Daily Reading for December 1 • Nicolas Ferrar, Deacon, 1637

Thou hast given us a freedom from all other affairs
that we may without distraction attend Thy service.
That holy gospel which came down from heaven,
with things the angels desire to look into,
is by Thy goodness continually open to our view.
The sweet music thereof is continually sounding in our ears;
heavenly songs are by Thy mercy put into our mouths,
and our tongues and lips made daily instruments
of pouring forth Thy praise.

This, Lord, is the work, and this the pleasure, of the angels in heaven;
and dost Thou vouchsafe to make us partakers of so high a happiness?
The knowledge of Thee and of Thy Son is everlasting life.
Thy service is perfect freedom.
How happy, then, are we,
that Thou dost constantly retain us
in the daily exercises thereof!

From the monthly prayer of thanksgiving instituted by Nicholas Ferrar in 1625 and continued at Little Gidding until 1657; quoted in Nicholas Ferrar: His Household and His Friends by T.T. Carter (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1893).

Daily Reading for December 2 • Channing Moore Williams, Missionary Bishop in China and Japan, 1910

In a former journal, I mentioned that Mr. Liggins and myself had determined on making an attempt to establish a new mission station at Tá-Tsong. We made the effort, but failed, as no one was disposed to incur the wrath from the Mandarin for renting us a house. We returned to Shanghai at the time, much discouraged at our want of success, but now that we are established at a place in nearly every respect superior, we rejoice at our failure. We can now look back and recognize “the hand of our God which was good upon us,” leading us by a way that we knew not, and opening a wide and, I trust, effectual door for preaching the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .

We should therefore labor and faint not. Because we do not meet with immediate success, we have no right to be discouraged and to relax our efforts. This is too much like dictating to God. It is almost as if we should say to him, because you do not give success in the manner, the measure, and at the time we wish, we work no longer. God’s ways are not as man’s ways, and we must labor untiringly when and where he directs. He will see to the rest.

From a letter of Channing Moore Williams, quoted in Celebrating the Saints: Devotional Readings for Saints’ Days by Robert Atwell and Christopher Webber. Copyright © 2001. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for December 3 • Francis Xavier, Missionary to the Far East, 1552

Sire, I had often heard and deeply considered the many and marvelous things which various persons—and those good judges in the matter, as having been themselves on the spot—report concerning a remarkable disposition which is observed in the island of Japan for the reception of our holy religion. Upon this I thought that I ought strongly and urgently to beseech our Lord God to vouchsafe to let me feel some interior movement in my heart which might signify to me whether it were His holy will that I should go thither, and also to give me strength to accomplish what He might command me. It has pleased His Divine Majesty to grant my prayer. For I feel the most intimate certainty and conviction in my mind, that it is expedient for the service of God that I should go to Japan. This has given me a ready and vigorous confidence, and I have put an end to all delay in the matter by sailing from India, that I may follow the undoubted call of God, Who urges me on to this voyage by frequent and strong interior impulses.

We have now got as far as the port of Malacca on our way to Japan. There are two of our Society with me, and three Japanese Christians, lately converted, but very good. After having been fully instructed in the mysteries and doctrines of the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, they were baptized at Goa in the College of Santa Fè. They have learned to read and write in our manner, they recite the prayers of the Church, and make meditation at regular hours. What moves and affects them most of all is the consideration of the labours and sufferings of Christ, and the remembrance of His cross and death. They often meditate upon these things with very deep and strong sentiments and very tender affections. They have exercised their minds with very great attentiveness in the ascetic meditations of Father Ignatius, and have carried away from them most remarkable fruits in the clearer knowledge of God. They frequent of their own accord the sacraments of confession and communion, and they feel urged to join us in this voyage to their own country by great desires of leading their own people to the religion of Christ.

A letter from Francis Xavier to King John III of Portugal, quoted in The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, volume 1, by Henry James Coleridge (New Delhi: J. Jetley, 1874, 2004).

Daily Reading for December 4 • John of Damascus, Priest, c. 760

From my lips in their defilement,
From my heart in its beguilement,
From my tongue which speaks not fair,
From my soul stained everywhere,
O my Jesus, take my prayer!
Spurn me not for all it says,
Not for words and not for ways,
Not for shamelessness endued!
Make me brave to speak my mood,
O my Jesus, as I would!
Or teach me, which I rather seek,
What to do and what to speak.

I have sinned more than she,
Who learning where to meet with Thee,
And bringing myrrh, the highest-priced,
Anointed bravely, from her knee,
Thy blessed feet accordingly,
My God, my Lord, my Christ!
As Thou saidest not “Depart”
To that suppliant from her heart,
Scorn me not, O Word, that art
The gentlest one of all words said!
But give Thy feet to me instead
That tenderly I may them kiss
And clasp them close, and never miss
With over-dropping tears, as free
And precious as that myrrh could be,
T’anoint them bravely from my knee!
Wash me with Thy tears: draw nigh me,
That their salt may purify me.
Thou remit my sins who knowest
All the sinning to the lowest—
Knowest all my wounds, and seest
All the stripes Thyself decreest;
Yea, but knowest all my faith,
Seest all my force to death,
Hearest all my wailings low,
That mine evil should be so!
Nothing hidden but appears
In Thy knowledge, O Divine,
O Creator, Saviour mine—
Not a drop of falling tears,
Not a breath of inward moan,
Not a heart-beat—which is gone!

From the Anacreontic Hymn of John of Damascus, quoted in The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: Chapman and Hall, 1863). Found at http://www.voskrese.info/spl/browning.html

Daily Reading for December 5 • Clement of Alexandria, Priest, c. 210

Curb for wild horses,
Wing for bird-courses
Never yet flown!
Helm, sage for weak ones,
Shepherd, bespeak once,
The young lambs thine own.

