Daily Reading for May 1 • Saint Philip and Saint James, Apostles

I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father but through me. If you know me, you know my Father also; and from henceforth you shall know him, and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father also. How do you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwells in me, he does his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe for the very works’ sake.

He who is the Way leads us not into by-paths or trackless wastes: he who is the Truth mocks us not with lies; he who is the Life betrays us not into delusions which are death. He himself has chosen these winning names to indicate the methods which he has appointed for our salvation. As the Way, he will guide us to the Truth; the Truth will establish us in the Life. And therefore it is all-important for us to know what is the mysterious mode, which he reveals, of attaining this life. No man comes to the Father but through me. The way to the Father is through the Son. . . .

If you know me, you know my Father also; and from henceforth you shall know him, and have seen him.. . . The novel sound of these words disturbed the apostle Philip. A man is before their eyes; this man avows himself the Son of God, and declares that when they have known him they will know the Father. He tells them that they have seen the Father, and that, because they have seen him, they shall know him hereafter. This truth is too broad for the grasp of weak humanity; their faith fails in the presence of these paradoxes. Christ says that the Father has been seen already and shall now be known; and this, although sight, is knowledge. He says that if the Son has been known, the Father has been known also.

From On the Trinity 7.33-35, by Hilary of Poitiers; found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.ii.v.ii.vii.html

Daily Reading for May 2 • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

He plainly indicates the novelty involved in his command here—and the extent to which the love he enjoins here surpasses the old idea of mutual love—by adding the words “Even as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” . . .

The law of Moses mandated the necessity of loving our brothers as ourselves, yet our Lord Jesus the Christ loved us far more than he loved himself. Otherwise, he would have never descended to our humiliation from his original exaltation in the form of God and on an equality with God the Father, nor would he have undergone for our sakes the exceptional bitterness of his death in the flesh, nor have submitted to beatings, to shame, to derision, and all his other sufferings too numerous to mention. Being rich, he would never have become poor if he had not loved us far more than he loved himself. It was indeed something new for love to go as far as that!

Christ commands us to love as he did, putting neither reputation, wealth or anything else before love of our brothers and sisters. If need be, we even need to be prepared to face death for our neighbor’s salvation as our Savior’s blessed disciples did, as well as those who followed in their footsteps. To them the salvation of others mattered more than their own lives, and they were ready to do anything or to suffer anything to save souls that were perishing.

From Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, 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 May 3 • Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, 373 (transferred)

Let what we are describing be compared to a great chorus. As then the chorus is composed of different people, children, women again, and old men, and those who are still young, and, when one, namely the conductor, gives the sign, each utters sound according to his nature and power, the man as a man, the child as a child, the old man as an old man, and the young man as a young man, while all make up a single harmony; or as our soul at one time moves our several senses according to the proper function of each, so that when some one object is present all alike are put in motion, and the eye sees, the ear hears, the hand touches, the smell takes in odour, and the palate tastes,—and often the other parts of the body act too, as for instance if the feet walk; or, to make our meaning plain by yet a third example, it is as though a very great city were built, and administered under the presence of the ruler and king who has built it; for when he is present and gives orders, and has his eye upon everything, all obey; some busy themselves with agriculture, others hasten for water to the aqueducts, another goes forth to procure provisions,—one goes to senate, another enters the assembly, the judge goes to the bench, and the magistrate to his court. The workman likewise settles to his craft, the sailor goes down to the sea, the carpenter to his workshop, the physician to his treatment, the architect to his building; and while one is going to the country, another is returning from the country, and while some walk about the town others are going out of the town and returning to it again: but all this is going on and is organised by the presence of the one Ruler, and by his management: in like manner then we must conceive of the whole of Creation, even though the example be inadequate, yet with an enlarged idea. For with the single impulse of a nod as it were of the Word of God, all things simultaneously fall into order, and each discharge their proper functions, and a single order is made up by them all together.

But all these things, and more, which for their number we cannot mention, the worker of wonders and marvels, the Word of God, giving light and life, moves and orders by his own nod, making the universe one. Nor does he leave out of himself even the invisible powers; for including these also in the universe inasmuch as he is their maker also, He holds them together and quickens them by his nod and by his providence.

