Daily Reading for March 1 • David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544

The monastic community built in the Lord’s name a fine monastery in the place that the angel had previously shown them. When this was finished the holy father decreed such austerity in his zeal for the monastic ideal that every monk toiled at his daily work and spent his life in manual labor for the good of the community. . . .They place the yoke upon their shoulders and are unflagging as they dig the ground with mattocks and spades; they carry in their holy hands hoes and saws for cutting, and by their own efforts provide for all the requirements of the community. They scorn possessions, reject the gifts of the wicked, and despise wealth. They use no oxen for plowing; each one is his own ox and his own wealth both to himself and to his brothers. . . .

When the labor in the fields was done, they would return to the cloisters of the monastery and would pass the rest of the day until vespers reading, writing, or praying. When evening came and the bell was rung, everyone left what they were doing. Even if someone heard the bell when they had only just begun a character, or had only half completed it, he would quickly rise and leave his work, making his way silently to the church without any idle chatter. When they had sung the Psalms, in unity of heart and voice, they devoutly remained on bended knees until the appearance of the stars in the heavens marked the close of day. When the others had left, David alone remained to pour forth secret prayers for the state of the church. Finally they gathered at the table and refreshed their tired limbs with their suppers, though not too much, for an excess even of bread fosters self-indulgence. . . .

When they have given thanks to God, they go to the church in accordance with canonical rule and devote themselves to vigils, prayers, and genuflections for around three hours. While at prayer in the church, no one was so bold as to yawn, sneeze, or spit. When this is over, they prepare for sleep.

From “The Life of St. David” by Rhigyfarch (ca. 1095), quoted in Celtic Spirituality, translated and introduced by Oliver Davies, a volume in The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1999).

Daily Reading for March 2 • Chad, Bishop of Lichfield, 672

Another side of this understanding of the burial of the saints is the respect of the Anglo-Saxons for the bones of the ‘new’ saints and the accounts of miracles at their tombs. The converts buried their dead to await the resurrection rather than burning them, and beside these bones the poor and sick were healed. The healing power of prayer continued even more strongly in the place where the earthly remains lay, already impregnated with the resurrection life. The gate was not entirely closed when the saints had passed through. Healing and blessing are bestowed, messages come back, and saints come at death for each other. For instance, Cedd was seen to come and lead back to heaven his brother Chad at his death. It was their conviction that those who died were nearer to Christ and therefore more able to help others; the means were hidden and such things were called miracles and signs.

The great cloud of witnesses was still close at hand and could be asked to intervene in earthly affairs. . . . The point of accounts of posthumous miracles of the saints was to show that in patria they did not abandon those still in via. Those closer to Christ shared more in his power of love, not less, and miracles of love and grace and healing continued through death. This sense of the household of God on earth and in heaven was especially attractive to the Anglo-Saxons in their entry into this new religion; here their existing sense of the value of the kin-group was given a new and lasting dimension.

From High King of Heaven: Aspects of Early English Spirituality by Benedicta Ward SLG (Mowbray, 1999).

Daily Reading for March 3 • John and Charles Wesley, Priests, 1791, 1788

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night:
Day-spring from on high, be near:
Day-star, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee,
Joyless is the day’s return,
Till thy mercy’s beams I see;
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin, and grief,
Fill me, Radiancy Divine,
Scatter all my unbelief,
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

“Morning Hymn” by Charles Wesley (1707-1788). Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto. Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2270.html

Daily Reading for March 4 • Paul Cuffee, Witness to the Faith among the Shinnecock, 1812

When Occum left the Island, another Indian, Peter John, became a faithful native preacher to his brethren. He ministered among them until his grandson, the Rev. Paul Cuffee, entered the sacred calling. He was the second of seven sons of Peter Cuffee, an Indian of the Shinnecock tribe, and born in Brookhaven, in 1757. He embraced Christianity in 1778-9, and made Canoe Place his home where he lived. His mother was of African descent, and very pious.

In 1790 he was ordained to the work of the ministry, and admitted a member of the “Strict Congregational Church of Long Island.” He received a commission from the “New York Missionary Society,” to labor among the remnants of the Long Island Indians, in which good work he continued until his death. Crowds flocked to hear his native eloquence; his manner was graceful, imagination lively, voice most musical. Churches and ministers of other denominations opened their pulpits to his excellent and affecting discourses. What was most important, his spirit was imbued with ardent piety and unaffected humility.

He died as he lived, with the smiles of his Saviour. Directing the manner and place of his interment, he also selected 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, for his funeral sermon, and then, exhorting his family and friends to make Christ their friend, he bid them a fond and final adieu, and calmly fell asleep in death.

Where the Indian Church once stood, near Canoe Place, among the bushes and trees, his grave was dug. It was enclosed alone, and here lie the remains of the last native preacher to the Long Island Indians. A plain headstone marked the spot, and thus read:

“ERECTED BY the New York Missionary Society,in memory of The Rev. Paul Cuffee, an Indian of the Shinnecock Tribe, who was employed by that Society, for the last thirteen years of his life, on the eastern part of Long Island, where he labored with fidelity and success. Humble, pious, and indefatigable in testifying the Gospel of the grace of God, he finished his course with joy on the 7th of March, 1812, Aged fifty-five years and three days.”

From The Earliest Church of New York and Its Vicinity by Gabriel Poillon Disosway (New York: James Gregory, 1864).

Daily Reading for March 5

When we come to prayer we bring with us, although perhaps unknowingly, all the disquiet that we have imposed on ourselves during the preceding hours or days. If we have not beforehand tried to keep our heart or our body in a state of order, truth and beauty, we cannot expect them to be suddenly transformed, just because we shut our eyes and want to be in the presence of God.

