditas reminded her of viridis, the color of green plants. Viriditas was the power for growth, the luxuriant energy of the spirit of God. That was what Hildegard had learned on her childhood ramblings. For Hildegard, God was organic, full of the energy of good rich compost.

Hildegard sees salvation history in terms of viriditas. In a poem to Mary, the mother of Jesus, she sings,

Hail to you, O greenest, most fertile branch!
You budded forth amidst breezes and winds
in search of the knowledge of all that is holy.
When the time was ripe
your own branch brought forth blossoms....
In you, the most stunning flower has blossomed
and gives off its sweet odor
to all the herbs and roots,
which were dry and thirsting before your arrival.
Now they spring forth in fullest green!

When Hildegard’s spirit felt dry and sterile, God’s dew, God’s moisture made her feel alive again, so she could in turn nourish others. It is no wonder that this understanding of God revealed itself in her visions, the language of Hildegard’s unconscious and of her half-forgotten childhood of memories:

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh
with the joy of life.

Hildegard expresses articulately for Christians the immanence of God: God’s real presence in and through creation.

From Organic Prayer: A Spiritual Gardening Companion by Nancy Roth. Copyright © 1993, 2007. From Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for September 18 • Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, 1882

The Holy Communion ought not, and (as I have said) cannot, stand alone in your spiritual life. As you are in the rest of your spiritual life, such you will be there, and such will It be to you then. As you are capable of, or take pleasure in, spiritual things at other times, so will it be with you then; as you love your Saviour at other times, of such sort will your love for Him be then; as you can raise your thoughts at other times to God, so could you then; as God is habitually present to your mind now, in that degree would be the lasting benefits of the Holy Communion then.

In too many there is but a faint commencement of the spiritual life. They seem to do things mechanically, as a duty, not for the pleasure they find in them. Thus, they read the Psalms and Lessons because they have been taught to do so, and this is right; but sometimes the Psalms are read so fast so as evidently not to give time to dwell upon them. People do not seem to think upon them, or dwell on any verse, or make them their own words to God, or listen to Him speaking to them, or apply their meaning to themselves as one who had pleasure in them or took interest in what he was reading. Then the portion of the Bible which is read is not taken up again, as a book that is loved; not because there are other duties to do (which may often be the case) but because there is no wish to read it. All this implies a want of realising spiritual things.

Then some have little or no pleasure, I fear, in thinking upon God. This is, in part, that they do not like thinking at all. This is very natural. It is an effort, and costs trouble. It is an effort to think upon Him Who is unseen, it is an effort to think at all, much more upon Him.

I would give you some rules.

1. Never prefer anything to reading God’s Word, nor read it quickly because you wish to go to other things. (This would be disrespectful of it and of God.) If you feel yourself inclined to read faster than usual, force yourself to go back to what you have read.

2. Say some little prayer, before you begin reading, and try to recollect yourself, Whose book you are taking in hand, that they are God’s words to you, things which the Angels desire to look into, and about your own Eternal life.

3. In reading, read as if you were listening to God speaking to your soul: and use the Psalms when they are either prayer or praise, as your own prayer or praise to God, not as reading the Psalms only.

4. Try to keep God in your thoughts through the day, recalling from time to time that you are in His Sight, wishing to receive things, pleasant or painful, as being from Him, to do things for Him. Even in such a little thing as taking medicine, pray when you take it that it may do you good: so as to the fresh air, you should receive it, as God’s gift refreshing you; when you say grace at your meals, you should try while taking them, to recollect that the food is His gift to you, and to take it from His Hands: and so as to sleep. So when anything happens, which you especially like, try to unite with your first feeling of joy, an act of thanksgiving to God for it. On the other hand, take anything unpleasant, as His doing, and so patiently, looking to Him. When you are engaged in your daily duties, try not only to do them well, but so as to please Him; in a word, try to put in practice, “I have set God always before me,” and then that other part will be fulfilled too, “He is on my right hand, therefore I shall not fall.”