Rouse up the youth,
Shepherd and feeder,
So let them bless thee,
Praise and confess thee,—
Pure words on pure mouth,—
Christ, the child-leader!

Oh, the saints’ Lord,
All-dominant word!
Holding, by Christdom,
God’s highest wisdom!
Column in place
When sorrows seize us,—
Endless in grace
Unto man’s race,
Saving one, Jesus!

Pastor and ploughman,
Helm, curb, together,—
Pinion that now can
(Heavenly of feather)
Raise and release us!
Fisher who catcheth
Those whom he watcheth.

From Ode to the Saviour by Clement of Alexandria, quoted in The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: Chapman and Hall, 1863). Found at http://www.voskrese.info/spl/browning.html

Daily Reading for December 6 • The Second Sunday of Advent

The precursor of Christ—the voice of one crying in the wilderness—preaches in the desert of the soul that has known no peace. Not only then, but even now, a bright and burning lamp first comes and preaches the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Then the true Light follows, as John himself said: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The word came in the desert and spread in all the countryside around the Jordan. . . .

“Prepare a way for the Lord.” What way are we to prepare for the Lord? Surely not a material way. Can the Word of God go on such a journey? Should not the way be prepared for the Lord within? Should not straight and level paths be built in our hearts? This is the way by which the Word of God has entered. That Word dwells in the spaces of the human heart.

From Homilies on the Gospel of Luke by Origen, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament III, Luke, edited by Arthur A. Just, Jr. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for December 7 • Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 397

He here announced greatness, not of body but of soul. Greatness of soul before the Lord is greatness of virtue, and smallness of soul is childhood of virtue. . . . Thus John would be great—not through bodily virtue but through magnanimity. He did not enlarge the boundaries of an empire. He did not prefer triumphs of military contests to honors. Rather, what is more, he disparaged human pleasures and lewdness of body, preaching in the desert with great virtue of spirit. He was a child in worldliness, but great in spirit. He was not captivated by the allurements of life, nor did he change his steadfastness of purpose through a desire to live. . . .

There is no doubt that this promise of the angel came true. Before he was born—still in his mother’s womb—St. John depicted the grace of the receipt of the Spirit. Although neither his father nor his mother had performed any miracles previously, he, leaping in his mother’s womb, proclaimed the coming of the Lord. When the mother of the Lord came to Elizabeth, the latter said, “For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.” She did not yet have the spirit of life, but the Spirit of grace. We find in another place that the grace of sanctification precedes that of the substance of living, where the Lord says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” For the spirit of this life is one, and the Spirit of grace is another.

From Exposition of the Gospel of Luke by Ambrose of Milan, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament III, Luke, edited by Arthur A. Just, Jr. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for December 8 • Richard Baxter, Pastor and Writer, 1691

I. Let your preparations in secret and in your family on the beginning of the Lord’s days, be such as conduce to fit you for the public worship. Run not to church as ungodly people do, with a carnal heart, that never sought God before you went, nor considered what you go about; as if all your religion were to make up the number of the auditors; and you thought God must not be worshipped and obeyed at home, but only in the church. God may in mercy meet with an unprepared heart, and open his eyes and heart, and save him; but he hath made no promise of it to any such.

II. Enter not into the holy assembly either superstitiously or unreverently. Not as if the bending of the knee, and mumbling over a few words with a careless, ignorant mind, and spending an hour there as carelessly, would save your souls: nor yet as if the relation which the worship, the worshippers, and the dedicated place have unto God, deserved not a special honour and regard. Though God be ever with us, every where; yet every time, and place, and person, and business is not equally related to God. And holiness is no unfit attribution, but that company or that place, which is related to God, though but by the lawful separation and dedication of man.

III. If you can, come at the beginning, that you may show your attendance upon God, and your esteem of all his worship. Especially in our assemblies, where so great a part of the duty (as confession, praises, reading the Scriptures) are all at the beginning.

IV. If you are free, and can do it lawfully, choose the most able, holy teacher that you can have, and be not indifferent whom you hear. For oh how great is the difference; and how bad are our hearts; and how great our necessity of the clearest doctrine, and the liveliest helps! Nor be you indifferent what manner of people you join with, nor what manner of worship is there performed; but in all choose the best when you are free. But where you are not free, or can have no better, refuse not to make use of weaker teachers, or to communicate with faulty congregations in a defective, faulty manner of worship, sobeit you are not compelled to sin. And think not that all the faults of the prayers, or communicants, are imputed to all that join with them in that worship. For then we should join with none in all the world.

From “Twenty Directions How to Worship God,” Part III on Christian Ecclesiastics (or Church Duties) in A Christian Director: Or, A Sum of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience by Richard Baxter; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/baxter/practical.i.vi.ix.html

Daily Reading for December 9 • Thomas Merton, Contemplative and Writer, 1968 (transferred)

The certainty of Christian hope lies beyond passion and beyond knowledge. Therefore we must sometimes expect our hope to come in conflict with darkness, desperation and ignorance. Therefore, too, we must remember that Christian optimism is not a perpetual sense of euphoria, an indefectible comfort in whose presence neither anguish nor tragedy can possibly exist. We must not strive to maintain a climate of optimism by the mere suppression of tragic realities. Christian optimism lies in a hope of victory that transcends all tragedy: a victory in which we pass beyond tragedy to glory with Christ crucified and risen.

It is important to remember the deep, in some ways anguished seriousness of Advent, when the mendacious celebrations of our marketing culture so easily harmonize with our tendency to regard Christmas, consciously or otherwise, as a return to our own innocence and our own infancy. Advent should remind us that the “King Who is to Come” is more than a charming infant smiling (or if you prefer a dolorous spirituality, weeping) in the straw. There is certainly nothing wrong with the traditional family joys of Christmas, nor need we be ashamed to find ourselves still able to anticipate them without too much ambivalence. After all, that in itself is no mean feat.