The quality of our prayer is a function of the way we live throughout the day. If there is wisdom and order in our approach towards the whole rhythm of our daily activities—our sleep, the way we take our meals, the times of rest—then these will be the remote preparation for our recollection during the times specially set apart for prayer. . . .

We have to admit that we often become slaves to work because we renounce all custody of our heart. We engage passionately in whatever it is we are doing. We allow this to become our real center of interest.

From a contemporary Carthusian, quoted in Christian Teachings on the Practice of Prayer: From the Early Church to the Present, edited by Lorraine Kisly (Boston: New Seeds, 2006).

Daily Reading for March 6 • William W. Mayo, 1911, and Charles Menniger, 1953, and Their Sons, Pioneers in Medicine

Far too often we have seen Christian healing and the healing provided by the medical community as separate and distinct. In recent decades, though, we increasingly hear people affirm that healing is “both/and”: it is found in both the medical community and the church, it involves both the individual with faith and the medical personnel who see their expert care as part of the resurrection of the forgotten touch. . . .

Dr. Lisa Thorn once commented to me, “In this world of MRIs, CT scans, blood work, and so on, it is so easy to forget the power of touch. I am reminded of this in reading your work and it helps when I am examining patients. The more experienced (read: older) I get in doing what I do, the more crucial I find intuition and palpation (the technical term for touch!) in diagnosing.” It is very important that the Christian healing ministry is offered in conjunction with the medical profession. We never suggest that anyone cease taking their medication or go contrary to the advice of their physician. When prayer and medicine go hand in hand, the combined protocol can be very powerful. When we find a Christian doctor and a Christian prayer team working together, we see miracles happen.

One analogy I have found useful in describing the healing ministry is a set of railroad tracks: one rail is the finest medical expertise and treatment available to us; the other rail is the spiritual and faith dimension; and the third rail is the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about healing. If we take any one of the rails away, the train will not run. We need all three.

From The Forgotten Touch: More Stories of Healing by Nigel W. D. Mumford. Copyright © 2007. Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for March 7 • The Third Sunday in Lent

When we wait, we live simultaneously in the “not yet” and in the present. There are no short-cuts. Sometimes I think of this psalm [Psalm 62] when I choose the wrong line at the supermarket: what promised to be a speedy passage turns out to be slow and tedious as the customers ahead of me fumble for the right change and dispute sales items with the checker, who is usually new on the job and struggling with a malfunctioning scanner. My own small plan for my own small life demands rapid and purposeful movement with no wasted time and energy. But here I am, powerless and immobilized, reading the tabloid headlines that Elvis is not really dead or that a farmer in Illinois has grown a two-hundred-pound zucchini. The here-and-now is all there is: an attempt to move to the head of the line or otherwise short-circuit the process would violate an unwritten but powerful code and bring the collective wrath of my neighbors down upon me. Whatever great or trivial things I might wish to achieve in the next few minutes, right now there is nothing to do but to wait.

The psalm, like those frustrating moments in the supermarket line, reminds me of my ultimate powerlessness. Unlike the supermarket—or the airport check-in counter or the freeway toll booth—it also reminds me of the ultimate rightness of that powerlessness. This is not casual, purposeless waiting, but waiting for God. God is in charge. To wait upon God is not a fruitless waste of time or a sign of inefficient, ineffective prayer: it is our God-given work, our assigned task. It is the homework assignment that is never quite completed—at least in this life. It is, of course, ironic but very human to speak of “inefficient” prayer. Most of us want our prayer to accomplish something, to count somehow, or at least to be entered on the credit side of God’s ledger. Yet the prayer of waiting is not so much a prayer of accomplishment as one of presence, a prayer of being rather than doing.

From My Soul in Silence Waits: Meditations on Psalm 62 by Margaret Guenther (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 2000).

Daily Reading for March 8 • Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, 1929

If He could speak, that victim torn and bleeding,
Caught in His pain and nailed upon the Cross,
Has He to give the comfort souls are needing?
Could He destroy the bitterness of loss?

Once and for all men say He came and bore it,
Once and for all set up His throne on high,
Conquered the world and set His standard o’er it,
Dying that once, that men might never die.

Yet men are dying, dying soul and body,
Cursing the God who gave to them their birth,
Sick of the world with all its sham and shoddy,
Sick of the lies that darken all the earth.

Peace we were pledged, yet blood is ever flowing,
Where on the earth has Peace been ever found?
Men do but reap the harvest of their sowing,
Sadly the songs of human reapers sound. . . .

Are there no tears in the heart of the Eternal?
Is there no pain to pierce the soul of God?
Then must He be a fiend of Hell infernal,
Beating the earth to pieces with His rod.

Or is it just that there is nought behind it,
Nothing but forces purposeless and blind?
Is the last thing, if mortal man could find it,
Only a power wandering as the wind?

Father, if He, the Christ, were Thy Revealer,
Truly the First Begotten of the Lord,
Then must Thou be a Suff’rer and a Healer,
Pierced to the heart by the sorrow of the sword.

Then must it mean, not only that Thy sorrow
Smote Thee that once upon the lonely tree,
But that to-day, to-night, and on the morrow,
Still it will come, O Gallant God, to Thee. . . .

Peace does not mean the end of all our striving,
Joy does not mean the drying of our tears;
Peace is the power that comes to souls arriving
Up to the light where God Himself appears. . . .

Give me, for light, the sunshine of Thy sorrow,
Give me, for shelter, shadow of Thy Cross;
Give me to share the glory of Thy morrow,
Gone from my heart the bitterness of Loss.

