Daily Reading for January 1 • The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ

A name is a holy place. The name is a womb that nourishes the one who bears it with all the love and hope mingled in the giving of the name. If not dictated by some angel, names are chosen carefully for saints or statesmen, prophets or poets, family doctors or relatives or places with wonderful sounds. Names are chosen with love in gratitude or by faith in potential or for hope of intercession. Names carry meanings within them, every year of life drawing out the meaning of the life of the named. . . .

A child always hears his name. Daily the name becomes more holy, said thousands of times in thousands of ways as the child grows and is checked by discipline, chastised, guided, given gifts with the letters of the name written on a tag. The names are prayers whispered in the night while tucking goosepimpled legs into warm blankets. The holy names preside over the greetings and the goodbyes and upon letters over a lifetime. The names are worked together like worry-beads, spoken through the nights of absence.

These holy names are familiar resting places upon a path of light. . . . But sooner or later, by the glow of light emanating from the beloved, you see in the shadows the contrasting figures of the unloved, watching. How can you pray the familiar words of the children illumined by the light of your own love without fumbling to form words for those with names unknown watching in the darkness?

Herod, seeking a child with a holy name, killed all the wrong children. Even now, nothing has changed. Even as I love my children day and night, and simply because I love them, I am aware of others unloved and unknown who seem capriciously born in the wrong place with the wrong name. Love is the most fragile of all blessings and the most anguished of all prayers. . . . A name is nothing but an empty word unless it is infused with love. The gulf between the named and the nameless will remain until all of us are called by the holy name, which is love.

From “The Holy Name” in Grace’s Window by Suzanne Guthrie. Copyright © 1996, 2008. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for January 2 • Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, First Indian Anglican Bishop, Dornakal, 1945

As Azariah’s friend, Sherwood Eddy, watched Azariah process down the aisle at his consecration next to the aging English Metropolitan, it suggested to him “the passing of one regime and the beginning of a new and indigenous development in Indian missions.” Sadly, however, “regimes” rarely give up leadership easily, even within the church.

Henry Whitehead described Azariah’s consecration to a CMS missionary as “a great step forward”; but many missionaries did not agree, and they fought Azariah’s efforts to obtain and exert his authority over their missions in Dornakal. . . .While most missionary societies were committed in theory to the early establishment of self-sufficient churches, they were often unable or unwilling to act upon this commitment, as Azariah noted in 1910: “The aim of the Missionary Societies, we know, is to develop self-governing Churches and to give freedom and scope to indigenous leadership, and to strive to make themselves unnecessary in the field. But the Societies have not convinced the natives that this is their aim.” The battles that Azariah was obliged to fight with the CMS and the SPG, the two major Anglican societies sponsoring work in his diocese, illustrate how underlying fears and prejudices weakened the cross-cultural and interracial unity of the church. . . .

Azariah resolved his controversies with western missionaries and their societies by avoiding the extremes of continued dependency or permanent separation. He chose to transcend the hurt, suspicion, and distrust engendered by these conflicts and, instead, to use the conflicts to build a new type of partnership with his western benefactors. Throughout his bishopric he maintained a remarkably cordial overall relationship with western missionary societies—who could not afford to lose his favor, just as he could not afford to lose theirs. This relationship resembled an aging marriage—with its complex mix of affection, disappointment, and frustration—more than a war between enemies. The bishop insisted on change despite personal fondness for western colleagues, and he sometimes recommended limited and short-term separations (not divorce) between mission and church so that the relationship could be rebuilt.

From In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India by Susan Billington Harper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000).

Daily Reading for January 3 • The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

The Lord’s coming every year to Jerusalem for the Passover with his parents is an indication of his human humility. It is characteristic of human beings to gather to offer God the votive offerings of spiritual sacrifices, and by plentiful prayers and tears to dispose their Maker toward them. Therefore the Lord, born a human being among human beings, did what God, by divine inspiration through his angels, prescribed for human beings to do. He himself kept the law which he gave in order to show us, who are human beings pure and simple, that whatever God orders is to be observed in everything. Let us follow the path of his human way of life. If we take delight in looking upon the glory of his divinity, if we want to dwell in his eternal home in heaven all the days of our lives, it delights us to see the Lord’s will and to be shielded by his holy temple. And lest we be forever buffeted by the wind of wickedness, let us remember to frequent the house, the church of the present time, with the requisite offerings of pure petitions.

From Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels, 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 January 4 • Elizabeth Seton, Founder of the American Sisters of Charity, 1821

He who perseveres to the end shall be saved. Piety must be habitual, not by fits. It must be persevering, because temptations continue all our life, and perseverance alone obtains the crown. Its means are: the presence of God, good reading, prayer, the sacraments, good resolutions often renewed, the remembrance of our last end; and its advantages: habits which secure our predestination—making our life equal, peaceable, and consoling—leading to the heavenly crown—to where our perseverance will be eternal!!!. . .

What, then, must be His seed of faith, of His word, of His blood, of His cross, of His flesh in the Eucharist, deposited in our hearts through the winter of life? What must be the fruit in the harvest of eternity, whose echoing vaults and ever-verdant fields shall resound with praise and love forever? Oh, exulting—oh, delightful prospect! joyful anticipations. How endearingly should we cherish this precious faith, this ineffable hope, this first seed of love now shooting in our hearts during the trail of patience and winter of life which will so soon pass away and bring us to the harvest of delights in eternity!!!

Oh, food of Heaven, how my soul longs for you with desire! seed of Heaven, pledge of its immortality, of that eternity it pants for. Come, come, my Jesus, bury yourself within this heart. It shall do its best to preserve that warmth which will bring forth the fruits of eternity. Oh, amen. Our Jesus.

From Memoir, Letters and Journal of Elizabeth Seton, Convert to the Catholic Faith, and Sister of Charity, edited by the Right Rev. Robert Seton, D.D., volume 2 (New York: P. O’Shea, 1869).

