Daily Reading for October 1 • Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, c. 530

When St. Remi had preached to the King the Christian faith and taught him the way of the Cross, and when the king had known what the faith was, Chlodovocar promised fervently that he would henceforth never serve any save the all-powerful God. After that he said he would put to the test and try the hearts and wills of his chieftains and lesser people: for he would convert them more easily if they were converted by pleasant means and by mild words, than if they were driven to it by force; and this method seemed best to St. Remi. The folk and the chieftains were assembled by the command of the King. He arose in the midst of them, and spoke to this effect: “Lords of the Franks, it seems to me highly profitable that you should know first of all what are those gods which you worship. For we are certain of their falsity: and we come right freely into the knowledge of Him who is the true God. Know of a surety that this same God which I preach to you has given victory over your enemies in the recent battle against the Alemanni. Lift, therefore, your hearts in just hope; and ask the Sovereign Defender, that He give to you all, that which you desire—that He save our souls and give us victory over our enemies.” When the King full of faith had thus preached to and admonished his people, one and all banished from their hearts all unbelief, and recognized their Creator.

When shortly afterward Chlodovocar set out for the church for baptism, St. Remi prepared a great procession. The streets of Rheims were hung with banners and tapestry. The church was decorated. The baptistry was covered with balsams and all sorts of perfumes. The people believed they were already breathing the delights of paradise. The cortege set out from the palace, the clergy led the way bearing the holy Gospels, the cross and banners, chanting hymns and psalms. Then came the bishop leading the King by the hand, next the Queen with the multitude. Whilst on the way the King asked of the bishop, if this was “the Kingdom of Heaven which he had promised him.”

“Not so,” replied the prelate. “It is the road that leads to it.”

From The Chronicle of St. Denis, I.18-19, 23; found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/496clovis.html

Daily Reading for October 2

Syncletica said, “If you live in a monastic community, do not wander from place to place; if you do, it will harm you. If a hen stops sitting on the eggs, she will hatch no chickens. The monk or nun who goes from place to place grows cold and dead in faith.”

She also said, “The devil sometimes sends a severe fast that is too prolonged; the devil’s disciples do this as well as holy men. How do we distinguish the fasting of our God and King from the fasting of that tyrant the devil? Clearly by its moderation. Throughout your life, then, you ought to keep an unvarying rule of fasting. Do you fast four or five days on end and then lose your spiritual strength by eating a feast? That really pleases the devil! Everything that is extreme is destructive. So do not suddenly throw away your armor, or you may be found unarmed in the battle and easily captured. Our body is the armor, our soul is the warrior. Take care of both, and you will be ready for whatever comes.”

Quoted in Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another by Rowan Williams (Boston: New Seeds, 2005).

Daily Reading for October 3 • George Kennedy Allen Bell, Bishop of Chichester, and Ecumenist, 1958, and John Raleigh Mott, Evangelist and Ecumenical Pioneer, 1955

Love, not doctrine, nor order, is to supply the bands which draw Christians together. . . . Let us begin wherever people of a co-operative spirit are to be found: and not spend our effort on organization at the centre. Indeed, at the present stage a few like-minded people of the Church of England, of the Roman Catholics and the Nonconformists, keeping in personal touch with one another, and with their respective churches, are probably organization enough. Far more important is the encouragement and extension of local Christian fellowship, local united meetings, local united councils and united study, and the coming together in faith, hope and charity, in towns and villages, as friends.

Next, it is desirable that the movement of Christian collaboration should be predominantly lay. It is in the civil order, and in the actualities of daily life, that the Christian’s decisions are made. It is, therefore, in the meeting all over England of groups of Christian lay men, of different Churches, for mutual support and mutual help in Christian witness and action, that one of the most fruitful kinds of collaboration will be found.

From “The Basis of Christian Co-operation,” a speech given by George Kennedy Allen Bell in October 1941; quoted “George Bell, 1883-1958: A Bishop to Remember,” a study course marking the 50th anniversary of his death found at http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk/dyn/_assets/_pdfs/BellStudyCourse.A4pdf.pdf

Daily Reading for October 4 • The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Hebrew Scriptures offer many poetic images of creation and the Creator’s purpose and joy in all that comes to be. As each new phase of creation unfolds, God proclaims, “It is good.” And when humanity arrives on the scene, the Creator entrusts the care of all that has been made into our hands.

Animals especially invite our attention and honor because their essential nature is mostly devoid of the kind of pretense we have learned to practice in cultural and religious life. If they are angry, they express anger; when joy fills them, they live their joy; and when danger approaches, they recognize it for what it is and take action. Animals express deep care for their young, know how to find and enjoy food, accept their limitations, and live in harmony with the rhythms of day and night, times and seasons.

My love for animals was a gift from my mother, who tenderly lifted earthworms from harm’s way, though she feared their wriggling bodies. This love that my mother taught me was kept underground for many years as I defended an infallible Bible and the Sovereign God who authored it. My spiritual journey has led me away from this early, rigid approach to Scripture, but my joy in the sacred text increased as I learned to allow the various writers to inhabit their own time and culture. With this fresh understanding of Scripture, I also learned to read from God’s “other book”—creation. I now understand how St. Anthony could point to the rugged mountains surrounding his cave-dwelling and answer a philosopher who asked how he would pray without a copy of the Scriptures, “Creation will be my book.”

In the last few years, animals have increasingly arrested my attention and taught me more about the Creator. When I have preached or offered retreats, I have felt compelled to share stories of animal encounters to illuminate Scripture. Many I speak with have a tenuous relationship with organized religion, often because they have felt abused by a church that used the Bible moralistically and denied the value of personal experience and questions. They have turned to God’s other book, preferring time in the midst of creation to pew-bound Sunday mornings. Others who have remained in the church ask why we have often been so self-focused that we have failed to recall and receive the wisdom of the whole created order. Both groups know that each of us, through animal encounters, may deepen our relationship with the Source of all Being. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

From Ask the Animals: Spiritual Wisdom from All God’s Creatures by Elizabeth Canham. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for October 5 • St. Francis of Assisi, Friar, 1226 (transferred)

Our Father: Most Holy, our Creator and Redeemer, our Savior and our Comforter.

Who art in Heaven: in the angels and the saints. Who gives them light so that they may have knowledge, because Thou, Lord, are Light. Who inflames them so that they may love, because Thou, Lord, are Love. Who lives continually in them and who fills them so that they may be happy, because Thou, Lord, are the Supreme Good, the Eternal Good, and it is from Thee that all good comes, and without Thee there is no good.