From “The Suffering God” in The Unutterable Beauty: The Collected Poetry of G. A. Studdert Kennedy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927); found at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/dasc/TUB.HTM

Daily Reading for March 9 • Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, c. 394

One mark of the true Godhead is indicated by the words of Holy Scripture, which Moses learnt by the voice from heaven, when he heard him who said, “I am He that is.” We think it right, then, to believe that to be alone truly Divine which is represented as eternal and infinite in respect of being; and all that is contemplated therein is always the same, neither growing nor being consumed; so that if one should say of God, that formerly he was, but now is not, or that he now is, but formerly was not, we should consider each of the sayings alike to be godless: for by both alike the idea of eternity is mutilated, being cut short on one side or the other by non-existence, whether one contemplates “nothing” as preceding “being,” or declares that “being” ends in “nothing.”. . .

For this reason we declare the maintenance of their doctrine as to the non-existence at some time of him who truly is, to be a denial and rejection of his true Godhead; and this on the ground that . . . he who showed himself to Moses by the light speaks of himself as being, when he says, “I am He that is.”. . .

If then Moses lays down as a law for us some such mark of true Godhead as this, that we know nothing else of God but this one thing, that he is . . . we declare all the sophistical fabrication about the non-existence at some time of him who truly is, to be nothing else than a departure from Christianity, and a turning to idolatry. For when the Evangelist, in his discourse concerning the Nature of God, separates at all points non-existence from him who is, and, by his constant repetition of the word “was,” carefully destroys the suspicion of non-existence, and calls him the Only-begotten God, the Word of God, the Son of God, equal with God, and all such names, we have this judgment fixed and settled in us, that if the Only-begotten Son is God, we must believe that he who is believed to be God is eternal. And indeed he is verily God, and assuredly is eternal, and is never at any time found to be non-existent.

From Against Eunomius by Gregory of Nyssa, Book VIII; found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.viii.i.x.i.html

Daily Reading for March 10

The forty penitential weekdays and six Sundays that follow Mardi Gras and precede Easter are the days of greatest calm in the church’s year. Since by long centuries of custom the date of Easter is annually determined from the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21, the intertwining of physical and spiritual seasons is virtually inevitable. The resulting union of deep winter and holy preparation makes reflection, even penitence, a natural activity. . . .

“Lenzin,” our German ancestors used to call this season, and since then we have called it “Lent.” It is a time when Christians decorate stone churches with the sea’s color and wrap their priests in the mollusk’s purple. It was once a time when all things passed through the natural depression of seclusion, short food supplies, and inactivity, a time when body and land both rested. It is still, in the country, a final sanity before the absurd wastefulness of spring.

Each year at this time it is harder for me to desire butterflies and lilies, even to wish for resurrection. Each year I come a little closer to needing the dullness of the sky and the rarity of a single redheaded woodpecker knocking for grubs in the pine bark. Each year also I come a little closer to the single-mindedness of the drake who, muddy underside showing, waddles now across the ice to the cold center water to wash himself for his mate, all in the hope of ducklings later on. . . .

In the summer the drake would have a family, which he would abandon to the mate he had so much desired, and the woodpecker’s carmine head would burn out to tired tan. The farm in the summer becomes like the city is all year: too much color, too much noise, too much growing, too much hurry to stave off loss and destruction, too little natural death and gentle ending, too little time for play, too little pointless imagination. . . . Once summer comes, I spend it wallowing in the easiness of it—the excess of its fruits and vegetables, the companionship of the constant sounds as the hum of the insects and of the rototillers give way in the evening to the croaking of the frogs and the raucousness of the katydids. . . . But now it is Lent once again, and for one more snow I can luxuriate in the isolation of the cold, attend laconically to who I am, what I value, and why I’m here. Religion has always kept earth time. Liturgy only gives sanction to what the heart already knows.

From “Final Sanity” in Wisdom in the Waiting: Spring’s Sacred Days by Phyllis Tickle, in her series “Stories from The Farm In Lucy” (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004).

Daily Reading for March 11

The evil from which we pray to be delivered is not that which is most oppressive in life, such as poverty, worries, hardship, burdens, sacrifices, pain, injustice, tyranny and so on; it is the chain of circumstance that leads us into temptation, disturbing the balance, pushing life off-center, distorting the perspective. It will be seen at once that the so-called “good things” of life are just as liable to cause such disturbance as the painful and hard realities. These things all possess the potential power to lead or force us into temptation and by that I mean all the things that can possibly come between us and God. . . .

We should give thought to the fact that wherever self is stressed, as in strength that glories in its own might, power that idolizes itself, life that aims at “fulfilling itself” in its own way and by its own resources, in all these, not the truth, but the negation of truth may be suspected.

From the writings of Alfred Delp, German Jesuit theologian and writer, quoted in Christian Teachings on the Practice of Prayer: From the Early Church to the Present, edited by Lorraine Kisly (Boston: New Seeds, 2006).

Daily Reading for March 12 • Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, 604

The pastor should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech; lest he either utter what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to utter. For, as incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. The pastor ought also to understand how commonly vices pass themselves off as virtues. For often niggardliness excuses itself under the name of frugality, and on the other hand extravagance conceals itself under the name of liberality. Often inordinate carelessness is believed to be loving-kindness, and unbridled wrath is accounted the virtue of spiritual zeal. Often hasty action is taken for promptness, and tardiness for the deliberation of seriousness. Whence it is necessary for the pastor of souls to distinguish with vigilant care and vices between virtues and vices, lest stinginess get possession of his heart while he exults in seeming frugality in expenditure; or, while anything is recklessly wasted, he glory in being, as it were, compassionately liberal; or, in overlooking what he ought to have smitten, he draw on those that are under him to eternal punishment; or, in mercilessly smiting an offense, he himself offend more grievously; or, by rashly anticipating, mar what might have been done properly and gravely; or, by putting off the merit of a good action, change it to something worse.