Daily Reading for January 5

That Epiphany Eve in 1985, it was cold. The frost on my side of the door had become a layer of ice by the time I sat down to work at eight-thirty. I was amazed, looking toward the copse, to see Buckwheat standing in the open field rather than with the herd down by the sheltering trees. Heavy with calf, she was gargantuan in the hard light of the January morning. . . . She could not have chosen a more vulnerable spot on so bitter a day, and I found myself drawn time and again from the papers before me back to the windows behind me. There was something about her absolute stillness that was almost bothersome. . . .

Buckwheat was easily the children’s favorite cow and Sam’s pet. . . . But Buckwheat had never liked me. Certainly she’d never shown hostility or threatened my right to move freely among the herd. She just didn’t like me. . . . So Buckwheat and I had developed an understanding, a kind of ladies’ agreement, over the years. When I came into the pasture, she backed away and waited until I was gone. . . .

Buckwheat . . . lowered her head to the ground and began to bob it as she licked and nuzzled the black mound of stuff on the ground in front of her. She had calved! That dumb cow had chosen the coldest, windiest spot on the whole frozen farm to calve in! . . . I went as far as the gate. Buckwheat turned her head, looked straight at me for a full minute, and then turned away. The calf did not appear to be breathing. I opened the gate, leaving it ajar behind me for hasty retreat, and slipped over into Buckwheat’s territory. She did not move. . . . I picked up the inert calf. Safely in my arms, it opened an eye. Frozen, yes, but not yet dead. I turned my back on Buckwheat and headed out the gate . . . and carried the calf into the house. . . . I did the only thing I knew to do. I sat down on the floor cross-legged and took Buckwheat’s calf into the warmth of my body, circling it as best I could with my arms and my legs. . . .By lunch, as we sat on the floor together, she had begun to wiggle. Shortly thereafter she tried to nurse my sleeve and I knew we were home free. . . .

I’d never thought much about Epiphany, never had any significant event to mark it before. The giving of the Child to the gentiles. Certainly there had been nothing godly about my day, and there would never be anything divine about Buckwheat. Yet I had never wondered before about Joseph. Why had he let the kings in? Did he need their gifts for his escape, need them to buy his Son safe passage to Egypt? Why would a Jew allow gentile hands to touch what he must have known by then was sacred? Did need drive Joseph as it had driven Buckwheat? . . .

As I blew out the Christ Candle for the last time until the next Christmas, I said to Sam, “Thank goodness we never have everything we need without having to ask each other.”

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 January 6 • The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ

May the blessed Kings pray for you in the Mystical Body of our Lord, may they impart to you something of the faith that sent them on their mysterious journey, and of the joy which they found when they knelt before the Lord of Heaven made Man. It seems to me that no one has ever adequately portrayed in words the beauty of this season. Of course, it cannot be portrayed adequately, but it has always seemed to me to be possible to do more with it than has been done. But there is, on the other hand, a great advantage in not seeking to expose the mystery, even if it could be set forth.

It is something like the light; at early dawn when it is dim, it presents a mystery of earth and sky that is wholly lost when it shines in its fullness and rawness at high noon. I remember years ago driving across the desert in the west, and being impressed with the glory of the early morning and of the late afternoon, in comparison with the hardness of the noonday sun. There is a new anthology recently published called Pause to Wonder. The title is taken from a saying of Einstein’s, which is on the title page, to the effect that the most beautiful and thrilling thing in the world is the mysterious, and goes on to say that the man who never feels called upon to “pause and wonder” is as good as dead.

So there is something great and full in the deep mysteries of life, which is utterly lost when life is explained. The lure of the mysterious is that which has enabled men to follow after truth, and the fact that the truth always lies beyond us would seem to be a reflection of the infinite life of God Himself who is the fullness of truth. We can never compass the infinite, although through all time and eternity we shall be penetrating more deeply into it.

From a letter written in January 1944 by Shirley Carter Hughson, OHC, quoted in Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, compiled by Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, and Rowan Williams (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Daily Reading for January 7

Epiphany—the shining forth of Christ to the Gentiles, to the wider world beyond the chosen people of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. . . .The Gentiles who find the great light are those who come a long way from where they started and are not afraid of making fools of themselves and, finally, are ready to return to their homes by another way, a way that runs clean counter to the plans of King Herod and the rest of the powers that be. I think there is a parallel between St Matthew’s story of the magi and St John’s story of the coming of the Greeks just before Jesus’ death. They too represented the coming of the Gentiles to his light. And his words to them were: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears a rich harvest. He who loves his life loses it.”

The glory that shines forth to lighten the Gentiles is the radiance of the cross. If we hope to see our nation, our civilization, turn again towards that light then we, who feel the pull of it, must go back by that other way which is the way of the cross—“a stumbling block to his own people the Jews, and folly to the powerful Gentile nations, but to those who are called, to as many as receive him, the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

From “Strangers with Camels” in The Incarnate God by John V. Taylor (London: Continuum, 2004).

Daily Reading for January 8 • Harriet Bedell, Deaconess and Missionary, 1969

Determined to become a missionary, Bedell gave up her job to train as an Episcopal deaconess in New York City. . . .She threw herself into her work and gradually gained the love and trust of her people. She was adopted into the tribe and given the name of Vicsehia, which means Bird Woman, because she sang, hummed, and whistled constantly while she worked. Harriet devoted herself to the Cheyenne until she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Colorado to recover. There she attended a healing service and became free of symptoms, which she called a miracle. Instead of returning to Oklahoma, she was sent to Alaska where she worked for many years among the native peoples. In 1922 she journeyed to Portland, Oregon, to be ordained a deaconess in The Episcopal Church, returning to her mission in Alaska.