But the Church in preparing us for the birth of a “great prophet,” a Savior and a King of Peace, has more in mind than seasonal cheer. The Advent mystery focuses the light of faith upon the very meaning of life, of history, of man, of the world and of our own being. In Advent we celebrate the coming and indeed the presence of Christ in our world. We witness to His presence even in the midst of all its inscrutable problems and tragedies. Our Advent faith is not an escape from the world to a misty realm of slogans and comforts which declare our problems to be unreal, our tragedies inexistent. . . . Our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, and not as it might be. The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that His plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to His will. Our Advent is the celebration of this hope.

From Seasons of Celebration: Meditations on the Cycle of Liturgical Feasts by Thomas Merton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965).

Daily Reading for December 10 • Karl Barth, Pastor and Theologian, 1968

One could certainly ask whether it is really true that the Savior has kindled such a light in the world, whether we are not in complete darkness in spite of the Savior. Are there honest and upright people at all? That is precisely the question that Advent asks us! We should not look around and ask, “Are there any honest and upright people?” as if such persons should come down from heaven; it is enough that the truth has come to us from heaven in Jesus Christ.

It is God who asks us, “Can what I have spoken become true among you? Where are the honest and upright people who willingly hear and understand what I have said? Where are the bright, open eyes that can see and understand the light? Who truly hears and obeys the joyful message that the light shines? Please understand that for me all is in good order: the light shines, the truth is made known to you, and the knowledge necessary for salvation is in you. But is all in good order for you? Can the light now defy the darkness? Can it triumph? Do you who are Christians, ‘Christ-persons,’ do you see something of the change in all things, of the revelation of the light that is in this name you bear? Are you what you say you are? And your world? Your poor, your sick, your weak, your sinners and godless people, your mockers and slanderers: do they in any way sense or recognize that Christ the Savior has come? Does a breath of comfort, healing, and wellness go out into the sick world from you who are Christians? Have you done your part to let the light that you have penetrate into your families, into your social circumstances, into the relations of different peoples and nations to one other? In pure goodness I have found you and drawn you to me—but do you seek me? I have given you righteousness out of my grace—but are you now righteous?”

From a sermon preached on December 22, 1918 by Karl Barth, quoted in The Early Preaching of Karl Barth: Fourteen Sermons with Commentary by William H. Willimon (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2009).

Daily Reading for December 11

Advent is about waiting and wanting. All of the Advent people are waiting: Zechariah and Elizabeth are waiting, Mary and Joseph are waiting, Simeon and Anna are waiting. We are invited to wait, to want. We are invited to get in touch with our longing for someone or something to come along and bring new meaning into our lives. Jesus, God made man, was born in ordinary surroundings so there is no need to look for the extraordinary, the spectacular, or the miraculous during Advent. God can be found where we live; in our kitchens, at our tables, in our places of work, in each others’ faces. There was no prior publicity regarding his coming, no expensive advertising, no claim to privilege, just a silent, humble entry. Jesus’ coming into any life will be similar. Be ready to be surprised. We tend to look for Jesus everywhere, except in the place where the incarnation took place: our flesh. Incarnation means taking flesh, and by taking flesh, Christ entered into ordinary life and invited us to meet Him there.

From Sacred Space for Advent and the Christmas Season 2009-2010 by the Jesuit Communication Centre, Ireland; http://www.sacredspace.ie.

Daily Reading for December 12 • Lucy (Lucia), Martyr at Syracuse, 304 (transferred)

You are one of God’s people, of God’s family, a virgin among virgins; you light up your grace of body with your splendor of soul. More than others you can be compared to the Church. When you are in your room, then, at night, think always on Christ, and wait for his coming at every moment.

This is the person Christ has loved in loving you, the person he has chosen in choosing you. He enters by the open door; he has promised to come in, and he cannot deceive. Embrace him, the one you have sought; turn to him, and be enlightened; hold him fast, ask him not to go in haste, beg him not to leave you. The Word of God moves swiftly; he is not won by the lukewarm, nor held fast by the negligent. Let your soul be attentive to his word; follow carefully the path God tells you to take, for he is swift in his passing. . . .

In a little space, after a brief moment, when you have escaped from the hands of your persecutors without yielding to the powers of this world, Christ will come to you, and he will not allow you to be tested for long. Whoever seeks Christ in this way, and finds him, can say: I held him fast, and I will not let him go before I bring him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me. What is this “house,” this “room,” but the deep and secret places of your heart? Maintain this house, sweep out its secret recesses until it becomes immaculate and rises as a spiritual temple for a holy priesthood, firmly secured by Christ, the cornerstone, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in it.

Whoever seeks Christ in this way, whoever prays to Christ in this way, is not abandoned by him; on the contrary, Christ comes again and again to visit such a person, for he is with us until the end of the world.

From On Virginity by Ambrose of Milan; found at http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/393/Saint_Lucy_and_the_Radiance_of_Virginity__St._Ambrose.html

Daily Reading for December 13 • The Third Sunday of Advent

To you who are coming to baptism, Scripture says, “Bear fruits that befit repentance.” Do you want to know what fruits befit repentance? Love is a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. So are peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control, and the others of this sort. If we have all of these virtues, we have produced “fruits that befit repentance.” . . .

John, the last of the prophets, . . . speaks about the Gentiles, “For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” From what stones? Surely he was not pointing to irrational, material stones but to people who were uncomprehending and sometimes hard.