Since, then, we have shown what manner of man the pastor ought to be, let us now set forth after what manner he should teach. For, as long before us Gregory Nazianzen, of reverend memory, has taught, one and the same exhortation does not suit all, inasmuch as all are not bound together by similarity of character. For the things that profit some often hurt others; seeing that also, for the most part, herbs which nourish some animals are fatal to others; and the gentle hissing that quiets horses incites whelps; and the medicine which abates one disease aggravates another; and the food which invigorates the life of the strong kills little children. Therefore, according to the quality of the hearers ought the discourse of teachers to be fashioned, so as to suit all and each for their several needs, and yet never deviate from the art of common edification. For what are the intent minds of hearers but, so to speak, a kind of harp, which the skillful player, in order to produce a tune possessing harmony, strikes in various ways? And for this reason the strings render back a melodious sound, because they are struck indeed with one quill, but not with one kind of stroke. Whence every teacher also, that he may edify all in the one virtue of charity, ought to touch the hearts of his hearers out of one doctrine, but not with one and the same exhortation.

From The Book of Pastoral Rule (ca. 590) by Gregory the Great; found at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/590greg1-pastoralrule2.html

Daily Reading for March 13 • James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, and of the Dominican Republic, 1911

We were all naturally much elated at the very encouraging reception we had met with in such high places. But in order that we might not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, an overruling Providence, higher than the princes of this world, saw fit to “visit us with trouble and to bring distress upon us.” A destructive fever broke out among the colonists, and in the short period of six months death had claimed forty-three of the company as its prey. As many as four persons in one day had been committed to their last resting-place. During the contagion five members of my own household had been laid away in the silent tomb. Of a family of eight persons, of which, when we sailed from New Haven, Ct., on the 1st of May, 1861, I was the head, by the 1st of February, 1862, nine months after our arrival in Haiti, only three remained alive, myself and my two little sons, aged respectively three and five years.

But amidst this terrible chastisement, God remembered me in mercy, by sanctifying His fatherly correction to me, in enduing my soul with patience under my affliction, and with resignation to His blessed will. He comforted me with a sense of His goodness; lifted up the light of His countenance upon me; and gave me peace by bringing to my spiritual apprehension that, as the last surviving apostle of Jesus was “in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,” on the forlorn isle of Patmos, so, by His Divine Providence, He had brought this tribulation upon me for a similar end in this isle in the Caribbean Sea. St. John had a mission to fulfil, by command of the Lord, in writing to churches that had fallen away from their pristine Gospel integrity. I had come to Haiti to bear a pure Gospel testimony to a nominally Christian people whose knowledge of Christianity had been received from a church which had also fallen away from its original purity.

When the work of death had suspended its terrible ravages, those who had recovered their health were for the most part discouraged and a majority of them resolved to return to the United States. About twenty decided to remain with me and consecrate the lives God had spared to His service, in bearing testimony to the Gospel among the people to whom, “In His Name,” they had come. The farm where we had settled, however, was no longer an inviting location for us. The situation was very unhealthy. At this juncture an American resident in the city offered a large hall free of charge for the services of the church, if we would establish our mission work there. This offer was thankfully accepted, and our services began in town on the 4th of January, 1863, although most of us still continued to reside on the farm three miles from town, for want of means to pay rent in the city.

Meanwhile, I visited the United States at the time of the General Convention of 1862, leaving my two motherless boys behind me, in the care of a member of the colony, as a guarantee of my return to Haiti, and to assure them that I would not desert them. The object of my visit to the United States was to obtain a missionary stipend to enable me to hire a house in the city where I might remove from the country to carry on more effectively the work of the church there where it was now able to be transferred, thanks to the kindness of the American gentleman above referred to.

I received a small stipend from the American Church Missionary Society, which enabled me to hire a house in the city and remove thereto in February, 1863. From that moment the work went on encouragingly, so that Holy Trinity Church, Port-au-Prince, was organized under the provisions of the canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, on the 25th of May, 1863; and it was taken into union with its General Convention, by an act to that effect emanating from Bishop Brownell, then presiding Bishop of that church.

From Facts About the Church’s Mission in Haiti: A Concise Statement by Bishop Holly (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1897); found at http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/jtholly/facts1897.html

Daily Reading for March 14 • The Fourth Sunday in Lent

“Father,” it says, “I have sinned against heaven, and before you.” This is the first confession before the Creator of nature, the Patron of mercy, and the Judge of guilt. Although God knows all things, he awaits the words of your confession. . . . Confess, so that the church may pray for you and that the people may weep for you. Do not fear that perhaps you might not receive. The advocate promises pardon. The patron offers grace. The defender promises the reconciliation with the Father’s good will to you. Believe because it is the truth. . . .

Rise and run to the church. Here is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He who hears you pondering in the secret places of the mind runs to you. When you are still far away, he sees you and runs to you. He sees in your heart. He runs, perhaps someone may hinder, and he embraces you. His foreknowledge is in the running, his mercy in the embrace and the disposition of fatherly love. He falls on your neck to raise one prostrate and burdened with sins and bring back one turned aside to the earthly toward heaven. Christ falls on your neck to free your neck from the yoke of slavery and hang his sweet yoke upon your shoulders.

From Exposition of the Gospel of Luke by Ambrose, 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 March 15

The opening word of Benedict’s Prologue, Listen, not only establishes the urgency of listening but of listening in the right way—that is, “with the ear of the heart.” It was through that act of listening in the depths of his heart that the prodigal was able to return to the inviting God, the father offering his son unconditional love and acceptance. By straying from his heart, his true self, he had gone astray. His return to his heart resulted in his return to God.