Hallowed be Thy Name: May our knowledge of Thee become ever clearer, so that we may realize the extent of Thy benefits, the steadfastness of Thy promises, the sublimity of Thy Majesty and the depth of Thy judgments.

Thy Kingdom come: so that Thou may reign in us by Thy grace and bring us to Thy Kingdom, where we shall see Thee clearly, love Thee perfectly, be blessed in Thy company and enjoy Thee forever.

Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven: so that we may love Thee with our whole heart by always thinking of Thee; with our whole mind by directing our whole intention towards Thee and seeking Thy glory in everything; and with all our strength by spending all our powers and affections of soul and body in the service of Thy Love alone. And may we love our neighbors as ourselves, encouraging them all to love Thee as best we can, rejoicing as the good fortune of others, just as it were our own, and sympathizing with their misfortunes, while giving offense to no one.

Give us this day our daily bread: Thy own beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to remind us of the love He showed for us and to help us understand and appreciate it and everything that he did or said or suffered.

And forgive us our trespasses: in Thy infinite Mercy, and by the power of the Passion of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the merits and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all your saints.

As we forgive those who trespass against us: and if we do not forgive perfectly, Lord, make us forgive perfectly, so that we may indeed love our enemies for love of Thee, and pray fervently to Thee for them, returning no one evil for evil, anxious only to serve everybody in Thee.

And lead us not into temptation: hidden or obvious, sudden or unforeseen. But deliver us from evil: Present, past, or to come. Amen.

A paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer by Francis of Assisi, translated by Benen Fahy, OFM, in The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi (London: Burnes & Oates, 1964).

Daily Reading for October 6 • William Tyndale, 1536, and Miles Coverdale, 1568, Translators of the Bible

Doubtless, like as all nations in the diversity of speeches may know one God in the unity of faith, and be one in love; even so may divers translations understand one another, and that in the head articles and ground of our most blessed faith, though they use sundry words. Wherefore methink we have great occasion to give thanks unto God, that he hath opened unto his church the gift of interpretation and of printing, and that there are now at this time so many, which with such diligence and faithfulness interpret the scripture, to the honour of God and edifying of his people: whereas like as when many are shooting together, every one doth his best to be nighest the mark; and though they cannot all attain thereto, yet shooteth one nigher than another, and hitteth it better than another; yea, one can do it better than another. Who is now then so unreasonable, so despiteful, or envious, as to abhor him that doth all his diligence to hit the prick, and to shoot nighest it, though he miss and come not nighest the mark? Ought not such one rather to be commended, and to be helped forward, that he may exercise himself the more therein?

For the which cause, according as I was desired, I took the more upon me to set forth this special translation, not as a checker, not as a reprover, or despiser of other men’s translations, (for among many as yet I have found none without occasion of great thanksgiving unto God;) but lowly and faithfully have I followed mine interpreters, and that under correction; and though I have failed anywhere (as there is no man but he misseth in some tiling), love shall construe all to the best, without any perverse judgment. There is no man living that can see all things, neither hath God given any man to know everything. One seeth more clearly than another, one hath more understanding than another, one can utter a thing better than another; but no man ought to envy or despise another. He that can do better than another, should not set him at nought that understandeth less. Yea, he that hath the more understanding ought to remember, that the same gift is not his, but God’s, and that God hath given it him to teach and inform the ignorant. If thou hast knowledge therefore to judge where any fault is made, I doubt not but thou wilt help to amend it, if love be joined with thy knowledge. Howbeit, whereinsoever I can perceive by myself, or by the information of other, that I have failed (as it is no wonder), I shall now by the help of God overlook it better, and amend it.

Now will I exhort thee, whosoever thou be that readest scripture, if thou find ought therein that thou understandest not, or that appeareth to be repugnant, give no temerarious nor hasty judgment thereof; but ascribe it to thine own ignorance, not to the scripture: think that thou understandest it not, or that it hath some other meaning, or that it is haply overseen of the interpreters, or wrong printed. Again, it shall greatly help thee to understand scripture, if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom, and unto whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstance, considering what goeth before, and what followeth after. . . .When thou readest scripture, be wise and circumspect; and when thou comest to such strange manners of speaking and dark sentences, to such parables and similitudes, to such dreams or visions, as are hid from thy understanding, commit them unto God, or to the gift of his Holy Spirit in them that are better learned than thou.

From the Prologue to the translation of the Bible by Miles Coverdale (1535); found at http://www.archive.org/stream/writingstranslat00cove/writingstranslat00cove_djvu.txt

Daily Reading for October 7 • Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Lutheran Pastor in North America, 1787

From Henry Melchior Muhlenberg’s theological orientation and his realization that adaptation to a new American environment was essential if Lutheranism was ever to become a true ecclesia plantata emerged his ecclesiastical polity. His emphasis on the dignity and authority of the ministerial office stemmed from his concept of the preacher as the steward of God’s mysteries, to whom Christ had entrusted both word and sacraments. The minister, in Muhlenberg’s view, was both an exemplar of Christian life and a bridge between creature and Creator. In his hands lay the instruments of converting grace and, for this reason, he was owed respect and obedience by the people of God. To a great degree, Muhlenberg’s theological basis for sacerdotal preeminence was European rooted. Though the European layman had a voice in matters ecclesial, it was definitely subordinate to that of the pastor. . . .

Muhlenberg’s views on the validity of one-man ordination are ambiguous. He repeatedly stated that he lacked the authority to ordain in this manner. In each instance, however, this was coupled with the fact that the candidates who presented themselves were, in his opinion, unqualified and unworthy of ordination. He had, in actuality, recognized the validity of the orders of men ordained by a single preacher. In practice, however, one-man ordination had been, in Pennsylvania, the hallmark of the vagabond itinerants who so infuriated him, so his reluctance to initiate such a practice might well have been based on prudence than on any canonical scruples. In the final analysis, expediency won out over strict obedience to Halle for, as Muhlenberg informed Francke, “while we dutifully respected the instructions of our Fathers forbidding the catechists to preach, we had to consider very carefully what was best to be done under the circumstances.” . . .

In addition to an ordained ministry, Muhlenberg believed that the church in English America needed a common liturgical framework to serve as a compromise between various local customs and usages. In the end, he adopted the liturgical schema of London’s Savoy Church, adding to or deleting from it as conditions warranted and necessity dictated. . . .Given his strong views on the need to channel religious enthusiasm into a liturgical framework, it is understandable that Muhlenberg’s first synodical action would be the framing of a uniform liturgy.

From Missionary of Moderation: Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and the Lutheran Church in English America by Leonard R. Riforgiato (East Brunswick, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1980).