From Against the Heathen by Athanasius, Part III. Found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.vi.ii.iii.ix.html

Daily Reading for May 4 • Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387

After a year’s stay in Rome, which somewhat disappointed his high anticipations, Augustine was invited to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric. The pious bishop of Milan, Ambrose, was disturbed at the prospect of Augustine’s arrival, knowing his opposition to Christianity, and the pernicious influence he would be likely to exert, and publicly warned his people against him. Nevertheless he behaved most charitably towards Augustine, receiving him with much kindness, and the latter was so charmed by the urbanity of the bishop, that he consented to hear him preach, and from being fascinated with the eloquence of his discourses, became interested in the truths which they inculcated, and at length an earnest inquirer into the doctrines of Christianity. . . .

At this period Augustine was still far from acknowledging the truth. But he was no longer a Manichean, and this was a comfort to his mother, although she longed for more. “Assured that God would not fail to finish his good work, according to his promise, she replied to me with the tranquility of a heart strong in faith, that she hoped that before she left this world, Jesus Christ would grant her the blessing to see me a faithful child of the Church.”

Monica could not but entertain the profoundest gratitude and affection towards Ambrose, who was the instrument of whatever spiritual benefit her son had already received, and from whose holy influence she hoped much in the future. And Ambrose seems to have been deeply impressed with the piety of Monica. Augustine records: “He could not help repeating his praises of her whenever he saw me, congratulating me, that heaven had granted me such a mother.” . . .Monica seems herself to have been enlightened by the pious teachings and example of Ambrose, and to have been led to a greater simplicity of practice in religion. . . .

We know that Augustine’s whole life [after her death] was sanctified by the memory of his mother, and the hope of their reunion in heaven—that the great things which he did for the Church, and for all time—in fact all that he became, were traceable, under God, in great measure to her faithfulness in prayer.

From “Monica, the Mother of Augustine” in The Boston Review, Devoted to Theology and Literature, vol. 1, no. 4 (Boston: John M. Whittemore and Co., 1861).

Daily Reading for May 5

When we think about groups in the history of spirituality that did not fit, one of the unavoidable questions is: where are the women? The priorities of clerical élites and uniformity made lay people in general an “under class” but, as we focus on women in particular, these priorities are expressed primarily by the dominance of male experience over female. It is not simply a question of noting that, with some exceptions (for example, Julian of Norwich), feminine imagery for God and God’s way of relating to the human condition does not play a significant part in what are considered as the great spiritual classics. Common spiritual stereotypes, as well as theories about spiritual development, tend to echo the assumptions of a male, clerical establishment. To what extent, and in what circumstances, did women contribute to the development of spiritual theory and practice? For example, is Teresa of Avila, as a doctor of the Church, the token female, an honorary male, or what? If we reflect on those women, such as Teresa, who have achieved a place in history as significant spiritual figures, it is possible to see their public presentation as offering to women merely conventional roles as “daughters of the Church.” In other words, their lives were recorded selectively for institutional purposes in such a way as not to disturb time-honoured patterns of attitude and behavior. It is important, of course, to distinguish between these edited models of women’s holiness (for example, in terms of humility, hidden service of God and a somewhat disengaged ministry to the weak) and the fullness of human (and specifically feminine) experience which was the hidden reality of these women’s lives. . . .

Our traditional historical sources are themselves products of a culture where the psychological, moral, or social inferiority of women is taken for granted. Even the “big” women who cannot be ignored in the institutional version of events are presented within accepted cultural frameworks. Even if women wrote about themselves in history, they often spoke in conventional ways. For example, Julian of Norwich seems to suggest that her theological creativity is in spite of her gender. It is interesting to note that until fairly recently there has been an assumption, rather than any concrete proof, that Julian was a nun. Apart from the influence of the monastic editors who promoted her work, there may have been a subtle presumption that no woman could think for herself in a creative and theological way and that Julian must therefore have had formal instruction and guided reading from a male cleric! In the end, the problem is not simply one of rediscovering more significant women, in the sense of adding women to our histories, because the stage on which significant historical figures act out their lives continues to be the one that has been defined by a male-dominated world. Women still have to qualify as historical according to norms that are predetermined.

From Philip Sheldrake’s Spirituality and History, new edition (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991, 1995).