How can a heart be pierced, punctured? What happens when I have become hard-hearted—or even half-hearted? Perhaps I have built up defensive walls, gradually, without noticing. In the Eastern spiritual tradition we are repeatedly warned of the dangers of “the hardening of the heart.” It is described as brittleness or “sclerosis,” which brings about a deficient sensitivity. When he was asked about it the desert father Abbot Poimen knew the cure. He said that if stone is hard, water is by its very nature soft, and when water drops continually on a stone it hollows it out. “So too God’s word is delicate and mild, and whoever hears the word of God and reflects on it makes a space within his heart where it can enter.”

From Seeking Life: The Baptismal Invitation of the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009).

Daily Reading for March 16

May God free me from every wickedness,
May God free me from every entrapment,
May God free me from every gully,
From every tortuous road, from every slough.

May God open to me every pass,
Christ open to me every narrow way,
Each soul of holy man and woman in heaven
Be preparing for me my pathway.

The compassing of God and His right hand
Be upon my form and upon my frame;
The compassing of the High King and the grace of the Trinity
Be upon me abiding ever eternally,
Be upon me abiding ever eternally.

May the compassing of the Three shield me in my means,
The compassing of the Three shield me this day,
The compassing of the Three shield me this night,
From hate, from harm, from act, from ill.

The Three Who are over me,
The Three Who are below me,
The Three Who are above me here,
The Three Who are above me yonder,
The Three Who are in the air,
The Three Who are in the heaven,
The Three Who are in the great pouring sea.

Celtic prayers for protection and support from the Carmina Gadelica III. Quoted in Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition by Esther de Waal. Copyright © 1991. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 17 • Patrick, Bishop and Missionary of Ireland, 461

The Spirit elsewhere is a witness that even uncultivated ways have been created by the Most High—I am, then, first and foremost unlearned, an unlettered exile who cannot plan for the future. But this much I know for sure. Before I had to suffer, I was like a stone lying in the deep mud. Then he who is mighty came and in his mercy he not only pulled me out but lifted me up and placed me at the very top of the wall. I must, therefore, speak publicly in order to thank the Lord for such wonderful gifts.

Who was it who called me, fool that I am, from among those who are considered wise, expert in law, powerful in speech and general affairs? He passed over these for me, a mere outcast. He inspired me with fear, reverence and patience, to be the one who would if possible serve the people faithfully to whom the love of Christ brought me. The love of Christ indeed gave me to them to serve them humbly and sincerely for my entire lifetime if I am found worthy.

From St. Patrick’s Confession, quoted in The Spirituality of St. Patrick by Lesley Whiteside. Copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 18 • Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, 386

You were conducted by the hand to the holy pool of sacred baptism, just as Christ was conveyed from the cross to the sepulcher close at hand. You submerged yourself three times in the water and emerged; by this symbolic action you were secretly re-enacting the burial of Christ three days in the tomb. Just as our Saviour spent three days and nights in the womb of the earth, so you upon first emerging were representing Christ’s first day in the earth, and by your immersion his first night. For at night one can no longer see but during the day one has light; so you saw nothing when immersed as if it were night, but you emerged as if to the light of day. In one and the same action you died and were born: the water of salvation became both tomb and mother for you.

What Solomon said in another context is apposite to you: “There is a time to be born, and a time to die,” but the opposite is true in your case—there is a time to die and a time to be born. A single moment achieves both ends, and your begetting was simultaneous with your death.

What a strange and astonishing situation! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we did not really hang from a cross and rise again. Our imitation was symbolic, but our salvation is real.

From the baptismal instructions of Cyril of Jerusalem, quoted in Seeking Life: The Baptismal Invitation of the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009).

Daily Reading for March 19 • St. Joseph

It is a common assumption that the New Testament clearly states in several places that Joseph and Jesus were carpenters, but that is not the case. There are only two references to their trade. Mark refers to Jesus as a carpenter (6:3), and Matthew calls him “the carpenter’s son” (13:55). . . . Many scholars believe that “carpenter” is an inaccurate translation, although it has become a deeply rooted tradition. The word that Matthew and Mark both use is tekton, which means “worker in hard substances.” Its use more often means stonemason or sculptor. A carpenter would be able to eke out only the poorest living in a place like Nazareth. A stonemason, on the other hand, would not only have work in Nazareth but would also have a great deal of work in the nearby city of Sepphoris, only about an hour’s walk from Nazareth (a reasonable distance to commute by the standards of those days). Sepphoris had been destroyed after a revolt, and the Romans were having it rebuilt as a stone and marble Roman city, hiring local craftsmen to do the work.

We frequently hear comments to the effect that when God took humanity upon himself he came as a peasant. This is a highly inaccurate representation. Carpentry and stone masonry were respected trades and would have been the equivalent of a middle-class occupation in ancient times. Although Joseph and his family would have lived in poverty by modern standards, Joseph would have had a comfortable home and a decent income by the standards of his day. . . .

Although the Bible tells us nothing about Joseph’s personal life, it entirely possible that he was considerably older than Mary. Most scholars believe that Mary was at the most about fourteen or fifteen years old when Jesus was conceived. This was a very respectable marriageable age in those days. It is also quite possible that Joseph had children by a previous marriage. The tremendously high rate of death in childbirth left large numbers of widowers, who were generally considered very desirable husbands. They were experienced in caring for a family and had an already established business or trade. . . . Two second-century works, the Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Thomas, as well as the fourth-century History of Joseph the Carpenter, all tell that Joseph was a widower with children when he was betrothed to Mary. The first two, having been written within a century of Jesus’ life, may have been based on a valid oral tradition.

From “Joseph the Husband of Mary” in All the People in the Bible: An A-Z Guide to the Saints, Scoundrels, and Other Characters in Scripture by Richard R. Losch (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008).