Daily Reading for October 8 • William Dwight Porter Bliss, Priest, 1926, and Richard Theodore Ely, Economist, 1943

Every true disciple of Jesus Christ gives an affirmative to the question which Cain raised only in denial: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Socialism, as Christians view it, is only a consistent carrying out of this principle as far as necessary, viz., that each man is his brother’s keeper. We say, only as far as necessary. This guards individuality, while it maintains co-operation and reciprocity. This principle is already acted on to a large extent by the co-operation of free men in maintaining government for the protection of individual rights against invasion by force or fraud. It is carried still further by the concerted action of the community for the common benefit, in maintaining schools, asylums, libraries, works, aqueducts, sanitation, the post-office, etc. Socialism is simply aiming at consistency and thoroughness in this line of action.

It is singular above all things to find Christian people so often using socialism as a term of reproach, very much as democracy was used a century ago. Some, reputed to be wise, even class it among the foes of Christianity. . . . There are socialists and socialists. There may be found socialists who answer to the bogie held up as representing all. Socialist schemes are advocated by some who are simply enemies of mankind. So nitrogen is a constituent both of nitric acid and of beef-tea. People who are influenced by names are often as silly-wise as the girl who, after reading of a terrible explosion of nitro-glycerine, very carefully emptied her glycerine bottle into the gutter as a timely precaution.

When, therefore, a preacher, or a church-member, as now and then, cries out against socialism, it is always charitable and generally correct to say that he is ignorantly giving away the good-will of his business. He means only to oppose the atheism, or the immorality, or the revolutionary folly, that has sometimes taken to itself that good name, which is really the original trade-mark of Christianity. No man is fit to be a Christian teacher who does not know that Christianity was originally and is essential socialistic. . . . Christianity was at first a social and humanitarian movement, in a time much resembling ours in respect to the extremes of wealth and poverty, burdensome monopolies, oppressive taxation, and inordinate luxury. In the society of his disciples Jesus laid down two socialistic principles as fundamentals, viz., (1) Scrupulous care for the “little ones which believe in me,”—the weak, who are likeliest to go under in the struggle for existence. (2) The proportioning of burdens to ability, — “he that is greatest shall be servant of all.” This we respect in times of peril, when the strongest are selected for the battle-field because they are strong; but it is repudiated in peace under our system of taxation, which experts declare puts the heaviest burden on those least able to bear it.

From “Why Christians Should Be Socialists” by William Dwight Porter Bliss, in The Dawn, Vol. II, No. 1 (May 1890).

Daily Reading for October 9 • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, Medical Missionary, 1940

No one can write his real religious life with pen or pencil. It is written only in actions, and its seal is our character, not our orthodoxy. Whether we, our neighbour, or God is the judge, absolutely the only value of our “religious” life to ourselves or to any one is what it fits us for and enables us to do. Creeds, when expressed only in words, clothes, or abnormal lives, are daily growing less acceptable as passports to Paradise. What my particular intellect can accept cannot commend me to God. His “well done” is only spoken to the man who “wills to do His will.”

We map the world out into black and white patches for “heathen” and “Christian”—as if those who made the charts believed that one section possessed a monopoly of God's sonship. Europe was marked white, which is to-day comment enough on this division. A black friend of mine used often to remind me that in his country the Devil was white. . . .

Because I owed so much to evangelical teachers, it worried me for a long while that I could not bring myself to argue with my boys about their intellectual attitude to Christ. My Sunday class contained several Jews whom I loved. I respected them more because they made no verbal professions. I have seen Turkish religionists dancing and whirling in Asia Minor at their prayers. I have seen much emotional Christianity, and I fully realize the value of approaching men on their emotional side. A demonstrative preacher impresses large crowds of people at once. But all the same, I have learned from many disillusionments to be afraid of overdoing emotionalism in religion. Summing up the evidence of men’s Christlikeness by their characters, as I look back down my long list of loved and honoured helpers and friends, I am certainly safe in saying that I at least should judge that no section of Christ’s Church has any monopoly of Christ’s spirit; and that I should like infinitely less to be examined on my own dogmatic theology than I should thirty-five years ago. Combined with this goes the fact that though I know the days of my stay on earth are greatly reduced, I seem to be less rather than more anxious about “the morrow.” For though time has rounded off the corners of my conceit, experience of God's dealing with such an unworthy midget as myself has so strengthened the foundations on which faith stood, that Christ now means more to me as a living Presence than when I laid more emphasis on the dogmas concerning Him. . . .

I am writing of my religion. The churches are now teaching that religion is action, not diction. There was a time when I could work with only one section of the Church of God. Thank God, it was a very brief period, but I weep for it just the same. Now I can not only work with any section, but worship with them also. If there is error in their intellectual attitudes, it is to God they stand, not to me. Doubtless there is just as much error in mine. To me, he is the best Christian who “judges not.” To claim a monopoly of Christian religion for any church, looked at from the point of view of following Jesus Christ, is ridiculous. So I find that I have changed, changed in the importance which I place on what others think and upon what I myself think. . . .

Perhaps my change spells more and not less faith in the Saviour of the world. As I love the facts of life more, I care less for fusty commentators. As I see more of Christ’s living with us all the days, I care less for arguments about His death. I have no more doubt that He lives in His world to-day than that I do. Why should I blame myself because more and more my mind emphasizes the fact that it is because He lives, and only so far as He lives in me, that I shall live also?

From A Labrador Doctor by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919); found at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22372/22372-h/22372-h.htm#CHAPTER_XXVII

Daily Reading for October 10 • Vida Dutton Scudder, Educator and Witness for Peace, 1954

All the careful worship through which the Church leads her children to the Altar, all the emotion into which, cleansed and fed, they return, is saturate with social earnestness. But the Sacrament is greater than the worship which enshrines it; and meditation on the Holy Mystery Itself gives best guidance to our minds.

The simple and outstanding fact is plain; this is the Sacrament of Unity, this is the Feast of Brotherhood, this is the sure communion no less of man with man than of man with God. It is to the Christian the earnest and the pledge of that Holy Fellowship and Perpetual Feast in the Kingdom of Heaven where all separateness shall be done away. Alas, that down through history the Sacrament of Unity has so often been a Sacrament of division; alas that still we rear our separate Altars, and defy brotherhood where we should most and first assert it. None the less, despite the perplexities and blunders of Christ’s stupid though loving fold, the great Rite stands forever as witness to the abiding truth of fellowship. The Holiest Gift is not given to us in solitude; Christian wisdom forbids a solitary approach to the Altar. Only at the common meal, where two or three are gathered together, do we touch Infinity most intimately, and find ourselves most fully one with Creative Love. . . .