From Homilies on the Gospel of Luke by Origen, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament III, Luke, edited by Arthur A. Just, Jr. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for December 14 • Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross), Mystic, 1591

In order, then, to understand what is meant by union with God, it must be known that God dwells and is present substantially in every soul, even in that of the greatest sinner in the world. And this kind of union is ever wrought between God and all the creatures, for in it he is preserving their being: if union of this kind were to fail them, they would at once become annihilated and would cease to be. And so, when we speak of union of the soul with God, we speak not of this substantial union which is continually being wrought, but of the union and transformation of the soul with God, which is not being wrought continually, but only when there is produced that likeness that comes from love; we shall therefore term this the union of likeness, even as that other union is called substantial or essential. The former is natural, the latter supernatural. And the latter comes to pass when the two wills—namely that of the soul and that of God—are conformed together in one, and there is naught in the one that repugnant to the other. And thus, when the soul rids itself totally of that which is repugnant to the Divine will and conforms not with it, it is transformed in God through love.

From Ascent of Mount Carmel by John of the Cross, Book II, chapter 5. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/ascent.v.v.html

Daily Reading for December 15 • John Horden, Bishop and Missionary in Canada, 1893, and Robert McDonald, Priest, 1913

His day’s work amongst them was much as follows. At six in the morning he began with a service for the Eskimo, to which some came “dressed very much like working men in England,” in imported garments; others in the seal-skin clothing popular amongst them; and one woman in “an English gown, of which she seemed not a little proud.” The service was a mixture of worship and instruction, with as much singing as possible.

This over, the missionary went to breakfast. After breakfast came a service for the Indians, who were less eager than the Eskimo, although more advanced in knowledge.

When Horden had ended his lesson to the Indians he went to school himself—that is to say, he took a lesson from his Eskimo interpreter. This over, he began visiting the homes of his flock—seal-skin tents, and not the ice-houses of which we hear at other times. Then came a walk; then an other service with the Eskimo; then another with the Indians; an English service for the few Europeans at the station; another hour learning Eskimo; a half an hour’s social chat; and at last, “with feelings of thankfulness at having been placed as a labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, I retired to rest.” . . .

One other department of work, in which Horden made great strides during his first period of residence in Moosonee, remains to be noticed. Every wise missionary wishes his people as soon as possible to have the Bible, or at least some of it, in their own tongue. Horden was fully alive to this part of his duty, and from the first worked at translation. . . . To his great joy the ship one year brought out every requisite for a small printing-office. It was slow work, and so different from the means they had seen him use before, that some of the faithful Indians feared this new task had turned his brain. When the first eight pages were printed off, their delight was almost as great as his own. To the occupations of translator and printer Horden added that of a poet, with the result that, before he took his first holiday to England, he had given the Indians the Four Gospels, a prayer-book, and a hymn-book in the Cree language.

From John Horden, Missionary Bishop: A Life on the Shores of Hudson Bay by A. R. Buckland (London: The Sunday School Union, n.d.)

Daily Reading for December 16 • Ralph Adams Cram, 1942, and Richard Upjohn, 1878, Architects, and John LaFarge, Artist, 1910

So what is this process of giving a soul to a building? Soul can incarnate progressively into a building as it progressively gains substance from wish, through idea, planning, constructional design, building and occupation. Each stage develops, deepens and extends that which had come before. They are not stages which alternate from aesthetic to practical but, with these aspects inseparable throughout, are stages of continuous process of incarnation into substance until we architects complete our task, leaving a shell for life which will continue to grow. . . .

If we are to bring anything new to a place and make it better, not worse, that new thing must have an artistic quality. Art starts when inspiration struggles with the constraints of matter. When the painter paints, any pre-formed idea has to give way to what is developing on the canvas; matter and spirit become interwoven into a single whole. The idea on its own existed outside the sphere of earthly reality or life—the painting process gives it reality and life.

This process applies as much in architecture as in any other art. First someone perceives a need, sometimes a set of needs; then comes the idea—how to satisfy this need; then an architectural concept; then a building plan, constructional design. . . . Making and building things is the stage at which idea meets material. They can either compromise each other or, through their fusion, reach a higher level. Sculpture in the mind is pointless. Without art, stone fresh from the quarry is little more than a pile of broken rock. . . .

Places give roots to people, anchors which we need so much in rootless times when one after another codes of behaviour, established institutions, ways of looking at the world are called into question. Personal identity, marriage stability, expectations of employment—all seem so much less certain than they did to our parents. Buildings threaten and destroy or add to and create places. Their first responsibility must be to add to places, to nurture the spirit of place—which in turn nurtures us.

From Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art by Christopher Day (London: Aquarian/Thorsons, 1990).

Daily Reading for December 17 • William Lloyd Garrison, 1879, and Maria Stewart, 1879, Prophetic Witness

I am of a strong opinion that the day on which we unite heart and soul, and turn our attention to knowledge and improvement, that day the hissing and reproach among the nations of the earth against us will cease. And even those who now point at us with the finger of scorn, will aid and befriend us. It is of no use for us to sit with our hands folded, hanging our heads like bulrushes, lamenting our wretched condition; but let us make a mighty effort, and arise, and if no one will promote and respect us, let us promote and respect ourselves. . . .

How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles? Until union, knowledge, and love begin to flow among us. How long shall a mean set of men flatter us us with their smiles, and enrich themselves with our hard earnings, their wives’ fingers sparkling with rings, and they themselves laughing at our folly? Until we begin to promote and patronize each other. Shall we be a by-word among the nations any longer? Shall they laugh us to scorn forever? Do you ask, what can we do? Unite and build a store of your own, if you cannot procure a license. . . . Possess the spirit of independence. The Americans do, and why should not you? Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges. Know the reason that you cannot attain them. Weary them with your importunities. You can but die if you make the attempt, and we shall certainly die if you do not. . . .

That day we, as a people, hearken unto the voice of the Lord, our God, and walk in his ways and ordinances, and become distinguished for our ease, elegance, and grace, combined with other virtues, that day the Lord will raise us up, and enough to aid and befriend us, and we shall begin to flourish.