Daily Reading for March 20 • Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1711

As soon as ever you awake in the morning, strive as much as you can to keep all worldly thoughts out of your mind, till you have presented the first fruits of the day to God, which will be an excellent preparative, to make you spend the rest of it the better; and therefore be sure to sing the Morning and Evening Hymn in your chamber devoutly, remembering that the Psalmist, upon happy experience assures you that it is a good thing to tell of the loving kindness of the Lord early in the morning, and of his truth in the night season.

When you are ready, look on your soul as still until you have said your prayers.

If you are very young, that God’s commands may not seem grievous to you at your first setting out, I shall advise you to do no more than your infant devotion will bear; and that is, to take great care, to learn your Catechism without book, and to learn to understand it; for ’tis impossible you can ever perform your duty, unless you first know what it is; ’tis impossible you can ever go to Heaven, unless you learn the way thither: and that you may beg God’s dayly blessing, and his grace to assist you, learn these prayers by heart, and say them every day.

Glory be to Thee, O Lord God,
for all the blessings I dayly receive from Thee,
and for Thy particular preservation,
and refreshment of me this day [night] past.

O Lord, have mercy upon me,
and forgive whatsoever Thou hast seen amiss in me;
and for the time to come,
give me grace, to fly all youthful lusts,
and to remember Thee, my Creator, in the days of my youth. . . .

Lord, hear my prayers, and pardon my failings,
for the merits of my blessed Saviour,
in whose holy words I sum up all my wants.
Our Father which art in Heaven, &c.

From A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College by Thomas Ken, D.D. (London: Printed for John Martyn, 1675). http://anglicanhistory.org/ken/manual.html

Daily Reading for March 21 • The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Let us look into the mystery this incident imported. Whatever soul among you wishes to be truly faithful, anoint the feet of the Lord with precious ointment like Mary did. That ointment was righteousness, and therefore it was [exactly] a pound weight: but it was ointment of pure nard, very precious. From his calling it “pistici” we ought to infer that there was some locality from which it derived its preciousness; but this does not exhaust its meaning, and it harmonizes well with a sacramental symbol. The root of the word in the Greek [pistis] is by us called “faith.” You were seeking to work righteousness: “The just shall live by faith.” Anoint the feet of Jesus: follow the Lord’s footsteps by living a good life. Wipe them with your hair: what you have in excess, give to the poor, and then you have wiped the feet of the Lord. For the hair seems to be the superfluous part of the body. You have something to spare of your abundance: it is superfluous to you but necessary for the feet of the Lord. Perhaps on this earth the Lord’s feet are still in need. For of whom but of his members is he yet to say in the end, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it unto me”? You spent what was superfluous for yourselves, but you have done what was grateful to my feet.

From Tractates on the Gospel of John by Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb, John 11-21, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007).

Daily Reading for March 22 • James DeKoven, Priest, 1879

In the midst of the debates over ritualism, James DeKoven, a clerical member of the House of Deputies, vigorously espoused the Anglo-Catholic position. . . . Concerned about the evangelicals’ efforts to restrict the range of doctrinal and liturgical beliefs in the Episcopal Church, DeKoven delivered a memorable speech to his fellow deputies in 1871. He defended ritualism on three grounds. First, he noted that many Anglo-Catholic practices not only were used in the early church (the elevation of the bread and wine) but also were ancient and biblical in origin (the use of incense in worship). Second, he suggested that beliefs such as the real presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements strengthened the religious commitment of the Christian faithful. And third, he argued that a “broad, Catholic, tolerant charity” was needed to encourage the spread of Christianity throughout all segments of American society.

In the end, sharp disagreements over the meaning of liturgical rituals and texts—theological differences intensified by latent anti-Catholic prejudices—tore the institutional fabric of the Episcopal Church in a way that the moral issue of slavery had failed to do only a few years before.

From The Episcopalians by David Hein and Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for March 23 • Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop and Missionary of Armenia, c. 332

In Agathangelos we find Gregory the Illuminator giving instruction, with fasting and prayer, leading up to “a new and wonderful birth in fatherly fashion, by his holy and liberal right hand; to give birth once again to everyone by baptism from water and the womb of the Spirit.” We read that he baptized the king and the people in the River Euphrates, and that the water stopped flowing:

“And a bright light appeared in the likeness of a shining pillar, and it stood over the waters of the river; and above it was the likeness of the Lord’s cross. And the light shone out so brightly that it obscured and weakened the rays of the sun. And the oil of anointing which Gregory poured over the people, floated around them in the river. Everyone was amazed and raised blessings to God’s glory. In the evening the sign disappeared, and they returned to the town. And those who were baptized on that day were more than one hundred and fifty thousand persons from the royal army.

“They went forth in great joy, in white garments, with psalms and blessings and lighted lamps and burning candles and blazing torches, with great rejoicing and happiness, illuminated and become like the angels. They had received the title of God’s adoption, had entered the heritage of the holy gospel, and being joined to the rank of the saints were flowing with sweet odor in Christ. So they went forth and returned to the Lord’s house. There he offered the blessed sacrifice and communicated them all with the blessed sacrament, distributing to all the holy body and precious blood of Christ the Savior of all, who vivifies and gives life to all men, the creator and fashioner of all creatures; and he liberally administered to all the divinely-given grace.”

From Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent by Bryan D. Spinks (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2006).