Theories about the Sacrament may vex the mind of Christendom; but no Christian carries them to the Altar. The sacramental life, as it quickens at the touch of faith, is the same in every heart. The Eucharist is the final rebuke to the instinct for spiritual aristocracy. Saint, ascetic, administrator, theologian, priest, has no higher privilege than the least of repentant sinners. No esoteric grace, conditioned on wisdom or even on spiritual attainment, awaits the Christian initiate. All is open to the child just confirmed, to the most ignorant of loving hearts; at the first cry of faith, the Gift is ready. It unites us with the whole Church militant here below; and no less, with the Church expectant and triumphant. “Angels and living saints and dead / But one communion make,” in the democracy of the Altar.

From “The Eucharist” in Social Teachings of the Christian Year: Lectures Delivered at the Cambridge Conference, 1918 by Vida D. Scudder (E.P. Dutton & Company, 1921).

Daily Reading for October 11 • The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

We are made to love, both to satisfy the necessity of our active nature and to answer the beauties in every creature. By love our souls are married and soldered to the creatures, and it is our duty like God to be united to them all. We must love them infinitely, but in God, and for God, and God in them, namely, all his excellencies manifest in them. When we dote upon the perfections and beauties of some one creature, we do not love that too much, but other things too little. Never was anything in this world loved too much, but many things have been loved in a false way, and all in too short a measure.

Imagine a river or a drop of water, an apple or a grain of sand, an ear of corn or an herb: God knows infinite excellencies in it more than we. He sees how it relates to angels and to humans, how it proceeds from the most perfect Lover to the most perfectly Beloved, how it represents all God’s attributes. And for this cause it cannot be beloved too much. God the Author and God the End is to be beloved in it. O what a treasure is every grain of sand, when truly understood! Who can love anything God made too much? His infinite goodness and wisdom and power and glory are in it. What a world would this be, were everything beloved as it ought to be!

From Centuries by Thomas Traherne (London: Mowbray, 1960).

Daily Reading for October 12

The doctrine of the Trinity is a koan which represents the faith that God creates all things, reconciles all things, and redeems all things, the faith that the being and end of all things is encountered in the bringing of order out of chaos, in the reconciliation of persons and communities, and in the hope that God’s glory will finally irradiate all things. Because that is the case, it follows that everything that we do as Christians, including our politics and our fashioning of the world, should be shaped by that hope.

Church is the community that lives out of this vision and this hope. It is true that worship and praise of the Triune God is that which is most distinctive about this community, but this does not make it primarily a community of piety. The word ecclesia used in the Greek New Testament translates quahal—the meeting of the tribes of Israel to debate policy and action. Ecclesia itself was originally a political term, the meeting of the free citizens of Athens to do the same. The church worships God, but it does so as part of that people who left Egypt on the journey from bondage to freedom. It is still on that journey. Its primary task is to witness to the God of hope, to live from the visioning of Scripture in regard to every task that confronts us, for the founts of our faith, the Scriptures, know no division between sacred and secular, no separation of powers.

In their insistence that God called for justice and mercy the prophets of Israel had what today we would call a “holistic” vision of reality and saw human behavior as bound up with the flourishing or failing of the natural world. Because there is no knowledge of God, says Hosea, “therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; . . . even the fish of the sea are perishing” (Hos. 4:3). Today in many places of the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, this is a bitter truth. Knowledge of God is the instruction of Torah—a vision of what it is that makes human life possible and fruitful. . . .Torah is not religious mumbo jumbo, as secular rationalists imagine, but fundamental reflection on justice and survival, on what makes human flourishing possible. Torah is not the letter that kills but the Spirit who makes for life, the effervescence of the divine imagination in us.

From “Living Toward a Vision: Cities, the Common Good, and the Christian Imagination” by Timothy Gorringe, Anglican Theological Review 91:4 (Fall 2009).

Daily Reading for October 13

In recent years, I have come to believe that anyone who wishes to understand Israel’s Scripture deeply would do well to learn more about the ecological crisis, and especially about its agricultural dimensions. At the same time, Jews and Christians who wish to understand the depth of the crisis would do well to ponder it in light of Israel’s Scripture. The mutually informative relation between ecological awareness and biblical study rests not only on the land-centeredness of the Bible but also on the nature of the ecological crisis, which is principally moral and theological rather than technological. That is, the problem does not stem in the first instance from technological errors or omissions that can be rectified by further technological applications. It is a moral and even theological crisis because it is occasioned in large part by our adulation and arrogant use of scientific technology, so that we make applications without rigorous critical regard for questions of compatibility with natural systems, of the integrity of the world that God has made. . . .

Because communities of Jews, Christians, and Muslims remain slow to reckon with the now far-advanced mistreatment of the fertile earth, I begin by considering how the Bible may open our eyes to recognize that land care is an area in which theologically informed moral discernment is needed. I shall treat our lack of recognition as a failure of the religious imagination, an inability to imagine that this world could be significantly different, for better or for much worse, than we and every human generation before us have experienced it. It should concern us that “secular” intellectuals and activists are on the whole ahead of religious leaders, including theologians, in articulating the dimensions of both our unprecedented situation and our urgent responsibility. Speaking to a group of soil scientists, Stanford terrestrial ecologist Peter Vitousek recently said that now for the first time the human species as a whole must find the will to make a drastic change in our behavior—and to make it in this generation—in order that life on our planet may continue to be viable and to some degree lovely. A statement that radical from a theologian is still a rarity, even though drastic reorientation of human thought and behavior would seem to be directly in our line of work. To our traditions belong the texts that perhaps in all world literature speak most directly to the human will to change. The books of the Hebrew Prophets are in my judgment the single best biblical resource for awakening us to our situation, for they consistently speak of, and to, the faculty they call lēb, “heart”—which is, in biblical physiology, the organ of perception and response.

From Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible by Ellen F. Davis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 9-10.

Daily Reading for October 14 • Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, 1906

Born a Lithuanian Jew, Shereschewsky studied to become a rabbi. While pursuing graduate work in Germany, however, he became interested in Christianity through missionaries of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, a voluntary ecumenical group. In 1854 he emigrated to the United States, where he studied for the Presbyterian ministry before becoming an Episcopalian and graduating from The General Theological Seminary in New York in 1859. Responding to Bishop Boone’s call for helpers in China, he learned to write Chinese onboard ship across the Pacific and translated the Bible and parts of the prayer book into Mandarin before he was elected bishop of Shanghai in 1877. Paralyzed by a stroke, he resigned his see in 1883 but over the next twenty years completed, with the help of his wife, a translation of the bible into Wenli, typing some two thousand pages with the middle finger of his partially crippled hand. Four years before his death in 1906 he said, “I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”

From Horizons of Mission by Titus Presler, volume 11 of The New Church’s Teaching Series (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 2001).