From “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build” by Maria Stewart, quoted in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought by Beverly Guy Sheftall (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).

Daily Reading for December 18

“What went ye out into the wilderness for to see?” (Luke 7:24). It’s Christ’s ancient question about John the Baptizer, but it always plagues my early Decembers as if I were hearing it each year for the first time. Whatever else Christmas may be, it is surely the one time of year when everyone celebrates the rurality in which I daily live. The folks in Luke’s narratives went to the wilderness looking for a prophet. But for me and my family the trek to the wilderness was a journey to a broader focus, not penitential experience. . . .

I remember the hardness of our way of life during the years when all the children were youngsters: the difficulty of growing and preserving what could have been more easily bought; the vulnerability of having been, during much of each day, miles from any human help. But, even acknowledging all of that, I know again in each December that we could have, and now can live, no other way.

I still feel, even after all these years, that same wash of pride and grandeur when I see a huge city or stand among skyscrapers. No rush of glory comes for me here, not among these low sheds and two-rail fences. There is little about rural living that is inspiring. But sitting here at my desk off the kitchen, watching at least three dozen pinfeathers as they skitter across my clean floor, I know that it is the disorder of it all that makes the difference. In the city, with its certain borders and its arranged structures, I observe life. Here I am life, one among equals. I matter less to myself out here where I am sealed in the center of life as purely as the yolk is sealed within the egg.

We don’t have John the Baptizer anymore. He’s gone headless into some limbo that I have never understood theologically and that will probably always lie beyond my comprehension, but we have his wilderness with its constant flux and its disorder. And within the weeks of dark December, all of us—city dweller and farm dweller, Christian and non-Christian—will try to wrap it around us. We will bring the pine branches in to us. We will string everywhere tiny lights that “glow like millions of twinkling stars,” as their boxes all say. . . . And we will sleep, most of us, for close to two weeks wrapped in the pleasure of that wild disorder, knowing life, however briefly each year, as a rhythm more than as a plotted course; and at least for a little while, we will matter so much less to ourselves. We will do these things until peace itself becomes, like the Baptizer, a kind of forerunner, a herald; and we all shall cry, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

From What the Land Already Knows: Winter’s Sacred Days in the Stories from The Farm in Lucy series by Phyllis Tickle (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1985).

Daily Reading for December 19 • Lillian Trasher, Missionary in Egypt, 1961

Come, ye saints, who disciplined yourselves in mountains and caves and dens of the earth, who honoured my name by continence and prayer and virginity.

Come, ye maidens, who desired my bride-chamber, and loved no other bridegroom than me, who by your testimony and habit of life were wedded to me, the immortal and incorruptible Bridegroom.

Come, ye friends of the poor and the stranger.

Come, ye who kept my love, as I am love.

Come, ye who possess peace, for I own that peace.

Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, ye who esteemed not riches, ye who had compassion on the poor, who aided the orphans, who helped the widows, who gave drink to the thirsty, who fed the hungry, who received strangers, who clothed the naked, who visited the sick, who comforted those in prison, who helped the blind, who kept the seal of the faith inviolate, who assembled yourselves together in the churches, who listened to my Scriptures, who longed for my words, who observed my law day and night, who endured hardness with me like good soldiers, seeking to please me, your heavenly King. Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Behold, my kingdom is made ready; behold, paradise is opened; behold, my immortality is shown in its beauty. Come all, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

From a discourse attributed to Hippolytus, quoted at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iii.v.i.i.html

Daily Reading for December 20 • The Fourth Sunday of Advent

At the heart of this momentous event, the child Mary is singing a song about a child. An exceptional young girl, chosen to be the Mother of this child Messiah, she is called in tradition Theotokos, the God-bearer. The song she sings about a child has never stopped echoing down through the ages in Christendom. However, more than just being a song of a child about a child, this song is a call to each of us who desire to be followers of Christ, leading us toward becoming more childlike in our responses and relationship with our Creator. Out of the depth of her joy, Mary sings of the crucial qualities of childlikeness that the Christ Child, when he became an adult, urged his followers to embrace.

Martin Luther, the fifteenth-century reformer, once said, “There are three miracles of the Nativity. That God became man, that a virgin conceived, and that Mary believed. And the greatest of these was the last.” Mary is a supremely great figure, unrivaled in importance within historic Christianity. And it is proper to hold her in very high esteem, for in this young Middle Eastern girl there was great faith. At the same time, we diminish her greatness if we put her on too high a pedestal. She was just a young girl from an ordinary little town from the back of beyond; yet she believed it all.

Children have the fathomless ability to believe anything; it is one of their most beautiful traits. They haven’t made up their minds yet about what is and what is not possible. Children have few fixed preconceptions about reality. If someone tells a child that under a particular bush is a magic place, they will search for it when no one is looking.

As children we lived in a summery green world where everything was possible, where in the end the villain or wicked witch was always slain and the princess rescued from her tower. Like a child, Mary quietly and simply believed. She didn’t fully understand the angel’s message, but she understood who God was, and she remembered the last thing the angel Gabriel said to her: “For nothing is impossible with God.” Her “yes” turned the course of history.

From Songs in Waiting: Spiritual Reflections on the Middle Eastern Songs Surrounding Christ’s Birth by Paul-Gordon Chandler. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for December 21 • St. Thomas the Apostle

I’ve never been one of those who can anticipate Christmas unhesitatingly and with impunity. It’s one of those anxieties that I wish I could cover up or hide, the kind that causes as much shame as discomfort. . . .My discomfort with the gifts was a result of the circumstances that rendered me impotent to deal with buying them. By the very nature of things, there was a limit to the time that could be expended in acquiring them and an even greater limit to the money that could be spent. . . . By St. Thomas’s Day—or, as my mother used to call it, the Day of the Old Doubter Himself—I had already lost all sense of stables and stars. But more insidious, more dark than that, I had lost my sense of why.. . .