Daily Reading for March 24 • Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, 1980, and the Martyrs of El Salvador

A humble person is one who, like the humble Mary, says, “The Powerful One has done great things in me.” Each of us has an individual greatness. God would not be our author if we were something worthless. You and I and all of us are worth very much, because we are creatures of God, and God has prodigally given his wonderful gifts to every person. And so the church values human beings and contends for their rights, for their freedom, for their dignity. That is an authentic church endeavor. While human rights are violated, while there are arbitrary arrests, while there are tortures, the church considers itself persecuted, it feels troubled, because the church values human beings and cannot tolerate that an image of God be trampled by persons that become brutalized by trampling on others. The church wants to make that image beautiful. (September 4, 1977)

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, Copyright 2007 by Plough Publishing House. Used with permission. An e-book found at http://www.plough.com/ebooks/pdfs/ViolenceOfLove.pdf

Daily Reading for March 25 • The Annunciation

When the visitor told her
there would be a child
and that she would be
overshadowed by holiness
she felt the holy darkness
that would someday become
the bringer of light.

And thirty-four years later
she stood on a hill
beneath another shadow
a high cross-bar that cut
across her and she held in
the thin air and silence
the elongated and forsaken
shadow of the holy one
she once held as a child.

She wondered as the shadows
gave way into the night
if, in time, light could pierce
like tiny nails, this absorbing dark.

“Shadowing” by Penelope Duckworth, quoted in Mary’s Hours: Daily Prayer with the Mother of God by Penelope Duckworth. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 26 • Richard Allen, First Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1831

Born a slave in the household of a prominent Philadelphian, Richard Allen was sold to a Delaware farmer who allowed him and his brother to work as day laborers to purchase their freedom. In Delaware, Allen also encountered exhorters of the Methodist Society, then still affiliated with the Church of England. The antislavery position of the Methodists attracted him, while their inspiration led him to teach himself to read and write and to feel a spiritual awakening. . . . His 1786 return to Philadelphia introduced him to Absalom Jones, an African American preacher some years his senior, and to African Americans who were hungry for social and religious leadership in their home city. The Methodist emphasis on inner faith and weekly meetings of the faithful nourished Allen’s compatriots in times that were frequently trying. . . .

In 1787, Allen and Jones formed the Free African Society, a benevolent association that evolved into the Bethel Church. In 1799 Allen was ordained by famed Methodist bishop Francis Asbury. . . .African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregations multiplied until in 1816 their religious leaders established a separate denomination. Allen became the first AME bishop. As this branch of African American religion grew under his care, he also worked as a master shoemaker, organized schools for African American children, denounced both slavery and colonizationist schemes to expatriate African Americans, and aided the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal. To Allen fell the task of preaching execution sermons for African American Philadelphians condemned by the state.

Allen’s sermons, addresses, devotional pieces, and autobiography constitute an important chapter in American writing. Charity, the first of Christian virtues, wrote Allen, should orient white Americans to the bodily and spiritual needs of African Americans, including the need for freedom. With Jones, he recounted African Americans’ charitable services during the raging yellow fever of 1793—aiding the sick, caring for orphans, burying the dead—and bitterly noted that not only had whites lied about a supposed African immunity to the disease, but also scorned and insulted their African American benefactors once the epidemic ebbed. Faith and the experience of racial inequalities led Allen to an African American reconstruction of Christianity premised upon the conviction that since the gospel addresses the needs of the oppressed, a gospel that serves oppressors is merely a human creation, not a divine one. The expression of this religious reconstruction in his writings and in African American institutions was the genius of Allen’s life.

From “Richard Allen” by John Saillant in The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, edited by William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Daily Reading for March 27 • Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Philippines, and of Western New York, 1929

“Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your servant: and whosoever would be first among you, shall be bondservant of all.” (Mk. 10: 43, 44) What difference does it make if there are those who do not wish your service? They cannot help it if contrary to their wishes you watch for and seize opportunities to serve. Let your heart beat with theirs. They cannot prevent that. We must act as if there was unity and unity will come in the doing. We must relate our Christianity to that of others by whatever means will best bring about an understanding and a fellowship, without ignoring or injuring the special gift we enjoy and which it is our business to make available for the whole fellowship. Our light is a light to be set on a candlestick that it may light the whole house. It is not to be kept safe under a cover where it will be protected from the wind. It must be put within the gaze of all men. The more catholic a church claims to be, the more should it be found in the thick of things, playing its catholicity on those who do not have it. Aloofness and service are not friends. Catholicity is fearless, never afraid of being snuffed out by contacts with that which is less catholic. Indeed, catholicity, like freedom, lives and retains its power by living perilously. Never is any person so safe as when trying to seize an opportunity which leads into danger. The man and the church who practice catholicity will do more to bring about understanding and cooperation between the churches than any one else, as well as learn the meaning of the glorious liberty of the children of God.

While the aim and function of the Church is to win the individual to discipleship, it cannot stop at that. The Christian leader must somehow find his way to the rim of the world and take his stand upon it, looking out over the whole of mankind and translating all his loyalties into terms of loyalty to mankind for whom Christ died. It is his part to bring the corporate conscience of the Church to play on the corporate manifestations of the life of the day. There are those who would question the authority of Christ over politics, national and international, industry and economics. As statesmen, captains of industry, and economists they challenge the competence of the Church to enter their sphere. The blame rests with the churchmen chiefly. They have weakly surrendered or weakened the jurisdiction over life which our Lord has committed to His Church. . . .The duty of the Church is not to interfere with the proper function of the state, of industry, of economics, but to claim final jurisdiction over the moral and spiritual implications in their operation. It is the common business of the Church to enlist in the service of the Kingdom of God on earth technical and expert knowledge of every sort. If it does not there will be—indeed there already is—the devil to pay. Science without a soul is a menace. So is the state. So is industry. So is society. St. John says that any organization or phase of life apart from God “lieth in the evil one.” . . .