Daily Reading for May 6

As Julian of Norwich said, creation “would fall to naught for littleness” (Revelations, 5). To me this truth is sheer joy. His creation of you is not something that happened once, x many years ago; he is still at it. His healing, creative hands are upon your body, upon your mind, upon that fine point of your spirit where his likeness is stamped on you—not a static likeness but an evolving reality. The whole strength of his loving will is in that creative act by which he wants you, loves you, rejoices in your being; and you can let yourself go in joyful agreement with his creative will, saying with Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

When I was a child my father’s hands meant a great deal to me. They were the most beautiful hands I have ever seen: large, beautifully shaped, strong, very sensitive and kind. I have many memories of clinging to them, but one recurrent joy stands out, that of being bathed by him as a small child. He used to run plenty of water in the bath, and make it very soapy and then put his child in. He scorned flannels, sponges and other impediments and did the whole job with his hands, caressing the child all over. At the time I simply enjoyed it with a mixture of sensuous delight and love; since then the memory of it has become for me a kind of sacrament of resting in the loving, cleansing, healing, creative hands of God.

From “A Tapestry, from the Wrong Side,” by Maria Boulding, in A Touch of God: Eight Monastic Journeys, ed. Maria Boulding OSB (London: Triangle, 1988), 39.

Daily Reading for May 7 • Harriet Starr Cannon, Religious, 1896

In that cemetery at St. Gabriel’s, on the 9th day of April, 1896, it being the Thursday in Easter week, there was committed to the ground the mortal body of one of the noblest and most remarkable women of our day; a body once the earthly tabernacle of a vigorous mind, a clear intellect, a resolute will, and a great heart full of love to God and man. The world knows little of her and cares less; her life work was not that which this generation applauds; the object for which she lived makes no appeal to the restless spirits of our day; but if ever God’s work has been done well and faithfully it was so done by that active brain, that devoted heart, those hands that never tired, those feet which trod for forty years the path of close and closer walk with the Lord. As, if by His special and most gracious mandate, she was called out of this world on Easter Day; at half-past three in the afternoon the exodus was made; four days later the precious body was committed to the ground, in the midst of those nearest and dearest to her on the earth, a great number of sisters, associates, priests, and devoted friends assisting at the solemn action. After the due performance of the Rites of the Church, in long procession, carried on the shoulders of four priests, followed by her spiritual children, and by many clergy from our own and distant dioceses, she was borne to the grave. It was remarked, and none could fail to notice, that the season, which had been backward, seemed to have changed suddenly; the voice of the springtide and the first prophecy of summer were in the air; the sun shone brilliantly on the little procession; light breezes stirred the trees; and, for the first time that year, the birds began to sing, as if joyfully praising the Lord. Unseen forms must have been also in attendance; visitants from another realm, to whose presence may have been due some of that impression of awe and wonder with which we withdrew from the scene.

And now that all is over on this side, and now that she has been received out of our sight, it has been felt that some memorial, some written record, should be prepared of greater length than those which have already appeared in the journals of the day, commemorative of that life. This seems desirable for many reasons; as a tribute to the woman who was with us once as a burning and a shining light; as a statement of the motives of her action during a long and memorable life; as a record of the results of the indomitable energy with which she wrought, and the reward of patience and faith conceded to her loving service; as a history of the varied experience, through which, in evil report and good report, in reproaches, misunderstandings, and opposition, she steadily pursued her way; as a gift to those of the Community founded by her, which may serve for reminder, encouragement, and warning, as they carry on the work which throve so wonderfully under wise and strong leadership, and now devolves on them the weight of an unspeakably grave responsibility. Such purposes might a memoir serve which was all that it should be; therefore the writer could wish that the task of preparing it had been laid on some one more worthy than he. There are men and women in the Church far better fitted for this undertaking, though in one point he yields to none of them; in his devotion to that blessed memory, his appreciation of that mission of which she was the apostle, his profound reverence for the manner in which her work was accomplished, his earnest desire that every thought of hers respecting it may be fulfilled. It is nearly a quarter of a century since, as Pastor of the Sisterhood of St. Mary, he knew, in the sacred intimacy of the priestly office, all that its Superior was planning, desiring, suffering. Others, since that distant day, have done the work which he was compelled to lay down, but the afterglow is bright on the skies behind us, and through that light it may be given him to write down something apt to help and teach, to remind those who were then her companions, to help those who shall come after.

From the Prelude to Harriet Starr Cannon: First Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of St. Mary,a memoir by Morgan Dix (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1896). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/bios/harriet/harriet1.html

Daily Reading for May 8 • Dame Julian of Norwich, c. 1417

The uniqueness of Julian’s writings includes her incredible optimism in the face of the cultural chaos and confusion of her day, and her ability to transcend that confusion. Her phrase “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” is not a Pollyanna-esque blindness to reality, but the result of a deep faith that God is indeed in control of all, even in the midst of apparent evil. Julian repeatedly states that there is no wrath or anger in God, a proposition that is upsetting to Puritans and biblical literalists. And preceding modern psychology by centuries, she points out that the wrath we think we see in God is really in ourselves.