5. Lift up your thoughts to God at intervals. The Hours will help you to this. You should try to use one first, as best suits; then when you find that you habitually recollect this, another; the prayers need not be long, only try to fix on your mind, so as not only to use a prayer then, but to meditate on your Lord and Saviour. People use too short ejaculations, i.e. prayers which are, as it were, darted up to God, such of those in the Liturgy, “Lord, have mercy upon us,” or if you are under temptation, “O God, make speed to save me,” or in beginning any duty or work, “Lord help me,” only, however short it is, try to lift up your thoughts earnestly to your Blessed Saviour at God’s Right Hand.

6. Then during the times you are alone, try to meditate for a time upon God. Thus, when you are out of doors, you can generally see the blue sky, and you have heard many things of it connected with God:—how our Lord has ascended thither to prepare a place for us; how God’s mercy encompasses all his Works, as the sky does the earth: how holy Angels and the spirits of the just dwell there: how its purity is an emblem of God’s Holiness, or again, of the brightness of faith. And so on, as to other things, everything may recall to you the things of God.

From A Letter of Advice (published by permission) given primarily as a Preparation for First Communion, but useful for Communicants generally by the Reverend Edward Bouverie Pusey, D.D., edited by H.S. Holland (London: Walter Smith, 1883).

Daily Reading for September 19 • Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690

Theodore arrived in England on Sunday 27 May 669, a year to the day after he had set out from Rome, and Hadrian arrived the following year. We can scarcely imagine their first impressions of England, though the sight of tiny wooden churches dotting the landscape must surely have evoked memories in Theodore of Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene in Constantinople, . . . and of the great basilican churches in Rome. Nevertheless, they set determinedly and expeditiously about reconstructing the administrative organization—if not the architectural fabric—of the English church. Their first undertaking was, as Bede tells us, a visitation of those parts of the island inhabited by the English. During this tour, Bede goes on to say, they gave instruction in the “correct” manner of the Christian life and in the “canonical” custom of celebrating Easter. . . .

When Theodore arrived, his own see had been vacant for nearly five years, and there were similar vacancies in episcopal sees in the kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia. Indeed the only three bishops in office in the whole country were Wini, bishop of London, Ceadda, bishop of York, and Wilfrid, bishop of Ripon. Theodore set about repairing this desperate situation with the urgency of an old man in a hurry. . . With the English episcopate restored, Theodore was able to summon a general synod at Hertford in September of either 672 or 673. The synod was attended by all English bishops (excepting only Wini, who probably took umbrage at Theodore’s ruthless authority, and Wilfrid, who however sent proxies). Theodore produced a liber canonum or book of canon law, and from it promulgated the canons or rules designed to secure the unanimity of the English church in matters of orthodox belief, such as Easter dating and marriage and divorce, or of jurisdiction, such as the intrusion of bishops into the dioceses of others or into the affairs of monasteries. Such measures brought a degree of stability to the English church. . . .

Theodore’s thought and learning had a longlasting influence on ecclesiastical legislation. To cite one example from many: Theodore’s sacrament for the ordination of a monk was incorporated whole by the tenth-century compilers of the Romano-German Pontifical, whence it spread throughout the western church. In this respect, as in so many others, Theodore played a pivotal role in the transmission of eastern ideas to the Latin West.

From Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian by Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Daily Reading for September 20 • The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Let vanity be unknown among you.
Let simplicity and harmony and a guileless attitude
weld the community together.
Let each remind himself that he is not only subordinate
to the brother at his side, but to all.
If he knows this, he will truly be a disciple of Christ.

From On the Christian Mode of Life 8.1, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for September 21 • Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

If we come to the gospels expecting to find biography in the modern sense, we shall look in vain. There was little real interest in scientific biography in the ancient world—Plutarch is an exception—and Matthew provides us with no biographical material between the infancy and the beginning of the Baptist’s ministry. Almost all the elements that a modern reader would demand of a biography are lacking. Matthew has two principal interests: the fulfillment of God’s purposes in and through Jesus, and how this fulfillment will find expression in the community which Jesus founded. In addition to Matthew’s concern with themes rather than with history, the most cursory inspection of this gospel would reveal that—from a purely historical point of view—it devotes a disproportionate amount of space and attention to the narrative of the passion.