Gifting is a way to demonstrate love. It requires that we study another so intensely as to perceive his or her unspoken desires and meet them. It means to startle with the unexpected, the perfectly chosen. For our children we had always seen it as a way to form a thankful and satisfied adult, to create a readiness for generosity, the early habits of appreciation, and a sense of blessedness.

But already I was defeated, for I could accomplish only so much of this and no more. I was sure that this Christmas again I would make the wrong selection, disappoint one of the children beyond the limits of his or her vulnerability, lose God’s voice as I had lost God’s creatures, be too weary to worship. . . .

In all that stress of bearing up under my own limitations and of exposing my failures to those I love; in all that searching to understand the next name on the list well enough to buy something that will be reasonably near where he or she really is in life; in all that yearning to continue creating good things inside our children, knowing the process has grown beyond my reach—in all that, there is not only the sense of doubt and impotence, but also there is always the sense of release that comes on Christmas Eve. . . .

Tomorrow we can go back to living together again, each of us as ourselves. We can go back to the simple knowledge that in giving and receiving we have been involved at the deepest level of intimacy, have failed in places and succeeded in others. We have stopped to know each other in the stillness of the winter with no help outside ourselves, no impetus, no motivation beyond our own will to make holy the day for our God.

From What the Land Already Knows: Winter’s Sacred Days in the Stories from The Farm in Lucy series by Phyllis Tickle (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1985).

Daily Reading for December 22 • Charlotte Diggs (Lottie) Moon, Missionary in China, 1912, and Henry Budd, Priest, 1875

Bishop Anderson, the first Bishop of Rupert’s Land, visited The Pas in 1850, and on that occasion decided to admit Mr. Budd to Holy Orders. After his ordination to the Diaconate and subsequently to the Priesthood, Mr. Budd remained at The Pas, assisting Mr. Hunter in the work of the district. When Mr. Hunter left in 1854, Mr. Budd resumed the charge of the mission, and he remained at The Pas until the summer of 1857, when he was appointed to open a new mission at Fort a la Corne, with the view of teaching the Indians of the Plains. He laboured at La Corne, or the Nepowewin Mission, as it was called, until the summer of 1867, when he was recalled to the charge of The Pas Mission. His work ended in 1875, and on the 5th of April of that year, he was laid to rest among the people whom he had been instrumental in bringing to the knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. He was taken away while still in the full vigour of life and quite equal to his work. His loss was keenly felt by The Pas Indians. Some time after his death, the writer of this sketch remarked to an elderly Christian Indian: “You must have been very sorry when Mr. Budd was taken away?” “Sorry,” said the man, “does not express what we felt. My own father died some years ago, but when Mr. Budd died, I felt for the first time what it meant to be an orphan.”

Mr. Budd was a man of fine appearance. He was above the average height and well proportioned. He never had the advantage of a college education, there was no institution for higher learning in his young days, but he made good use of such opportunities as he had, and he was fortunate in being associated with Mr. Hunter, who was a scholarly man and a diligent reader. He helped Mr. Budd in preparing for ordination, and Mr. Budd helped him in acquiring the Cree language and in his translations.

Mr. Budd’s ministrations were almost altogether confined to the Indians, and he rarely preached in English, but he was a good English scholar. He was ready in conversation and he was a good letter writer. In the Cree language, in which he ministered to the Indians, he could hardly be excelled. He was a fluent and forcible preacher and he was gifted with a strong but mellow voice. He was an able minister of the New Testament. . . .

In his ministrations in the Church, Mr. Budd carried out the same principle of care and method which he observed in secular work, and which in the services of the church make for reverence. The services as conducted in Cree, were the simple prayer book service, efficiently and properly rendered, for he himself had a hand in the translation of the prayer book, and he followed the Apostolic precept: “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

From a biography of Henry Budd by Archdeacon Mackay, D.D., in Leaders of the Canadian Church, edited by Canon Bertal Heeney, volume two (Toronto: Musson, 1920). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bheeney/2/3.html

Daily Reading for December 23

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” It should be noted that the sign given of the Savior’s birth is not a child enfolded in Tyrian purple, but one wrapped in rough pieces of cloth. He is not to be found in an ornate golden bed, but in a manger. The meaning of this is that he did not merely take upon himself our lowly mortality, but for our sakes took upon himself the clothing of the poor. Though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich. Though he was Lord of heaven, he became a poor man on earth, to teach those who lived on earth that by poverty of spirit they might win the kingdom of heaven.

From Bede’s Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament III, Luke, edited by Arthur A. Just, Jr. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for December 24 • The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The “good news of great joy” of which the angels sang is that God is not aloof or remote. In that single word, Immanuel, resides the essence of what Christians believe happened at the birth of Jesus. In a divine descent, God entered our world to embrace and show us pure love. Therefore, regardless of whether we feel God’s presence or not, God is near. We don’t climb our way to heaven or to God, but rather God comes down to us, moving among and within us, making our ordinary lives extraordinary by his presence. My own favorite Christmas verse, filled with depth of imagery and beautiful cadence, comes from the deuterocanonical book The Wisdom of Solomon: “When all things lay in peace and silence, and night was in the midst of her swift course, God’s Almighty Word leapt down from Heaven, out of His Royal Throne” (18:14–15, KJV).

Today it is commonly rumored that a popular king in one of the Arab countries often “disappears” and walks incognito among his people. Asked by his security detail and members of his parliament not to do so, out of concern for his safety, he responds, “How do you expect me to properly assist my people unless I know how they live?” . . .