In 1932 while she was enjoying her first sabbatical with her family in Buffalo, the Bishop of New York asked her to visit the chain of missions in Florida to recruit church workers. On this trip she first encountered the Miccosukee tribe. She decided to remain in Florida to help the Miccosukee. With the backing of Bishop Wing in Miami and the Collier Corporation in Everglades (now Everglades City), Bedell set up a mission to minister to local people and the native Americans. She taught Sunday school, sewing, literature, hygiene, music, and a variety of other skills to the Miccosukee and the young children of Marco Island and Collier County.

The tribe adopted her and gave her the name Inkoshopie, woman who prays. Bedell borrowed on her salary and made an arrangement with the Collier Corporation to finance sales of Indian craft, including beadwork, clothing, pottery, carving, and leatherwork. With the proceeds, she repaid the loans and gave the Indians company script which they could spend at the store in Everglades. Bedell was tireless in persistent efforts for her people, traveling as far as Washington to prevent Japanese imitations of the craft work from entering the country, and to New York to sell Indian items to large department stores. She continued to do this work after her retirement, augmenting her meager income with loans from the Colliers, who eventually deeded over to her the small dwelling she occupied in Everglades. Every Christmas she arranged an enormous party with feasting and entertainment and gifts for all the Indians and children from Everglades.

In September 1960, Harriet was forced to evacuate her home when hurricane Donna struck. The storm leveled her property, destroying her typewriter, sewing machine, children’s books and gifts set aside for the upcoming holiday celebration. The bishop insisted that Harriet finally give up her active life at 85, and she moved to the Bishop Gray Inn in Davenport, Florida, a home for retired Episcopalians. Refusing to be idle, she planned and taught Sunday school, worked in the infirmary, and gave speeches to recruit mission workers. A huge birthday party was thrown for her when she turned 90; . . . Bedell died on 8 January 1969, just short of her 94th birthday.

From “Harriet Bedell” by Ormonde Plater, on his website “Through the Dust”: http://oplater.blogspot.com/2008/01/harriet-bedell.html

Daily Reading for January 9 • Julia Chester Emery, Missionary, 1922

This closing year has been rich with promise of what shall one day come. There was an Interchurch Movement which would gather into one common coffer the missionary treasures of “Protestants” of every name; there was the Lambeth Conference where the bishops of the Anglican Communion for the first time invited bishops of the Eastern Church to counsel with them in their committee meetings; there was a meeting called by the Commission on Faith and Order. In these gatherings there was hardly a question that excites and distracts the world today, that was not brought up and viewed in the light of Christian intelligence and conscience.

From the largest and most representative assemblies some were absent; the Church of Rome still persisted that she had no part to play in common with these fellow Christians. And yet, as in 1915, the “Catholic Extension Society” sent out a call to the “Catholic women of the United States” to emulate “the sincere and honest Protestant women” in this country by forming a Woman’s Auxiliary, so, in 1920 the unifying efforts of other bodies surely influenced action in the Church of Rome. While drawing her forces more closely together though continuing to refuse to confer with other Christian bodies, this open acknowledgement of the worth of their example may bring us one step nearer to a common appreciation of the good things to be found in Roman and non-Roman communions alike.

Meanwhile, the “Jew and the infidel,” “the Turk” and “the heretic,” still remembered in our Good Friday prayers, were not called to meet with the followers of Christ; the non-Christian was given no place in a Christian company. And yet as the centuries pass—so long a space with us, so brief with God—there surely is a growing sense of his Presence in all the earth, in every creature of his Hand; that he has not parted from his chosen people; that infidel and Turk and heretic, pagan and non-Christian his eye knows and sees, and some day he will gather all before his face.

From A Century of Endeavour: 1821–1921 by Julia C. Emery (New York: The Department of Missions, 1921).

Daily Reading for January 10 • The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord

The Lord was baptized. The heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him. A voice from the heavens thundered and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased.” We should say that heaven was opened at the baptism of Jesus and for the plan of forgiving sins. There are not the sins of him “who had committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.” The heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit came down for the forgiveness of the whole world’s sins. After the Lord “ascended on high, leading captivity captive,” he gave them the Spirit. The Spirit had come to him, and he gave the Spirit at the time of his resurrection, when he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him. If you retain them for anyone, they will be retained.” But “the Holy Spirit came down upon the Savior in the form of a dove.” The dove is a gentle bird, innocent and simple. Hence we too are commanded to imitate the innocence of doves. Such is the Holy Spirit: pure, swift, and rising up to the heights.

From Origen’s Homilies on 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 January 11 • William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1645 (transferred)

William Laud conducted a famous controversy with a Jesuit theologian, John Fisher, subsequently published as A Relation of the Conference between William Laud and Mr. Fisher the Jesuit (1639). Against the proposition advanced by Fisher that all points defined in the Church are fundamental, Laud insists that the term “fundamental” can only apply to the articles of the Creed. There may be many true deductions from the Creed, of which simple people are unaware, but which it may be necessary for others, more learned, to believe. But nothing is fundamental merely because the Church says it is so, but only because it is of itself. . . . Laud asserts that belief in Scripture as the word of God and infallible is a preceding, prime principle of faith to be held along with the Creed. That the Church of England’s positive articles are grounded in Scripture, he is content to be judged by the joint and constant belief of the Fathers of the first five centuries:

“To believe the Scripture and the Creeds, to believe these in the sense of the ancient primitive Church, to receive the four great Councils so much magnified by antiquity, to believe all points of doctrine, generally received as fundamental in the Church of Christ, is a faith in which to live and die cannot but give salvation.”

From The Study of Anglicanism, edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1988).