This concentration on the passion and the resurrection of Jesus provides us with a clue to the purpose of a written gospel. Although it is possible to reconstruct something of the earthly life, and even the ministry, of Jesus from the letters and from Acts, obviously there was a further need felt to make the record as clear and authentic as possible. There must have been considerable anxiety among Christians lest all the original twelve disciples should die before the process of sifting and control had been completed. The four gospels were not written for people to whom Jesus-Messiah was outside experience; those outside the Christian community were not the intended audience for the gospels, however much the availability of those writings may now persuade us to the contrary. Belief in the passion and resurrection of Jesus, and in their saving effects, is central to the gospel; for the evangelists the passion was central to the interpretation of those events.

From Matthew by W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann, volume 26 of The Anchor Bible series (New York: Doubleday, 1971).

Daily Reading for September 22 • Philander Chase, Bishop of Ohio, and of Illinois, 1852

In the year of our Lord 1793-94, while [Philander Chase] was a member of the sophomore and junior classes, he became acquainted with the Common Prayer-Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America. This circumstance formed an important era in his life and that of his venerable parents and beloved relatives in Cornish, New Hampshire, and in Bethel, Vermont, where they resided. Hitherto they had all been Congregationalists, and as such, had much ignorance and many prejudices to overcome in conforming to the worship of God as set forth in that primitive liturgy. The more, however, it was examined and compared with the word of God, the more forcibly did its beauties strike their minds. Amidst the manifold divisions, not to say schisms and heresies, by which they were circumstanced and to which an extemporaneous mode of worship had evidently led, the Prayer-Book seemed a light, mercifully designed by Providence to conduct them into the path of peace and order; and then the holy faith which it was designed to preserve, as the vessel preserves the oil from being spilled and adulterated, how pure and undefiled did it appear! How primitive when compared with the multiform articles of belief which had grown up, and still continue to grow up, all around them!

These considerations respecting the liturgy of the church, joined to her well-authenticated claims to an apostolic constitution in her ministry, were among the principal reasons which induced so many of his relations to conform to the Protestant Episcopal Church, and instead of repairing the meeting-house, where both his grandfather and father had officiated as Congregational deacons, inclined them to pull it down and erect on its spot an Episcopal Church. This was effected in great harmony; not a voice was raised against the measure throughout the neighborhood. As it respects himself, having become ardently desirous of entering, when qualified, into the ministry, the question, who had the divine power and authority to ordain him and thereby give him an apostolic commission to preach and administer the sacraments, became a matter of the utmost consequence, affecting his conscience. How this was answered, his course of life has shown. As he depended not on others’ opinions, but examined for himself, even so let others do; always remembering that truth doth not depend on man, but on God.

From Bishop Chase’s Reminiscences: An Autobiography by Philander Chase (J. B. Dow, 1848).

Daily Reading for September 23

If roteness is a danger, it is also the way liturgy works. When you don’t have to think all the time about what words you are going to say next, you are free to fully enter into the act of praying; you are free to participate in the life of God.

Put differently: I have sometimes set aside my prayer book for days and weeks on end, and I find, at the end of those days and weeks on end, that I have lapsed into narcissism. Though meaning to commune with or reverence or at least acknowledge God, I wind up talking to myself about my emotions du jour. I worry about my mother’s health, or I stress about money, or (more happily) I bop up and down with excitement about good news or sunshine or life in general, but I never get much further than that. It is returning to my prayer book that places me: places me in words that ask me to confess my sins, even when I can’t think of any red-letter deeds recently committed; words that ask me to pray for presidents and homeless Charlottesvillians and everyone in between; words that praise God even on the mornings when I wonder if God exists at all. Sure, sometimes it is great when, in prayer, we can express to God just what we feel; but better still when, in the act of praying, our feelings change. Liturgy is not, in the end, open to our emotional whims. It repoints the person praying, taking him somewhere else.

From Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline by Lauren F. Winner (Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for September 24

As important as it is to mark the places where we meet God, I worry about what happens when we build a house for God. I am speaking no longer of the temple in Jerusalem but of the house of worship on the corner, where people of faith meet to say their prayers, because saying them together reminds them of who they are better than saying them alone. This is good, and all good things cast shadows. Do we build God a house so that we can choose when to go see God? Do we build God a house in lieu of having God stay at ours? Plus, what happens to the rest of the world when we build four walls—even four gorgeous walls—cap them with a steepled roof, and designate that the House of God? What happens to the riverbanks, the mountaintops, the deserts, and the trees? What happens to the people who never show up in our houses of God?

From An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor (New York: HarperOne, 2009).

Daily Reading for September 25 • Sergius, Abbot of Holy Trinity, Moscow, 1392

Hardly a day passes in our lives without our experience of inner or outer fears, anxieties, apprehensions and preoccupations. These dark powers have pervaded every part of our world to such a degree that we can never fully escape them. Still it is possible not to belong to these powers, not to build our dwelling place among them, but to choose the house of love as our home. This choice is made not just once and for all but by living a spiritual life, praying at all times and thus breathing God’s breath. Through the spiritual life we gradually move from the house of fear to the house of love.

I have never seen the house of love more beautifully expressed than in the icon of the Holy Trinity, painted by Andrew Rublev in 1425 in memory of the great Russian saint, Sergius (1313-1392). For me the contemplation of this icon has increasingly become a way to enter more deeply into the mystery of divine life while remaining fully engaged in the struggles of our hate-and-fear-filled world.

Andrew Rublev painted this icon not only to share the fruits of his own meditation on the mystery of the Holy Trinity but also to offer his fellow monks a way to keep their hearts centered in God while living in the midst of political unrest. The more we look at this holy image with the eyes of faith, the more we come to realize that it is painted not as a lovely decoration for a convent church, nor as a helpful explanation of a difficult doctrine, but as a holy place to enter and stay within. As we place ourselves in front of the icon in prayer, we come to experience a gentle invitation to participate in the intimate conversation that is taking place among the three divine angels and to join them around the table.

From Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons by Henri J. M. Nouwen (Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1987).

Daily Reading for September 26 • Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, 1626; and Wilson Carlile, Priest, 1942

When Andrewes was a young scholar in the University, and so all his time onward, he never loved or used any games or ordinary recreations, either within doors, as cards, dice, tables, chess, or the like; or abroad, as hilts, quoits, bowls, or any such: but his ordinary exercise and recreation was walking either alone by himself, or with some other selected companion, with whom he might confer and argue, and recount their studies; and he would often profess that to observe the grass, herbs, corn, trees, cattle, earth, waters, heavens, any of the creatures, and to contemplate their natures, orders, qualities, virtues, uses, &c., was ever to him the greatest mirth, content, and recreation that could be: and this he held to his dying day.

. . . Of the fruit of this his seed-time, the world, especially this land, hath reaped a plentiful harvest in his sermons and writings: never went any beyond him in the first of these, his preaching, wherein he had such a dexterity, that some would say of him, that he was quick again as soon as delivered; and in this faculty he hath left a pattern inimitable. So that he was truly styled, Stella prædicantium, and “an angel in the pulpit” And his late Majesty took especial care in causing that volume of his sermons to be divulged, though but a handful of those which he preached, by enjoying whereof this kingdom hath an inestimable treasure.

From “An Exact Narration of the Life and Death of the Late reverend and learned Prelate, and painfull Divine Lancelot Andrewes, Late Bishop of Winchester” by Henry Isaacson; found at http://anglicanhistory.org/andrewes/isaacson1650.html

Daily Reading for September 27 • The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

“We forbade him, because he was not following us. . .” (Mark 9:38).

There may be something catholic outside the church catholic. The name of Christ could exist outside the congregation of Christ, as in the case of the man casting out devils in Christ’s name. There may by contrast exist pretenses within the church catholic, as is unquestionably the case of those “who renounce the world in words and not in deeds,” and yet the pretense is not catholic. So as there may be found in the church catholic something which is not catholic, so there may be found something which is catholic outside the church catholic.