The Christmas story is about God’s commitment to us. Christmas is not our show, it is God’s. Christmas is a divine initiative, when God establishes a tangible relationship of love which Jesus represents. The secret to understanding the angels’ song, and therefore really the secret of Christmas, is that it isn’t about giving to God, but rather it is about receiving God most fully into our lives. The only one giving in this story is God. We have only to receive this holy miracle that breaks into the night, even in the darkest nights of our lives. God is the central character of this Christmas story, and therefore in all our stories.

From Songs in Waiting: Spiritual Reflections on the Middle Eastern Songs Surrounding Christ’s Birth by Paul-Gordon Chandler. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for December 25 • The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Bethlehem has opened Eden:
Come, let us see!
We have found joy hidden!
Come, let us take possession of the paradise within the cave.
There the unwatered stem has appeared,
from which forgiveness blossoms forth!
There the undug well is found
from which David longed to drink of old!
There the Virgin has borne a child,
and at once the thirst of Adam and David is made to cease.
Therefore let us hasten to this place
where for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!

From Ikos of the Nativity of the Lord, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament III, Luke, edited by Arthur A. Just, Jr. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003).

Daily Reading for December 26 • St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr

The Greek word Stephen means “crowned” in Latin. In a very beautiful way he anticipated by the portent of his name what he was about to experience in reality—“abjectly stoned but crowned on high.” In Hebrew, however, his name means “your norm.” Whose norm, if not that of the subsequent martyrs, for whom, by being the first to suffer, he became the model of dying for Christ? . . .

This is what the Lord himself tells his martyrs: “For I will give you eloquence and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or contradict.” It was fitting that in the first martyr he should confirm what he deigned to promise to all those handed over [to martyrdom] for the sake of his name.

From Bede’s Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament V: Acts, edited by Francis Martin (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for December 27 • The First Sunday after Christmas Day

As when our ship is near shore and cities and ports pass in view before us that on the open sea vanish and leave nothing to fix the eye on, so the Evangelist here takes us with him in his flight above the created world leaving the eye to gaze upon emptiness and an unlimited expanse. . . .

For the intellect, having ascended to “the beginning,” enquires, “What beginning?” Finding then that the “was” in the text exceeds its imagination, [the intellect] has no point on which to focus its thought. Looking intently onward but being unable to fix its gaze, it becomes wearied and turns back to things below. Indeed, this expression, “was in the beginning,” is expressive of eternal and infinite being. . . .

In this text it is not only the expression “was” that denotes eternity, but also the expressions “was in the beginning” and “the Word was.” For even as the word being distinguishes present time when used in regard to human beings but denotes eternity when used in regard to God, so “was” signifies to us past time—limited at that—when used in regard to our nature but declares eternity when used in regard to God.

From Homilies on the Gospel of John by John Chrysostom, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVa, John 1-10, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for December 28 • The Holy Innocents

There is something else here worth noticing, one touching the magi and the other touching the Child. The issue is why didn’t the magi remain with the Child? And why didn’t the Child remain in Bethlehem? Both had to escape as fugitives shortly after they were received with joy: the magi to Persia and the holy family to Egypt. Why? This is worthy of close examination. The magnificence of God’s plan of salvation would not have been believed if he had not come in the flesh. If Jesus had fallen into the hands of Herod, his life in the flesh might have been cut off. Many circumstances were quietly ordered providentially within human history. Even while the flesh of the Christ child was in danger, some dared to imagine that he never assumed our common human flesh, that his coming was like that of a ghost. These impious ideas will ultimately destroy those who do not confess that God has come to us in the flesh in a way becoming to his deity.

As to the wise men, they were sent off quickly, commissioned to teach in the land of the Persians, having thwarted the madness of the king. Herod was allowed the opportunity to learn that he was attempting things impossible, against prophecy, and that there was still time to quench his wrath and desist from his demented plot. It is fitting to God’s power not only to subdue his enemies but to do so with ease, deceiving the deceivers in a way fitting to God’s almighty power.

From The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 8.1 by John Chrysostom, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament Ia, Matthew 1-13, edited by Manlio Simonetti and Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

Daily Reading for December 29 • Thomas Becket, 1170

On Christmas Day, . . the archbishop ascended the pulpit and delivered a sermon to the people. At the end of the sermon he predicted that the time of his death was at hand, and that he would soon leave his people. And when he made this prediction, tears more than words came forth, and the hearts of those listening were also very disturbed and contrite. Throughout the whole church you would have seen and heard the tears and laments of the congregation, who murmured among themselves, “Father, why do you desert us so soon, and to whom do you leave us desolate?” For these were not wolves but sheep, who knew the voice of their shepherd, and felt compassion, hearing that their shepherd was soon to leave the world, but not knowing when or how it should happen. But eventually after he had preached at length to his people and predicted his end, no longer crying, no longer weeping, but after the tears, as could be seen and heard, so furious, ardent and bold, he inveighed against the arrogant and hateful men of the land explicitly and by name. Not now, as it seemed, peaceful towards those who hated peace, he did not sheathe the sword in the presence of his enemies, but wielded it boldly and confidently, and in a spirit of ardour struck with anathema many of the courtiers closest to the king. . . .

Certainly if you had seen these things, you would have immediately said that you had seen and heard in the flesh the prophetic animal who had the face of a man and the face of a lion. After he had done these things, for the rest of the day the archbishop showed himself devoted in the table of God and later at the secular table he displayed his usual good spirits, eating meat as on other days, even though it was a Friday and Christmas Day, pronouncing that on such a day it was more religious to feast than to fast.

From the recollections of Herbert of Bosham, quoted in The Lives of Thomas Becket, selected sources translated and annotated by Michael Staunton (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2001).