Daily Reading for October 15 • Teresa of Avila, Nun, 1582

When I see people very diligently trying to discover what kind of prayer they are experiencing and so completely wrapt up in their prayers that they seem afraid to stir, or to indulge in a moment’s thought, lest they should lose the slightest degree of the tenderness and devotion which they have been feeling, I realize how little they understand of the road to the attainment of union. They think that the whole thing consists in this. But no, sisters, no; what the Lord desires is works. If you see a sick woman to whom you can give some help, never be affected by the fear that your devotion will suffer, but take pity on her: if she is in pain, you should feel pain too; if necessary, fast so that she may have your food, not so much for her sake as because you know it to be your Lord’s will. That is true union with his will.

So ask Our Lord to grant you this perfect love for your neighbour, and allow His Majesty to work, and, if you use your best endeavours and strive after this in every way that you can, he will give you more even than you can desire. If the opportunity presents itself, try to shoulder some trial in order to relieve your neighbour of it. Do not suppose that it will cost you nothing or that you will find it all done for you. Think what the love which our Spouse had for us cost him, when, in order to redeem us from death, he died such a grievous death as the death of the cross.

From Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers (New York: Image Books, 1961).

Daily Reading for October 16 • Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, Bishops and Martyrs, 1555

N. Ridley
The causes that move me to abstain from the mass, be these:
I. It is done in a strange tongue, which the people doth not understand, contrary to the doctrine of the apostle.

H. Latimer
Where is no understanding, there is neither edifying, nor comfort; for besides that they speak into the air, the mind receiveth no profit; they are one to another as aliens. The parishioners will say, their priests are made, whereas all things outght to be done so as they may edify.

N. Ridley
II. There is also wanting the shewing of the Lord’s death, contrary to the mind of the Apostle, “As often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink of this cup, ye shall shew the Lord’s death till he come.” What shewing can be there, whereas no man heareth, that is to say, understandeth what is said? No man, I mean, of the common people, for whose profit the prayer of the church ought specially to serve.

H. Latimer
The papists study by all means to make the people ignorant (lest their ignorant Sir Johns should be had in less estimation or despised), which is clean contrary to St. Paul’s practice, who wished that all men might be fulfilled with all knowledge, and to be perfect in Christ Jesus, &c. The institution of Christ, if it were rehearsed in the vulgar tongue, should be not only a consecration, but also a fruitful preaching to the edification of the hearers. The apostles understanded Christ, when he celebrated his supper; therefore do these papists swerve from Christ in their mass.

N. Ridley
III. There is no communion, but it is made a private table, and indeed ought to be a communion. For where they be many priests which will communicate, they do it not in one table or altar, but every one of them have their altars, masses, and tables.

H. Latimer
To make that private, which Christ made common, and willed to be communicated, may seem to be the workmanship of Antichrist himself. The canons of the apostles do excommunicate them which being present at common prayer, &c do not also receive the holy communion. . . But the papists say, “We do it privately, because we do it for others.”

From Certain Godly, Learned, and Comfortable Conferences between Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, During the Time of their Imprisonment (1556); found at http://anglicanhistory.org/reformation/ps/ridley/latimerconference1.pdf.

Daily Reading for October 17 • Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, and Martyr, c. 115

Be ye zealous to do all things in godly concord, the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons also who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the worlds and appeared at the end of time.

Therefore do ye all study conformity to God and pay reverence one to another; and let no man regard his neighbour after the flesh, but love ye one another in Jesus Christ always. Let there be nothing among you which shall have power to divide you, but be ye united with the bishop and with them that preside over you as an example and a lesson of incorruptibility.

Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, [being united with Him], either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters. And attempt not to think anything right for yourselves apart from others: but let there be one prayer in common, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy unblameable, which is Jesus Christ, than whom there is nothing better. Hasten to come together all of you, as to one temple, even God; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from One Father and is with One and departed unto One.

From the Letter to the Magnesians by Ignatius of Antioch (6.1-7.2); translated by J. B. Lightfoot and found at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-magnesians-lightfoot.html

Daily Reading for October 18 • The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Converting spoken prayer to doing prayer may start with the need to accompany words by moving the body: bowing again and again while reading Torah, my kneeling and standing in church, a nun bending to light votive candles, an elderly couple raising their hands and arms during praise, or your walking through the dark, ferny woods as you recite the Jesus prayer.
You may already be doing prayer. Perhaps all you need to do is notice what you do and dedicate that time to God. Sometimes doing prayer is intentional, but at other times, you realize during or even after your activity that you have entered into new communication with God. Maybe you take a walk every day in a place that declares God’s presence. Every time you acknowledge Creation, you have prayed. Zen Buddhists believe in a strict policy of “mindfulness,” in which walking while thinking, taking pictures, listening to a CD is unheard of. When you walk, you pay attention to walking. And although the concepts of Zen Buddhism originated in the East, they are not so different from those of Western mystics.

Once a novice found St. Teresa of Avila devouring a partridge, holding the roasted carcass in her hands and ripping the meat off with her teeth. “Well,” she told the horrified novice, “when I pray, I pray. When I eat partridge, I eat partridge.”

From “Doing Prayer” in Beyond Words: 15 Ways of Doing Prayer by Kristen Johnson Ingram (New York: Church Publishing, 2004).

Daily Reading for October 19 • St. Luke the Evangelist (transferred)

There is no way for me to speak objectively of St. Luke or of his feast day. I live with a physician, have spent almost 75 percent of my life with him, and plan to spend 100 percent of its remainder with him. That fact alone means that the patron saint of healing will always be seen by all of us in this household in terms of medicine’s most immediate and visible practitioner. It means that inevitably we see St. Luke in terms of the characteristics of personality and of mental function that we know from experience draw a person into the role of physician and that also make him or her able in it.

Even if all of the above were not part of my experience, however, I would probably still have some trouble being casual about St. Luke. Most of us do. Because he was a physician and because of those very characteristics and turns of disposition that mark his profession, he was in many ways the dominant Gospel writer. Of the many parables of our Lord recorded in the New Testament, eighteen of them are related to us only by St. Luke. Without his educated and curious ear, in other words, more than half of our Lord’s active teachings would have gone untransmitted. Likewise, six of the Lord’s miracles are recorded only by Luke, five of them quite naturally dealing with healing itself.