The unity of Christendom is no longer a beautiful dream. It is a pressing necessity for the arousing of that passion for Christ which will be the most flaming thing in the world, that certainty of voice and touch which will quell honest doubt and perplexity, that fund of wisdom which will open up spiritual vistas such as now we only yearn for. Nationalism began to eat into the body of Christendom four hundred years ago and has continued to work until Christianity has been nationalized instead of the nations being Christianized. The law of the state has become to the average citizen the embodiment of God’s moral requirements. In some countries the Church is little better than a vassal of the state instead of its converting power. Until the churches unite we shall have to move as men grievously wounded—haltingly, lamely, without a supernational and final guide in the moral and spiritual movements of the time. We shall be unable to invite the nations to walk in the light of the Kingdom of God and in this way bring their glory and honor, together with that of their rulers, into it.

From the sermon “The Authority of Christ” by Charles Henry Brent, preached in 1926 at the consecration of Dr. E. M. Stires as Bishop of Long Island, in St. Thomas’s Church, New York City; found at http://www.bestsermons.net/1926/The_Authority_of_Christ.html

Daily Reading for March 28 • The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

To look at the Crucifix—“the supreme symbol of our august religion”—and then to look at our own hearts; to test by the Cross the quality of our love—if we do that honestly and unflinchingly we don’t need any other self-examination than that, any other judgement or purgation. The lash, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the stripping, the nails—life has equivalents of all these for us and God asks a love for Himself and His children which can accept and survive all that in the particular way in which it is offered to us. It is no use to talk in a large vague way about the love of God; here is its point of insertion in the world of men.

What about the dreadful moment when a great test of courage, great suffering, a great bereavement faced us and we knew we were for it and found the agony was more than we could face? The revelation that someone we trusted could not be trusted any more, that someone loved profit better than they loved us? How do we feel when we have to suffer for someone else’s wrongdoing? How do we bear mockery and contempt, especially if it is directed at our religious life or at the unfortunate discrepancy between our religious life and our character? What about the sting, the lash, or humiliation or disappointment, the unfortunate events that stripped us of the seamless drapery of self-respect and convention and left us naked to the world; the wounds given by those we loved best; the loneliness inseparable from some phase of the spiritual life? All this happens over and over again. Can we weave it all into the sacrifice of love? . . .

There is a type of ancient picture which shows all the Sacraments centered in and dependent from the Cross: the love self-given there giving itself forever to men, the undying source of grace and purification and truth. It is a wonderful image of what the Christian Church and Christian life really are, a continuation of the Incarnation. It reminds us that the Spirit of Christ is now living and truly present with and in His Church, His Family, His Mystic Body, and, because of His one eternal sacrifice ever giving us His life, and that we are utterly and entirely dependent on that life as branches on the Vine, His touch still cleansing us, His hand still feeding us.

From The Light of Christ by Evelyn Underhill, quoted in Lent with Evelyn Underhill, edited by G. P. Mellick Belshaw (New York: Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1964).

Daily Reading for March 29 • Monday in Holy Week

“Father to me Thou art, and Mother dear,
And Brother too, kind Husband of my heart!”
So speaks Andromache in boding fear,
Ere from her last embrace her hero part—
So evermore, by Faith’s undying glow,
We own the Crucified in weal or woe.

Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,
The fragrance of our old paternal fields
May be forgotten; and the time may come
When the babe’s kiss no sense of pleasure yields
Even to the doting mother: but Thine own
Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,
None loves them best—O vain and selfish sigh!
Out of the bosom of His love He spares—
The Father spares the Son, for thee to Die:
For thee He died—for thee He lives again:
O’er thee He watches in His boundless reign.

Thou art as much His care, as if beside
Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth:
Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide
To light up worlds, or wake an insect’s mirth:
They shine and shine with unexhausted store—
Thou art thy Saviour’s darling—seek no more.

From a poem for the Monday before Easter, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year by John Keble (London: Suttaby and Co., 1883).

Daily Reading for March 30 • Tuesday in Holy Week

I was dreaming that I was treading the streets of the Holy City, pottering about like a tourist. In my wandering I came upon the museum of that city of our dream. I went in, and a courteous attendant conducted me around. There was some old armour there, much bruised with battle. Many things were conspicuous by their absence. I saw nothing of Alexander’s, nor of Napoleon’s. There was no Pope’s ring, nor even the ink-bottle that Luther is said to have thrown at the devil, nor Wesley’s seal and keys. I saw a widow’s mite and the feather of a little bird. I saw some swaddling clothes, a hammer, and three nails, and a few thorns. I saw a bit of a fishing-net and the broken oar of a boat. I saw a sponge that had once been dipped in vinegar, and a small piece of silver. But I cannot enumerate all I saw, nor describe all I felt.

Whilst I was turning over a common drinking cup which had a very honourable place, I whispered to the attendant, “Have you not got a towel and basin among your collection?”

“No,” he said, “not here; you see they are in constant use.” Then I knew I was in Heaven, in the Holy City, and amid the redeemed society.

Knowing that He came from God and went to God . . . Jesus took a towel and basin.

From The Discipline and Culture of the Spiritual Life by A. E. Whitham, quoted in Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community (New York: HarperOne, 2002).

Daily Reading for March 31 • Wednesday in Holy Week

Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weaved in my lone devout melancholy,
Thou which of good hast, yea, art treasury,
All changing unchanged Ancient of days.
But do not with a vile crown of frail bays
Reward my Muse’s white sincerity;
But what Thy thorny crown gain’d, that give me,
A crown of glory, which doth flower always.
The ends crown our works, but Thou crown’st our ends,
For at our ends begins our endless rest.
The first last end, now zealously possess’d,
With a strong sober thirst my soul attends.
‘Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high;
Salvation to all that will is nigh. . . .

Crucifying

By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate:
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas! and do, unto th’ Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life’s infinity to span,
Nay to an inch. Lo! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

From “La Corona” by John Donne, in Poems of John Donne, vol. 1, ed. E. K. Chambers (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896).