Daily Reading for January 12 • Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167

About 1142, Bernard of Clairvaux asked Aelred to write his Mirror of Charity. Bernard encouraged his son in the faith to write this treatise as an apologetic for the new monastic way of living in the Cistercian order. In this work, it would be made clear that human relations were not just “natural,” and the craving for love not just a human need. For Aelred, following Augustine’s Confessions, it was forgetfulness of God our Creator, error of mind, and reversal of love in loving self before others that distort our affections and make us miserably frustrated in relationships. As Aelred had once fed on a memory of distinguished ancestral heritage, he now focused on the biblical awareness of being “created in the image and likeness of God.” Because God has created us in love, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.” For the root of love is to will what another wills; it is becoming selfless. To consent then to what God loves and wills is a new orientation, a paradigm shift indeed!

This “spiritual art” is not abstract; it is learnt concretely. . . . For twenty-five years, Aelred daily lived what he also taught. It is all about the reordering of our loves, from “concupiscence” (or love of self) to “caritas” (or love of others), drawn by “affectus,” that supreme devotional attachment to God.

Aelred describes progress in loving God as “Sabbath rest.” He identifies three Sabbaths: in the first, the converted conscience is free of guilt, resting in divine acceptance and forgiveness; in the second, growing in love to others, brotherly affection grows and deepens in a peaceful community; third, love of self and love of neighbor lead onward to the love of God as the ultimate object of love, fully resting in God. “Spiritual friendship” is thus “a Sabbath rest” of devotion to Christ. All other relations of friendship radiate from that center at rest.

From “Profiles in Faith: Aelred of Rievaulx, Friend and Counselor” by James M. Houston, in Knowing and Doing: A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind by the C. S. Lewis Institute (Fall 2007).

Daily Reading for January 13 • Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, 367

For as long as I enjoy the life which you have given me by your Spirit, O Holy Father, Almighty God, I shall proclaim you as the eternal God and also as the eternal Father. Nor shall I ever show such folly and impiety as to make myself judge of your omnipotence and mysteries, and put the feeble understanding of my weakness above a true understanding of your infinity and faith in your eternity. I shall never declare that you could have existed without your wisdom, your virtue, your word: the only-begotten God, my Lord Jesus Christ. . . .

Preserve, I ask of you, this piety of my faith without any contamination, and to the end of my life give me this awareness of my knowledge, that I always may hold fast to what I possess, that is, what I professed in the creed of my regeneration when I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Grant that I may adore you, our Father, and your Son together with you, and that I may be worthy of the Holy Spirit who is from you through your only-begotten. He bears witness to my faith who says, “Father, all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine”—my Lord Jesus Christ, who for ever abides as God in you, from you and with you, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

From Hilary of Poitiers, quoted in The Christian Theology Reader, third edition, edited by Alister E. McGrath (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).

Daily Reading for January 14 • Richard Meux Benson, Religious, 1915 (transferred)

One does wonder at the scanty love of truth, the miserable levity of people born and bred within the Christian Church. . . . We have at least the supposition of the truth. We worship the truth, even though in works we deny Him. . . . People may hold true doctrines and think themselves Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals, as the case may be; but their clear views do not make them saints, do not raise them much at any rate beyond what they might have been otherwise. On the other hand, the truth must make us free if the truth has us within its almighty grasp. If we are “holding the Head,” we shall find that the truth, the mind of Christ, is a living power that we may be true in love, speaking the truth from the heart; not from the surface of the natural heart, but from the depth of the supernaturally-communicated heart of Jesus. Out of this supernatural abundance of the heart the whole life must speak, and then the eye will see dogmatic truth, otherwise it can only see its caricature. How much of the repulsiveness of controversial truth and of men’s antagonism to the faith arises from the grotesqueness of fragmentary statements which want the clothing, the atmosphere, the elasticity, the emotion of the divine life. . . .

To serve Him is to live with His life. Not, however, that I would disparage the Catechism, but I should not put it into any one’s hands until they were really in training for Baptism. Statements are clear when the Holy Ghost has opened the eye to see their clearness; but the truth flows on from man to man, from heart to heart, and the Holy Spirit goes forth in our daily intercourse to spread mysterious fertility and fill hearts with grace.

Do not be discouraged because they seem to learn so little. The want of memory bringing them again and again to you, as children say to a mother when they have heard a story, “Tell me that again,” may itself be a divine appointment to make them receptive of living, life-giving truth spoken in love and received in curiosity, until the wonder of the hearer’s mind changes into a glow of divine love quickening his heart. The Wise Men took a long journey, knowing almost nothing about Him to Whom they came. Probably they went home rather perplexed than instructed, but they had felt the power of God speaking to them from heaven, and this must be the deep principle of all true conversion, and it is a transforming principle. May God use you and those who are with you for the advancement of His glory by the transformation of many souls!

From a letter from Richard Meux Benson to Father O’Neill on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1876; found at http://anglicanhistory.org/benson/further/01.html

Daily Reading for January 15 • Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. . . . Not a few men, who cherish lofty and noble ideals, hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different. Many sincere white people in the South privately oppose segregation and discrimination, but they are apprehensive lest they be publicly condemned. Millions of citizens are deeply disturbed that the military-industrial complex too often shapes national policy, but they do not want to be considered unpatriotic. . . . A legion of thoughtful persons recognizes that traditional capitalism must continually undergo change if our great national wealth is to be more equitably distributed, but they are afraid their criticisms will make them seem un-American. . . .

Blind conformity makes us so suspicious of an individual who insists on saying what he really believes that we recklessly threaten his civil liberties. If a man, who believes vigorously in peace, is foolish enough to carry a sign in a public demonstration, . . . he is liable to be summoned before some legislative investigation body. He most certainly is a Communist if he espouses the cause of human brotherhood!

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” To the conformist and the shapers of the conformist mentality, this must surely sound like a most dangerous and radical doctrine. Have we permitted the lamp of independent thought and individualism to become so dim that were Jefferson to write and live by these words today we would find cause to harass and investigate him? . . . We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians, who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world.

From the sermon “Transformed Nonconformist” by Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted in American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr., selected by Michael Warner (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1999).