We cannot leave Luke, though, without recalling what must be the most poignant words in the Epistles. Paul, approaching death and under house arrest in Rome, writes for the last time to the young Timothy. In closing the letter of farewell, he adds, “Only Luke is with me” (2 Timothy 4:11). Of course he was; he was a physician. And, from living with a physician, I know whose burden it is to stand by, not only in life but even into death.

From “In Sickness and in Health” by Phyllis Tickle, in The Graces We Remember: Sacred Days of Ordinary Time in her series “Stories from The Farm In Lucy” (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1988).

Daily Reading for October 20 • Henry Martyn, Priest, and Missionary to India and Persia, 1812, and William Carey, Missionary to India, 1834 (transferred)

The manner in which our Hindu friends recommend the gospel to others is very pleasing. They speak of the love of Christ in suffering and dying, and this appears to be all in all with them. Their conversation with others is somewhat like the following. A man says, “Well, Krishnu, you have left off all the customs of your ancestors; what is the reason?” Krishnu says, “Only have patience, and I will inform you. I am a great sinner. I tried the Hindu worship, but got no good; after a while, I heard of Christ, that he was incarnate, laboured much, and at last laid down his life for sinners. I thought, What love is this! And here I made my resting-place. Now say, if anything like this love was ever shown by any of your gods? Did Doorga, or Kalee, or Krishnu die for sinners? You know that they only sought their own ease, and had no love for any one.” This is the simple way in which they confront others; and none can answer except by railing, which they bear patiently, and glory in.

From a letter from William Carey to Dr. Ryland, June 15, 1801, quoted in Memoir of Dr. Carey by Eustace Carey; found at http://www.missionaryetexts.org/pdf/Memoir_of_William_Carey__D_D_.pdf.

Daily Reading for October 21

A nineteenth-century teacher in the Celtic world, Alexander Scott, used the analogy of royal garments. Apparently in his day, royal garments were woven through with a costly thread, a thread of gold. And if somehow the golden thread were taken out of the garment, the whole garment would unravel. So it is, he said, with the image of God woven into the fabric of our being. If it were taken out of us, we would unravel. We would cease to be. So the image of God is not simply a characteristic of who we are, which may or may not be there. . . . The image of God is the essence of our being. It is the core of the human soul. We are sacred not because we have been baptized or because we belong to one faith tradition over another. We are sacred because we have been born.

But what does it mean to be made in the image of God? In part, it is to say that wisdom is deep within us, deeper than the ignorance of what we have done or become. It is to say that the passion of God for what is just and right is deep within, deeper than any apathy or participation in wrong that has crippled us. To be made in the image of God is to say that creativity is at the core of our being, deeper than any barrenness that has dominated our lives and relationships. And above all else, it is to say that love and the desire to give ourselves away to one another in love is at the heart of who we are, deeper than any fear or hatred that holds us hostage. Deep within us is a longing for union, for our genesis is in the One from whom all things have come. Our home is in the Garden, and deep within us is the yearning to hear its song again.

From Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation by J. Philip Newell (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).

Daily Reading for October 22

Vigils
Somewhere deep in our hearts we already know that success, fame, influence, power, and money do not give us the inner joy and peace we crave. Somewhere we can even sense a certain envy of those who have shed all false ambitions and found a deeper fulfillment in their relationship with God. Yet, somewhere we can even get a taste of that mysterious joy in the smile of those who have nothing to lose.

Lauds
When a person is able to thank he is able to know his limitations without feeling defensive and to be self-confident without being proud. He claims his own powers and at the same time he confesses his need for help. Thanking in a real sense avoids submissiveness as well as possessiveness. It is the act of a free man who can say: I thank you.

None
To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice. Our minds have great difficulty in coming to grips with such a reality. Maybe our minds will never understand it. Perhaps it is only our hearts that can accomplish this.

From Henri Nouwen: A Book of Hours, compiled by Robert Waldron. 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 October 23 • St. James of Jerusalem, Brother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and Martyr, c. 62

A study of James is indeed a study of the growth of the early Christian church as seen from the perspective of Jewish Christianity. James was the historical link between “his brother” Jesus and the emerging Christian church. Just as the Jesus of Matthew’s gospel saw himself as being sent solely to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” so James restricted his concern to the people of Israel. While he acknowledged the acceptance of a further mission to the Gentiles and the fact that Gentile converts were to be free from circumcision and the stipulations of the Mosaic Law (apart from those prescriptions in the Apostolic Decree), James did not consider that this decision had any effect on his community and mission to Jewish Christians. For him Jewish Christians were still members of the house of Israel. Belief in and acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah did not change the reality that they were still part of the house of Israel whose traditions and purity regulations still applied. For, after all, the purity rules identified the group in contrast to the world around them. James saw his task as leader of the Jerusalem community and ensured that the fulfillment of the eschatological age that had begun with Jesus would endure through fidelity to the heritage of Judaism. . . .

The greatest contribution the letter of James makes to the figure of James and his interface with the leaders and thought of early Christianity lies in its witness to its Jewish heritage. The letter shows a strong and vibrant Jewish Christian tradition that flourished side by side with other traditions in earliest Christianity, such as those of Paul and the Synoptic Gospels that make up almost two-thirds of the entire New Testament. James is the only complete writing within the New Testament that witnesses to another thriving tradition that would later disappear. Just as the Sermon on the Mount captures the essence of Jesus’ teaching, so too does the letter of James continue a similar message and teaching. The voice of the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the voice of James are very close in reproducing the authentic concerns of Jesus’ teaching.

From James of Jerusalem: Heir to Jesus of Nazareth by Patrick J. Hartin (Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier, 2004).

Daily Reading for October 24

My return, which at first had been hesitant and tentative, grew wholehearted and sure. I had come back to stay. I hoped to live here the rest of my life. And once that was settled I began to see the place with a new clarity and a new understanding and a new seriousness. Before coming back I had been willing to allow the possibility—which one of my friends insisted on—that I already knew this place as well as I ever would. But now I began to see the real abundance and richness of it. It is, I saw, inexhaustible in its history, in the details of its life, in its possibilities. I walked over it, looking, listening, smelling, touching, alive to it as never before. I listened to the talk of my kinsmen and neighbors as I never had done, alert to their knowledge of the place, and to the qualities and energies of their speech. I began more seriously than ever to learn the names of things—the wild plants and animals, the natural processes, the local places—and to articulate my observations and memories. My language increased and strengthened, and sent my mind into the place like a live root system. And so what has become the usual order of things reversed itself with me; my mind became the root of my life rather than its sublimation. I came to see myself as growing out of the earth like the other native animals and plants. I saw my body and my daily motions as brief coherences and articulations of the energy of the place, which would fall back into it like leaves in the autumn.