Daily Reading for December 30 • Frances Joseph Gaudet, Educator and Prison Reformer, 1934

As the deputy sheriff unlocked the cell doors and let the men out into the hall where we were locked in, the prisoners not knowing us, eyed us with suspicion. I held out my hand to Murray, and shook hands with him as the sheriff introduced us. I told him we had come to cheer and help him, and recommend to him a Friend who was his only hope now. He smiled and said, “This is new to me, I’ve never had anyone to visit me and pray with me before, and I’ve been in many prisons; but it’s too late now. If some Christian had come into my cell in Mississippi, where I was arrested for the first time, and talked with me as you are talking, I might not be here to-day. I had no one when I was young to urge me to attend church, and when I grew to manhood I never thought of it.”

“Well,” I said, “it is not too late. If you are sorry for what you have done, and ask God to forgive you, He will, and He will give you rest from your care and sorrow.”

He replied, “You may sing and pray, but I don’t know that it will do me any good.”

Accordingly, I sang that good old hymn, “Come ye sinners, poor and needy,” and knelt to pray. Murray stood up a while, but when the prayer was half finished, he knelt on the stone floor at my side and groaned, “It is too late”; then the sobs shook his frame, and tears flowed down his cheeks. When we arose, he failed to get up. Another hymn was sung, “Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole.” Tears were still falling on the floor while the minister prayed. . . .

After the first week I could get no one to accompany me to the prison, so I went alone and held my second prayer-meeting. I found Murray anxiously waiting for me to help him with my prayers and hymns. He said he had not eaten anything that day, and felt heart-sore and burdened. After I had read the third chapter of John and explained it as best I could, we knelt in prayer, and on arising I sang with all my soul. . . . I asked him to help me sing the chorus; he tried, and as he sang louder and louder, his face seemed to shine more and more, until he grasped my hand, shook it with emotion, and said, “Praise the Lord, Oh my soul! It is well, it is well with my soul.” After talking with him for some time, I left him rejoicing. . . .

Two weeks later we went to pay him the last visit and waited for Murray in the prison chapel. The gallows had been erected three days previous to this. . . . As they entered the chapel we sang: “Saviour, more than life to me, I am clinging, clinging close to Thee.” Murray then shook my hand and asked God’s blessing upon me for leading him to a hope in Christ. After singing, as well as emotion would allow us, “God be with you till we meet again,” I took my leave. On reaching the door, I turned to look back; there stood Murray still smiling and waving farewell. Twenty minutes later he was dead.

From He Leadeth Me by Frances Joseph-Gaudet (New Orleans: Louisiana Printing Company, 1913).

Daily Reading for December 31 • Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Bishop in the Niger Territories, 1891

The little Mission Church of St. Stephen’s was opened on the 1st January, 1872, and from time to time converts were baptized, and the little assembly of believers increased. But the superstition of the priests and their votaries constantly made the little church the object of their persecuting hatred. Again and again its members were compelled to meet in the secrecy of the forest for prayer. The hour of martyrdom had come; some few could not stand the test, but very many gloriously held faithful to their Lord.

One instance of this is the case of Isiah Bara and Jonathan Apiafe, who were important persons in their country before they embraced Christianity. From that moment, however, they were bitterly persecuted, and finally, for the crime of carrying the body of a poor Christian slave to burial, they were publicly impeached by the Juju priests. Offered meat sacrificed to idols, they preferred death to such dishonour of their Lord. Then they were bound with chains, and put in a shed in the bush to die of starvation; but in secret some of their brethren conveyed to them a little food at the risk of their own lives. . . . For twelve months these faithful ones endured this painful bondage, until relieved at last by the urgent appeal of some English traders; and they looked, on emerging out of their captivity, more like wasted skeletons than men.

Under such circumstances Bishop Crowther and his son, Archdeacon Dandeson Crowther, appealed to the Christians everywhere to aid the suffering mission with their prayers, and from all parts of the world letters of sympathy reached them, and in Tennyson’s figure we may say, the golden chains of prevalent prayers bound once more the round world about the feet of God. A special prayer-meeting was held, too, at the Delta; and, after it, the Archdeacon hastened to the chiefs to ask them to withdraw the persecuting hand against the Christians.

Three years afterwards the wife of a chief who called himself Captain Hart, died. She had been the very Jezebel of the persecution, and had urged her husband to kill many Christians. Vainly did Crowther seek access to her on her death-bed; the priests, to whom she had always given largely of money and presents, prevented this. When she had breathed her last, the chief, her husband, was inconsolable, and was grieved to think that his Juju idol had failed to save her. Crowther found him, and tried to comfort the broken-hearted man. He says, “After expressing our sympathy, I added that all the words of comfort we can tell him will fail to heal the sore in his heart; but we who are believers in Jesus Christ have a ‘balm’ which heals such wounds; there is a Physician, above every earthly physician, who administers it into our hearts, and a change takes place for good. Should he like us to tell him of that balm for his broken heart?” He answered, “Yes, tell me, and I will listen to you.” After reading from the book of Samuel, of the punishment of David’s sin, Mr. Crowther tells us he “turned to Psalm 51, and carefully read the whole to him, and concluded by pointing him to Jesus Christ, who has shed His blood for us all, for him (the chief), for me, for every man, and he that believeth in His name shall be saved. I closed my Bible, he sighed and said, ‘God’s word is true and is good. Come at another time, and tell me more.’”

The death of his wife, the failure of his gods and priests to deliver him in his trouble, and, most of all, the good words of the Lord, had such an effect on the chief that some time afterwards, when, in his turn, he waited death, a striking scene took place. He renounced his faith in his idols in the most distinct manner, ordering them to be thrown into the river. This was done on the day of his funeral, and the people in a great fury wreaked their vengeance on the luckless jujus, dashing them into the river and breaking them up into fragments. Thus this Ahab died, and his household gods were scattered abroad.

From Samuel Crowther: The Slave Boy Who Became Bishop of the Niger by Jesse Page (London: S.W. Partridge and Co., 1892); found at http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/crowther/page1892/10.html