From On Baptism, Against the Donatists 7.39 by Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Daily Reading for September 28 • Richard Rolle, 1349, Walter Hilton, 1396, and Margery Kempe, c. 1440, Mystics

In the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there was in England no more highly esteemed devotional writer than Walter Hilton, author of the massive Scale of Perfection. The appeal of this masterwork over the centuries owes much to the exceptional breadth of Hilton’s teaching. So wide and capacious is the Scale that almost any reader can find a place in it: Hilton teaches the rudiments of prayer as well as the highest reaches of contemplation, the initial steps of conversion as well as the final degrees of purgation.

Between these poles the author charts an interior course that consists not so much of a rigid step-by-step formula for spiritual ascent as a broad, yet detailed, description of our entire movement towards God. He delineates what is for him the crucial process of “reformation in faith and feeling” with enough psychological precision to be helpful, yet without overwhelming the reader with minute, idiosyncratic diagnoses. . . .

In every age, affectivity poses a dilemma: how can we pursue prayer that is emotionally engaged without becoming dependent upon particular affective states? How do we gain a measure of freedom from our vacillating feelings without cutting them off from the process of redemption? How are our affections sanctified, and how do we manage them in the meantime? Hilton’s response to the ambiguity of human emotion is as many-faceted as the problem. His treatment entails neither an uncritical endorsement of states of emotion, whether religiously inspired or not, nor an equally simplistic rejection of all intense feeling. Like every other aspect of human nature, affectivity needs to be interpreted, disciplined, and ultimately redeemed.

From Three Spiritual Directors for Our Time: Julian of Norwich, The Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton by Julia Gatta (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1986).

Daily Reading for September 29 • St. Michael and All Angels

A great fullness of spiritual comfort and joy in God comes into the hearts of those who recite or devoutly intone the psalms as an act of praise to Jesus Christ. They drop sweetness in men’s souls and pour delight into their thoughts and kindle their wills with the fire of love, making them hot and burning within, and beautiful and lovely in Christ’s eyes. And those who persevere in their devotion he raises up to the life of meditation and, on many occasions, he exalts them to the melody and celebrations of heaven. The song of the psalms chases away devils, stirs up angels to help us; it drives out and destroys discontent and resentment in the soul and makes a peace between body and soul; it brings desire of heaven and contempt for earthly things. Indeed, this radiant book is a choice song in God’s presence, like a lamp brightening our life, health for a sick heart, honey to a bitter soul, a high mark of honor among spiritual people, a voicing of private virtues, which forces down the proud to humility and makes kings bow in reverence to poor men, nurturing children with gentleness. In the psalms there is such great beauty of meaning and of medicine from the words that this book is called “a garden enclosed,” a sealed fountain, a paradise full of apples. The song which gives delight to hearts and instructs the soul has become a sound of singing: with angels whom we cannot hear we mingle words of praising, so that anyone would be right to reckon himself exiled from true life if he does not in this way experience the delightfulness of this gift of wonderful sweetness.

From the Prologue to the English translation of the Psalter by Richard Rolle, quoted in Richard Rolle: The English Writings, translated, edited, and introduced by Rosamund S. Allen (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1988).

Daily Reading for September 30 • Jerome, Priest, and Monk of Bethlehem, 420

You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ from one another, you would have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is one of love, but at the same time both perilous and presumptuous; for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to change the language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to the early days of its infancy? Is there a man, learned or unlearned, who will not, when he takes the volume into his hands, and perceives that what he reads does not suit his settled tastes, break out immediately into violent language, and call me a forger and a profane person for having the audacity to add anything to the ancient books, or to make any changes or corrections therein? Now there are two consoling reflections which enable me to bear the odium—in the first place, the command is given by you who are the supreme bishop; and secondly, even on the showing of those who revile us, readings at variance with the early copies cannot be right. For if we are to pin our faith to the Latin texts, it is for our opponents to tell us which; for there are almost as many forms of texts as there are copies. If, on the other hand, we are to glean the truth from a comparison of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes introduced by inaccurate translators, and the blundering alterations of confident but ignorant critics, and, further, all that has been inserted or changed by copyists more asleep than awake? . . .

I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his work in Judaea in Hebrew characters. We must confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go back to the fountainhead. . . .

I therefore promise in this short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used. But to avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as they are.

From Jerome’s preface to his translation of the four gospels, addressed to Pope Damasus (383); found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.ii.viii.html