In this awakening there has been a good deal of pain. When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long, and I did not feel that I would stay. But here, now that I am both native and citizen, there is no immunity to what is wrong. It is impossible to escape the sense that I am involved in history. What I am has been to a considerable extent determined by what my forebears were, by how they chose to treat this place while they lived in it; the lives of most of them diminished it, and limited its possibilities, and narrowed its future. And every day I am confronted by the question of what inheritance I will leave.

From The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba (Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 2002).

Daily Reading for October 25 • The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, that you may plainly recognize both God and man. More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the Word that has enlightened us. How could he not be desirable, who illumined minds buried in darkness, and endowed with clear vision “the light-bearing eyes” of the soul?

Sing his praises, then, Lord, and make known to me your Father, who is God. Your Word will save me, your song instruct me. I have gone astray in my search for God; but now that you light my path, Lord, I find God through you, and receive the Father from you, I become co-heir with you, since you were not ashamed to own me as your brother. Let us, then, shake off forgetfulness of truth, shake off the mist of ignorance and darkness that dims our eyes, and contemplate the true God, after first raising this song of praise to him: “All hail, O light!” For upon us buried in darkness, imprisoned in the shadow of death, a heavenly light has shone, a light of a clarity surpassing the sun’s, and of a sweetness exceeding any this earthly life can offer.

From Exhortation to the Greeks by Clement of Alexandria, 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 October 26 • Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, 899

In the meantime, the king, during the frequent wars and other trammels of this present life, the invasions of the pagans, and his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting in all its branches; to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers and dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and good beyond all the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions; to recite the Saxon books, and especially to learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them; and he alone never desisted from studying, most diligently, to the best of his ability; he attended the mass and other daily services of religion; he was frequent in psalm-singing and prayer, at the hours both of the day and the night.

He also went to the churches, as we have already said, in the night-time to pray, secretly, and unknown to his courtiers; he bestowed alms and largesses on both natives and foreigners of all countries; he was affable and pleasant to all, and curiously eager to investigate things unknown. Many Franks, Frisons, Gauls, pagans, Britons, Scots, and Armoricans, noble and ignoble, submitted voluntarily to his dominion; and all of them, according to their nation and deserving, were ruled, loved, honoured, and enriched with money and power. Moreover, the king was in the habit of hearing the divine scriptures read by his own countrymen, or, if by any chance it so happened, in company with foreigners, and he attended to it with sedulity and solicitude.

His bishops, too, and all ecclesiastics, his earls and nobles, ministers and friends, were loved by him with wonderful affection, and their sons, who were bred up in the royal household, were no less dear to him than his own; he had them instructed in all kinds of good mortas, and among other things, never ceased to teach them letters night and day; but as if he had no consolation in all these things, and suffered to other annoyance either from within or without, yet he was harassed by daily and nightly affliction, that he complained to God, and to all who were admitted to his familiar love, that Almighty God had made him ignorant of divine wisdom, and of the liberal arts; in this emulating the pious, the wise, and wealthy Solomon, king of the Hebrews, who at first, despising all present glory and riches, asked wisdom of God, and found both, namely, wisdom and worldly glory; as it is written, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” But God, who is always the inspector of the thoughts of the mind within, and the instigator of all good intentions, and a most plentiful aider, that good desires may be formed—for he would not instigate a man to good intentions, unless he also amply supplied that which the man justly and properly wishes to have—instigated the king’s mind within; as it is written, “I will hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me.” He would avail himself of every opportunity to procure coadjutors in his good designs, to aid him in his strivings after wisdom, that he might attain to what he aimed at; and, like a prudent bird, which rising in summer with the early morning from her beloved nest, steers her rapid flight through the uncertain tracks of ether, and descends on the manifold and varied flowers of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, essaying that which pleases most, that she may bear it to her home, so did he direct his eyes afar, and seek without, that which he had not within, namely, in his own kingdom.

From The Life of King Alfred from A.D. 849 to A.D. 887 by Asser, Part II; release 26 of the Online Medieval and Classical Library; found at http://omacl.org/KingAlfred/part2.html

Daily Reading for October 27

The peaceful host sings a melody with the loudest of sounds
clearly about the holy high seat of God,
blissfully bless the best of rulers,
the blessed with the angels sounding in unison thus:
“Peace be to you, true God, and the power of wisdom,
and to you be thanks who sit on the glory throne. . . .”

These are the words, as the writings tell us,
the song of the holy ones whose hearts
hasten to heaven, to the merciful God
in joy of joys, where they bring to the Measurer
the winsome fragrance of words and deeds
as a gift in that great creation,
in that life in light. May praise always
be given him forever and ever, and splendor of glory,
honor and authority in the upper
Kingdom of heaven. He is King in righteousness
of middle earth and the glory of his might
wound around with wonder in the beautiful city.
The author of light has allowed us
to earn here on earth,
win with our good deeds gaudia in heaven,
where we may with the King maxima
seek and sit in the high seat,
live in love, light, and peace,
possess the mansions of magnanimous joy,
enjoyed blessed days without end,
and sing him praise of perennial laud,
blessed with the angels. Alleluia.

From The Phoenix, quoted in Anglo-Saxon Spirituality: Selected Writings, translated and introduced by Robert Boenig, in the Classics of Western Spirituality series (Paulist Press, 2000).

Daily Reading for October 28 • St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles

Scholars tell us that it is this aspect of Christianity, the infinite value of every person, that caused the church to grow so explosively in the early decades. Christianity flourished not because it fashioned attractive doctrinal alternatives to the worship of Greek gods or because its theology appealed to the movers and shakers of the ancient world, but because it made such a profound difference in the lives of the people who believed it. In a strictly ordered and hierarchical world where power, wealth and righteousness were considered synonyms, Christians lived and worshiped in communities where rich and poor, male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile were respected as equal members of the body of Christ. Whoever you were, you were somebody in the eyes of God. And they took care of one another; they created a social safety net. Their widows and orphans were not left to die of starvation or to suffer the indignities of prostitution or begging. The community organized to care for their needs. In a time when everything was considered divinely ordained, when death was the just punishment for sin, the Jesus way was something new under the sun, and many, many people found it so inviting, so compelling, that they were willing to risk their lives to be part of it.