Daily Reading for January 16 • Richard Meux Benson, Religious, 1915, and Charles Gore, Bishop of Worcester, of Birmingham, and of Oxford, 1932

Charles Gore, who was certainly one of the most influential theologians of the time, used the phrase “extension of the Incarnation” in order to express the relationship between the event of the Incarnation and the continuing life of the Church. Even though his way of describing the Church was criticized by some as being imprecise, nonetheless it had a great influence upon the doctrine of the Church in its time. It is clear that in speaking in such a way he was concerned to convey that the Church and the sacramental life are both grounded in the person of Christ, that they derive their reality from him, and that they are now the visible expression of his presence. Certainly, he did not mean in some odd way that the actual physical body of Jesus Christ was extended in time and space, but rather than the risen and exalted Christ is now actively present in the Church as his Body in a way that is analogous to the presence of the eternal Word in the historical man, Jesus of Nazareth. The visible Church, with its institutional structures, and the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the eucharist, is an incarnational, sacramental reality, the union of the spiritual and material, of the eternal and temporal.

From Church, Ministry and Unity: A Divine Commission by James E. Griffiss, a volume in the Faith and the Future series, edited by David Nicholls (Basil Blackwell, 1983).

Daily Reading for January 17 • The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, and the Feast of Antony, Abbot in Egypt, 356

A brother said to an old man, “Abba, I go and beg the old men to speak to me about the salvation of my soul, and I do not remember any of their words, so what ought I to do? Continue to ask them, but do nothing? In truth, I am altogether in impurity.”

Now there were two empty jugs there, and the old man said to him, “Bring me one of the jugs, put oil in it and wash it, then go and put it back in its place.” He did this several times.

The old man said to him, “Now bring the two jugs together, and see which is the cleaner.” The brother said, “That in which I put the oil.”

The old man said to him, “So it is also for the soul; for, even if it retains nothing of what it has asked, yet it is more purified than the one which has not asked anything."

From The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers by Sister Benedicta Ward SLG (SLG Press, 1975).

Daily Reading for January 18 • The Confession of St. Peter the Apostle

Peter did not say “you are a Christ” or “a son of God” but “the Christ, the Son of God.” For there are many christs by grace, who have attained the rank of adoption [as sons], but [there is] only one who is by nature the Son of God. Thus, using the definite article, he said, the Christ, the Son of God. And in calling him Son of the living God, Peter indicates that Christ himself is life and that death has no authority over him. And even if the flesh, for a short while, was weak and died, nevertheless it rose again, since the Word, who indwelled it, could not be held under the bonds of death.

From Fragment 190 by Cyril of Alexandria, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament Ib, Matthew 14-28, edited by Manlio Simonetti and Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

Daily Reading for January 19 • Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095

The frequent enactment of legislation against the sale of Christians abroad supports the evidence that Englishmen regularly transported slaves across the sea to sell. . . . From the mid-tenth century on the slave trade was geared mainly to the export of persons abroad, although the internal trade did not cease. Until that time, inter-tribal fighting and the final subjugation of the South-west afforded the opportunity to increase the overall number of slaves within the country. Thereafter the unification of England meant that the main source of slaves lay on the periphery—in other words, Wales and the northern border. . . .

The trade continued under the Normans. Only the vigorous opposition of various churchmen was to bring about the termination of the trade. The Bristol slave market proved particularly hard to eradicate. The Vita Wulfstani, II.20, mentions that it had been a “very ancient custom” to buy persons from all over England and transport them to Bristol for eventual sale in Ireland. “You could see and sigh over rows of wretches bound together with ropes, young people of both sexes whose beautiful appearance and youthful innocence might move barbarians to pity, daily exposed to prostitution, daily offered for sale.” It took the strenuous opposition of Wulfstan of Worcester to bring this activity to a halt there. According to William of Malmesbury, Lanfranc also brought pressure to bear on the somewhat reluctant Conqueror to outlaw the Anglo-Irish slave trade. Presumably because of the tolls that it gave him, the trade was profitable to the king, and William of Malmesbury declares that he would have been unlikely to have prohibited it “had not Lanfranc commended it, and Wulfstan, powerful from his sanctity of character, commanded it by episcopal authority.” Finally, in 1102 the Council of Westminster completely outlawed the trade in England.

From Slavery in Early Mediaeval England by David A. E. Pleteret (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, 1995).

Daily Reading for January 20 • Fabian, Bishop and Martyr of Rome, 250

Rome, early 250

The Church resists strong in the faith. It is true that some have yielded, being alarmed at the possibility that their high social position might attract attention, or from simple human frailty. Nevertheless, though they are now separated from us, we have not abandoned them in their defection, but have helped them and keep still close to them, so that by penance they may be rehabilitated and pardoned by Him who can forgive. Indeed if we were to leave them to their own resources, their fall would become irreparable.

Try and do the same, dearest brothers, extending your hand to those who have fallen, that they may rise again. Thus, if they should be arrested, they may this time feel strong enough to confess the faith and redress their former error.

Allow me also to remind you of what course to take on another problem. Those who surrendered in the time of trial, and are now ill and have repented and want communion with the Church, should be helped. Widows and other persons unable to present themselves spontaneously, as also those in prison or far from home, ought to have people ready to look after them. Nor should catechumens who have fallen ill remain disappointed in their expectation of help.

The brethren who are in prison, the clergy and the entire Church, that watches so carefully over those who call on the Lord's name, salute you. In return we also ask you to remember us.

From a letter from the Church of Rome to the Church of Carthage, written during the persecution of emperor Decius and offering to the Church of Carthage a testimonial of its faithfulness to Christ.

Carthage, early 250

My dear brothers,

News of the death of my saintly fellow-bishop was still uncertain and information doubtful, when I received your letter brought by subdeacon Crementius, telling me fully of his glorious death. Then I rejoiced, as his admirable governing of the Church had been followed by a noble end.

For this I share your gladness, as you honour the memory of so solemn and splendid a witness, communicating to us also the glorious recollection you have of your bishop, and offering us such an example of faith and fortitude.

Indeed, harmful as the fall of a leader is to his subjects, no less valuable and salutary for his brethren is the example of a bishop firm in his faith. . . .My wish, dearest brothers, is for your continued welfare.

A letter from Cyprian of Carthage, when he was informed of pope Fabian’s death, to the priests and deacons in Rome.

Both letters may be found at http://www.catacombe.roma.it/en/lettere.html

Daily Reading for January 21 • Agnes, Martyr at Rome, 304

It is fortunate that since today is the birthday of a virgin, it is about virgins I am to speak. . . .It is the birthday of Saint Agnes: let men marvel, let children not lose hope, let the married be astounded, let the unmarried seek to resemble her. What can we say worthy of her whose very name was not devoid of glowing praise? In piety, she excelled her years; in virtue, she was above nature. It seems to me that she bore not a human name but one that was a prophecy of her martyrdom by which she showed what she was to be. . . .

It is reported that she was martyred when she was twelve years old. The more abominable the cruelty that did not spare such meager years, so much more the great power of faith that even at her age found witness. . . . Is this a new type of martyrdom? Not yet of proper age for punishment, she was already ripe for victory. Hard to rival but easy to be crowned, she qualified for an instructorship in courage while she yet bore the disadvantage of youth. . . . All wept: she was without a tear. Most marveled that she was so promptly prodigal with her own life, a life that she had not yet drunk in but now gave up as if she had gone through it. All were astonished that already there was a witness to God who until now could not herself bear witness because of her youth. To sum up, she brought it about that she should be believed concerning God, she who as yet should not be believed concerning humans. What is beyond nature is from the Father of nature.

From On Virgins by Ambrose, written in 377 A.D. for his sister Marcellina, who had taken a vow of virginity; quoted in Women in the Early Church by Elizabeth A. Clark (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1983).

Daily Reading for January 22 • Vincent, Deacon of Saragossa, and Martyr, 304

Both Prudentius and Augustine of Hippo were unequivocal about the amount of divine help Vincent received from the moment of his speech to the emperor, since the fortitude of martyrs was considered miraculous. Prudentius also enhanced the miraculous quality of Vincent’s remaining constant during his ordeal by vividly describing the tortures, leaving no doubt that they would have been unendurable. Since it would have been against the nature of the flesh to withstand cheerfully this kind of punishment, Vincent managed it not by his human efforts but by the power of God working through him, suspending the natural laws of pain and human weakness. Thus God’s grace was even more impressive.

Augustine argued even more strongly that Vincent received the power from God to endure his tortures, and there was an important intellectual reason for him to do so: the bishop was engaged in a theological controversy—against Pelagianism—that would shape Christian thought even more profoundly than did his Donatist attacks. Pelagianism was about salvation, whether one could be saved by one’s own efforts (indeed, one’s free will) or whether humans were incapable of refraining from sin without God’s help.

In 410, the British monk Pelagius traveled through Augustine’s home of Hippo, expressing his view that salvation could be obtained by free will. In accordance with this strong belief in free will, Pelagius believed that people had to strive to do good, because they could. Augustine adamantly opposed Pelagius’s view, believing that humans did not have the strength to avoid sin. . . .

Since they were written in the few years after he began his attacks on Pelagianism, Augustine’s sermons on St. Vincent were deeply influenced by the controversy. For Augustine, Vincent’s achievement could not have been the result of his free will and personal courage. Instead, the bishop stressed the miraculous power of God’s grace: “If human endurance is considered in this passion, it begins to be incredible; if divine power is acknowledged, it ceases [to] be amazing.” He returned to this theme in his next sermon arguing, “How can corruptible dust endure against such enormous torment, unless God lives within him?” Thus, by the beginning of the fifth century, the narrative of the martyr that had previously been used to combat idolatry was now brought by Augustine to combat a newly perceived threat to the church, Pelagianism.

From The Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence by Joyce E. Salisbury (New York: Routledge, 2004).

Daily Reading for January 23 • Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, 1893

In studying first, then, the nature of tolerance, that much-belauded and much-represented grace of our own time, we want to start with this assertion,—which is, indeed the key-assertion of all I have to say,—that it is composed of two elements, both of which are necessary to its true existence, and on the harmonious and proportionate blending of which the quality of the tolerance which is the result depends. These elements are, first, positive conviction; and second, sympathy with men whose convictions differ from our own.

Does it sound strange to claim that both these elements are necessary to make a true tolerance? Have we been in the habit of thinking that strong, positive conviction was almost incompatible with tolerance? Have we perhaps been almost afraid to yield to the temptation to let ourselves go into the tolerant disposition of our time, because it seemed to us as if there were no place there for that sure and strong belief which we knew was the first necessity of a strong human life? It would not be strange if we had all felt such a fear. It would be strange if any of us had entirely escaped it, so studiously, so constantly, so earnestly has the world been assured that positive faith and tolerance have no fellowship with one another. “The only foundation for tolerance,” Charles James Fox said, “is a degree of skepticism.”

Not many months ago a most respected clergyman of my own town, speaking at the dedication of a statue of John Harvard in the university which bears his name, declared of the Puritans by whom that college was created: “They were intolerant, as all men, the world over, in all time, have always been, and will always be, when they are in solemn earnest for truth or error.” I think that those are melancholy words. The historical fact is melancholy enough. That fact we must grant as mainly true, though not without fair and notable exceptions; but to foretell that man will never come to the condition in which he can be earnest and tolerant at once,—that is beyond all things melancholy; that spreads a darkness over all the future, and obliterates man’s brightest hope. That condemns mankind to an endless choice between earnest bigotry and tolerant indifference,—or, rather, to an endless swinging back and forth between the two in hopeless discontent, in everlasting despair of rest.