I suggest to you that the capacity to transform the human person is still the foundation of Christianity to this day. For all our splendid worship, for all the music, the art, the literature, the preaching, the grand buildings, the fundamental purpose of Christianity is changing lives. Our lives—we—are supposed to be different because we follow Jesus. And we have been charged to touch others with that good news.

“The heartbeat of the church,” said our Presiding Bishop this summer at General Convention, “is mission.” Mission, mission, mission. The mission is God’s, the missio dei. God’s mission is to reconcile all people with God and with one another in Christ. And the mission has a church—that’s us—and all our ministries are directed toward furthering God’s mission, bringing the people around us into closer relationship with God and one another.

From Bishop Stephen T. Lane’s sermon at the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, October 23, 2009; found at http://www.episcopalmaine.org/diocesan_life/diocesan_convention.html

Daily Reading for October 29 • James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1885

Mr. Hannington was just the man to be a favourite—as an Oxford undergraduate he won all hearts. He was the leader in everything, and though his heart was not yet given wholly to God, it had desires after Him, and no doubt the Spirit of God was striving with him. Thus he was kept from vicious ways—his influence was always to be found on the side of religion.

But far more than this is needed by one who intends to give himself to the ministry as did James Hannington. Yet he entered on it, as he said, “a mere formalist and fast drifting into ritualism.” His family were Nonconformists, but at this time the real conversion of his heart to the Lord had not yet taken place.

On the 1st March, 1874, he was ordained to the curacy of Martinhoe in North Devon. “So I am a parson,” he writes in his diary, “and the world has to be crucified in me. Oh, for God’s Holy Spirit, without which I must fall—I must perish.” And God's Holy Spirit heard and answered that prayer.

Mr. Hannington had a college friend, the Rev. E. C. Dawson, and he was the instrument used by God to bring the message to his soul. Mr. Dawson had written to him a few months after his ordination, telling him of his own conversion to God, and begging him to accept the way of peace through Jesus Christ, which he had himself found precious. Mr. Hannington did not answer the letter, but he could not forget it; his soul was burdened and ill at ease, and at last he wrote and begged his friend to come and see him. Mr. Dawson could not do it, but sent him a book with the request that he would read it. It was the late Dr. Mackay’s Grace and Truth.

Mr. Hannington read the preface, did not care for it, and threw the book aside. After awhile he took it up again and got through the first chapter, but that was all and a second time it was cast from him.

Once more he felt impelled for his friend’s sake to return to it. “Well, I must read it to tell Dawson about it,” he said, and there, in his home at Hurst, he did read it. It was the turning-point in his life.

“I took up the old thing,” he says, “and read it on till I came to the chapter called ‘Do you know your sins are forgiven?’ by means of which my eyes were opened. I was in bed at the time reading. I sprang out and leaped about the floor rejoicing and praising God that Jesus died for me; and from that day to this I have lived under the shadow of His wings in the assurance of faith that I am His and He is mine.”

Now all was changed; the right motive power was given, the burden of sin was gone, the true rest found, and with all the characteristic energy of his nature, James Hannington henceforth lived and laboured for Him who had done all for him.

From the Biographical Memoir included in Peril and Adventure in Central Africa: Being Illustrated Letters to the Youngsters at Home by the late Bishop [James] Hannington (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1886). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/hannington/peril/index.html

Daily Reading for October 30 • John Wyclif, Priest and Prophetic Witness, 1384

A survey of his extant works . . . illustrates two features typical of Wyclif’s writings. First, the analytic rigor with which Wyclif approaches any problem, whether it be the nature of a mental act, a universal, a sacrament, the church, or scripture, is relentless. To readers unaccustomed to fourteenth-century philosophy, including many of the nineteenth-century editors of Wyclif’s Latin works, this seems to be academic nitpicking. To others, particularly philosophers trained in the second half of the twentieth century, Wyclif’s zest for analysis embodies a precision comparable to contemporary philosophical debate.

Second, Wyclif cannot keep himself from digressing. In his philosophical works, his hobby horse is ontology. For example, in his logical treatises, he typically begins by examining a fine point of philosophical logic, and inevitably wanders into talk of universals and particulars. He states his reason for this in De Universalibus: “Beyond all doubt, intellectual and emotional error about universals is the cause of all sin that reigns in the world.” In his later works, it is the failure of prelates, friars, bishops, and popes to live up to their ideals. His treatises on heresy, for example, begin as disquisitions on blasphemy, simony, and apostasy, but quickly turn into indictments of his fellow clergy. In each body of work, his analytic rigor and tendency to return to specific issues suggest a mind determined to resolve error by using remorseless reason.

From John Wyclif by Stephen E. Lahey, in the series Great Medieval Thinkers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Daily Reading for October 31 • Paul Shinji Sasaki, Bishop of Mid-Japan, and of Tokyo, 1946, and Philip Lindel Tsen, Bishop of Honan, China, 1954

While it is often quite difficult to distinguish or disentangle the “metaculture” (universal elements) from the local variations or indigenous forms, plural cultural expressions can be designated as part of a larger world religion because one can identify “striking continuities over time and space.” These “continuities,” of course, are based on the fact that specific sacred texts record the central experiences and revelatory events that represent salvation for humankind. In the case of Christianity, Andrew Walls suggests that it is possible to identify such common features, as “continuity of thought about the final significance of Jesus, continuity of a certain consciousness about history, continuity in the use of Scriptures, of bread and wine, of water.” The fact that Christians often disagree about the significance and interpretation of these features need not concern us here.

While the category “world religion” is useful for referring to various religious traditions that share certain common features, it must be recognized that it only represents an ideal or abstraction. Religion only exists in the vernacular, or, to adapt a biblical phrase, the “treasure” only exists in “earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7). There is no such things as a “pure” transcultural expression of Christianity or any other world religion—there are only particular cultural manifestations. . . .

While the missionary “carriers” of a religious tradition certainly contribute to the process of cultural transformation through their translation efforts, indigenization ultimately depends upon the creative efforts of those who belong to the local culture. Independent efforts to create vernacular Christian movements, in fact, are often resisted by the missionary carriers. This is not surprising, as F.F. Bruce explains:

“One important aspect of the fixing, or indeed petrifying, of tradition often appears when a community is transplanted from its former environment to a new and familiar one. It may try to preserve its sense of identity and security by holding tenaciously to its traditions in the form which they had reached at the moment of transplantation. . . . To many it seems safer and more comfortable to stay within familiar and old-established boundaries. The admission of more light may show up inadequacies in cherished traditions—inadequacies that might otherwise have remained hidden.”

From Christianity Made in Japan: A Study of Indigenous Movements by Mark Mullins (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998).