Against all such statements of despair we want to take the strongest ground. We want to assert most positively that so far from earnest personal conviction and generous tolerance being incompatible with one another, the two are necessary each to each. “It is the natural feeling of all of us,” said Frederick Maurice in one of those utterances of his which at first sound like paradoxes, and by and by seem to be axioms,—“it is the natural feeling of all of us that charity is founded upon the uncertainty of truth. I believe it is founded on the certainty of truth.”

From Tolerance: Two Lectures Addressed to the Students of Several of the Divinity Schools of the Protestant Episcopal Church by Phillips Brooks (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1887). Found at http://www.archive.org/stream/tolerancetwolect00broouoft#page/n5/mode/2up

Daily Reading for January 24 • The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Now it was necessary that Jesus should manifest himself to the Israelites and that the mystery of his incarnation should now shine forth to those who did not know him. Now that God the Father had anointed him to save the world, he very wisely orders this also [that his fame should now spread widely]. This favor he grants first to the people of Nazareth, because, humanly speaking, he had grown up among them. Having entered the synagogue, therefore, he takes the book to read. Having opened it, he selects a passage in the Prophets which declares the mystery concerning him. By these words he himself tells us very clearly by the voice of the prophet that he would both be made man and come to save the world. For we affirm that the Son was anointed in no other way than by having become like us according to the flesh and taking our nature. Being at once God and man, he both gives the Spirit to the creation in his divine nature and receives it from God the Father in his human nature. It is he who sanctifies the whole creation, both by shining forth from the Holy Father and by bestowing the Spirit. He himself pours forth his own Spirit on the powers above and on those who recognized his appearing.

From Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on Luke, Homily 12, 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 January 25 • The Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle

Paul shows how he persecuted and how he was made fit for this, for which he calls the high priests to testify and “the cities outside” Jerusalem. [Paul] tells of how he heard the voice of someone saying to him, “It hurts to kick against the goad.” Then he shows God’s clemency, because it was the persecuted one who appeared to him. “He not only benefited me but sent me as a teacher for others.” And he shows the prophecy, which came and said to him, “I will choose you from among your people and the Gentiles.”

“I thought to myself,” that is, “I made the decision ‘to work steadfastly against’ the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I was not one of the disciples of Christ; I was with those who fought him.” Thus he is witness worthy of belief, because after doing countless things, fighting and killing the faithful, persuading them to blaspheme and bringing so many people, cities and rulers along, and after undertaking all this on his own initiative, he was so suddenly changed. And there are again witnesses present for this.

Then [Paul] shows he had been rightly persuaded and not deceived by the light, by the prophets, by the facts, by the events that were unfolding at that very moment. In order that he not appear to be an innovator, even though he could speak of such great things, he takes refuge once more in the prophets, and he puts them forth for public scrutiny. This is more trustworthy, as it happens in the present; but since he alone had seen, again he is confirmed by the prophets.

From John Chrysostom’s Catena on the Acts of the Apostles 26.9-11, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament V: Acts, edited by Francis Martin (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for January 26 • Timothy, Titus, and Silas, Companions of St. Paul

The devotion of the apostles’ hearts and the power of prayer are expressed [here] together, since in the depths of the prison they sang hymns, and their praise moved the earth of the prison, shook the foundation, opened the doors and finally loosened the very chains of those who had been bound. In other words, anyone of the faithful “considers it all joy when he falls into various trials.” “And he gladly glories in his infirmities, so that the power of Christ may dwell in him.” Such a one undoubtedly sings hymns with Paul and Silas within the darkness of the prison, and with the psalmist he recites to the Lord, “You are my refuge from the distress which surrounds me, my exaltation.”

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

Daily Reading for January 27 • Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, Witnesses to the Faith

In Phoebe we have evidence that women were traveling missionaries, deacons, and leaders, whose authority and importance were recognized by Paul as well as by Christian communities in the fifties. We may be surprised at the terms Paul uses in reference to this woman, but apparently the Romans would not have been. Paul does not qualify or justify his language describing Phoebe, the way some interpreters and even translators have since Paul first recommended her. She is a “deacon” (diakonos), which is grammatically masculine and is used in the New Revised Standard Version. . . .

As a delegate from Paul and emissary to the church he addressed, Phoebe seems to have performed the same functions as Timothy and Titus did to the communities at Thessalonica, Philippi, and Corinth. That she exercised these functions with regard to Rome could possibly have made her authority all the greater, since the church was so significant. That she is recommended to the church at Rome using the terms “deacon” and “benefactor-patron” without apology implies that such roles for women were acceptable in the churches. . . . Phoebe is further called “our sister,” a designation used generally by Christians from earliest times. This familial term suggests the wide-ranging effect of modeling the community on the household, the family of God. Phoebe’s status as a partner in the Gospel already gives her full mature identity in the new society of believers.

From Women in the New Testament by Mary Ann Getty-Sullivan (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 2001).

Daily Reading for January 28 • Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Theologian, 1274

St. Thomas was a huge heavy bull of a man, fat and slow and quiet; very mild and magnanimous but not very sociable; shy, even apart from the humility of holiness; and abstracted, even apart from his occasional and carefully concealed experiences of trance or ecstasy. . . . St. Thomas was so stolid that the scholars, in the schools which he attended regularly, thought he was a dunce. Indeed, he was the sort of schoolboy, not unknown, who would much rather be thought a dunce than have his own dreams invaded, by more active or animated dunces. . . . It was the outstanding fact about St. Thomas that he loved books and lived on books; that he lived the very life of the clerk or scholar in The Canterbury Tales, who would rather have a hundred books of Aristotle and his philosophy than any wealth the world could give him. When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, “I have understood every page I ever read.”. . .

St. Thomas came out of a world where he might have enjoyed leisure, and he remained one of those men whose labour has something of the placidity of leisure. He was a hard worker, but nobody could possibly mistake him for a hustler. He had something indefinable about him, which marks those who work when they need not work. For he was by birth a gentleman of a great house, and such repose can remain as a habit, when it is no longer a motive. But in him it was expressed only in its most amiable elements; for instance, there was possibly something of it in his effortless courtesy and patience. Every saint is a man before he is a saint; and a saint may be made of every sort or kind of man; and most of us will choose between these different types according to our different tastes. But I will confess that, while the romantic glory of St. Francis has lost nothing of its glamour for me, I have in later years grown to feel almost as much affection, or in some aspects even more, for this man who unconsciously inhabited a large heart and a large head, like one inheriting a large house, and exercised there an equally generous if rather more absent-minded hospitality.

From Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The Dumb Ox” by G. K. Chesterton (New York: Image Books, 1933, 1956).

Daily Reading for January 29 • Andrei Rublev, Monk and Iconographer, 1430

But the most venerable [Nikon] was overcome with a great wish, with faith, and remaining continuously in this state, desired to see with his own eyes the church completed and decorated; so he quickly gathered painters, very great men, superior to all others, and perfect in virtue, Danil by name and Andrei his spiritual brother, and some others with them; and they did the job quickly, as they foresaw in their spirit the end of the lives of these spiritual fathers, which would occur soon upon the completion of the job. But since God was helping to complete the most venerable one’s job, they devoted themselves to it assiduously and beautified the church with the most various paintings, which to this day are capable of astounding viewers.

Leaving their final handiwork and memory, the venerable ones remained a short while before the humble Andrei departed this life and went to the Lord first, and then his spiritual brother Danil the most pious, who had lived well thanks to God and who piously accepted a good end in old age. When Danil was preparing to separate himself from his bodily union, he saw his beloved Andrei, who had preceded him in death, and called out to him in joy. When Danil saw Andrei, whom he loved, he filled with great joy and confessed the visitation of his spiritual brother to the monks who stood before him, and thus in joy he gave over his spirit to the Lord.

From the “Life of Nikon” in the Second Sophia Chronicle (c. 1450).

Daily Reading for January 30 • Juan Bosco (John Bosco), Priest, 1888, and Samuel Shoemaker, Priest and Evangelist, 1963 (transferred)

The second thing the Church needs to learn from AA is that men are redeemed in a life-changing fellowship. AA does not expect to let anybody who comes in stay as he is. They know he is in need and must have help. They live for nothing else but to extend and keep extending that help. Like the Church, they did not begin in glorious Gothic structures, but in houses or caves in the earth,—wherever they could get a foot-hold, meet people, and gather. It never occurs to an AA that it is enough for him to sit down and polish his spiritual nails all by himself, or dust off his soul all by himself, or spend a couple of minutes praying each day all by himself. His soul gets kept in order by trying to help other people get their souls in order, with the help of God. At once a new person takes his place in this redeeming, life-changing fellowship. He may be changed today, and out working tomorrow—no long, senseless delays about giving away what he has got. He’s ready to give the little he has the moment it comes to him. The fellowship that redeemed him will wither and die unless he and others like him get in and keep that fellowship moving and growing by reaching others. Recently I heard an AA say that he could stay away from his Veteran’s meeting, his Legion, or his Church, and nobody would notice it. But if he stayed away from his AA meeting, his telephone would begin to ring the next day! . . .

The third thing the Church needs to learn from AA is the necessity for definite personal dealing with people. A.A.’s know all the stock excuses—they’ve used them themselves and heard them a hundred times. All the blame put on someone else—my temperament is different—I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work for me—I’m not really so bad, I just slip a little sometimes. They’ve heard them all, and know them for the rationalized pack of lies they are. They constitute, taken together, the Gospel of Hell and Failure. I’ve heard them laboring with one another, now patient as a mother, now savage as a prize-fighter, now careful in explanation, now pounding in a heavy personal challenge, but always knowing the desperate need and the sure answer.

Are we in the Church like that? Have you ever been drastically dealt with by anybody? Have you ever dared to be drastic in love with anybody? We are so official, so polite, so ready to accept ourselves and each other at face value. I went for years before ever I met a man that dared get at my real needs, create a situation in which I could be honest with him, and hold me to a specific Christian commitment and decision. One can find kindness and even good advice in the Church. That is not all men need. They need to be helped to face themselves as they really are. The AA people see themselves just as they are. I think many of us in the Church see ourselves as we should like to appear to others, not as we are before God. We need drastic personal dealing and challenge. Who is ready and trained to give it to us? How many of us have ever taken a “fearless moral inventory” of ourselves, and dared make the depth of our need known to any other human being? This gets at the pride which is the hindrance and sticking-point for so many of us, and which, for most of us in the Church, has never even been recognized, let alone faced or dealt with.

From “What the Church Has to Learn from Alcoholics Anonymous” by Samuel M. Shoemaker; found at http://westbalto.a-1associates.com/LETTERS%20ETC/WhatChurches.htm.

Daily Reading for January 31 • The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

When Jesus had read this passage, he rolled up “the scroll, gave it to the servant, and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” Now too, if you want it, your eyes can be fixed on the Savior in this synagogue, here in this assembly. When you direct the principal power of seeing in your heart to wisdom and truth and to contemplating God’s Only-Begotten, your eyes gaze on Jesus. Blessed is that congregation of which Scripture testifies that “the eyes of all were fixed on him”! How much would I wish that this assembly gave such testimony. I wish that the eyes of all (of catechumens and faithful, of women, men and children)—not the eyes of the body, but the eyes of the soul—would gaze upon Jesus. When you look to him, your faces will be shining from the light of his gaze. You will be able to say, “The light of your face, Lord, has made its mark upon us.”

From Origen’s Homilies on 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).