Julian may be most famous for her unapologetic treatment of Christ as Mother, no doubt the finest and most sophisticated treatment of the subject in all of Christian literature. What is absolutely unique in Julian is her protestation that it is not that Christ is like a mother, but that all mothers are like Christ: Christ is the protomother and all earthly motherhood is an imitation and reflection of Him.

Sin, which so absorbs so many ecclesiastical writers of her day, is given short shrift by Julian when she declares with the Scholastics that sin has “no manner of essence nor any portion of being,” that it is “no deed,” but is rather an absence of goodness. She declares that all human beings have a “godly will” within them which “never consented to sin nor ever shall” and “is so good that it can never will evil, but always good.” She frequently uses “blindness” as the analogy for human weakness.

As great a spiritual master as Thomas Merton has written: “Julian is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices. She gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older.”

From Stars in a Dark World: Stories of the Saints and Holy Days of the Liturgy, with Supplementary Readings according to the use of The Order of Julian of Norwich by Fr. John-Julian, OJN (Outskirts Press, 2009).

Daily Reading for May 9 • The Sixth Sunday of Easter

The phrase “he remains with you” is what someone who himself is leaving would say. And so, to calm their grief, he says that as long as he remains with them the Spirit won’t come, which means they wouldn’t come to know the greater or more sublime things to come. He wanted them, in other words, to see his departure as a blessing. Notice how he often calls [the Spirit] Comforter, because of the troubles they had to deal with. And since they were still troubled, even after hearing all this, because of their sadness, the struggles and his departure, he calms them again by saying, “Peace I leave you.” . . . And because he brings up the subject of leaving again, which is enough in itself to trouble them, he again says, “Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

From Homilies on the Gospel of John by John Chrysostom, 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 May 10 • Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople, 389 (transferred)

God always was and always is, and always will be; or rather, God always is. For was and will be are fragments of our time, and of changeable nature. But he is Eternal Being; and this is the Name he gives himself when giving the oracles to Moses in the Mount. For in himself he sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning in the past nor end in the future . . . like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature, only adumbrated by the mind, and that very dimly and scantily . . . not by his essentials but by his environment, one image being got from one source and another from another, and combined into some sort of presentation of the truth, which escapes us before we have caught it, and which takes to flight before we have conceived it, . . . and by that part of it which we cannot comprehend to move our wonder; and as an object of wonder to become more an object of desire; and being desired, to purify; and purifying to make us like God; so that, when we have become like himself, God may, to use a bold expression, hold converse with us as God; being united to us, and known by us; and that perhaps to the same extent as he already knows those who are known to him. The Divine Nature, then, is boundless and hard to understand, and all that we can comprehend of him is his boundlessness.

From “The Second Oration on Easter” of Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XLV. Found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.iii.xxvii.html

Daily Reading for May 11

Destined to fare hence unto His Father’s kingdom, the mighty Prince, the Lord of angels, spoke this word:

“Rejoice in heart, never will I forsake you but I will fulfill my love upon you and give you might; and I will dwell with you forever, that by my gift you may never lack any good thing. Fare you well over all the spacious earth, throughout the wide ways. Make known to men, preach and publish bright belief, and baptize the people under the sky and turn them unto heaven. Cast down their idols, destroy and lay them low; abolish enmity and sow peace in the hearts of men, in the fullness of might. Henceforth I will dwell with you to comfort you, and in peace will I preserve you and give steadfast strength in every place.”

Then suddenly was heard upon the air a clear sound; and there came in company a throng of heaven’s angels, messengers of majesty, a beauteous band. Our Lord departed through the temple roof even as they beheld, the chosen servants who in that meeting-place gazed on the last footprints of their well-loved Prince. They saw the Lord, the Son of God, ascending up on high from earth. Their souls were sorrowful within them, hot at heart a mourning spirit for that they might no longer under heaven behold their well-loved Lord. . . .

And they departed, journeying to Jerusalem, those stalwart-hearted men, to that holy city, sorrowful in soul leaving the spot where last with their eyes they had beheld their God ascending up, their Giver of bliss. Then was there sound of weeping. Their true love hot at heart was crushed with woe. Their souls welled upon within them, their spirits glowed. There the glorious servants abode their Lord’s behests, in that bright city ten nights’ time, as he himself, the Lord of heaven, the Wielder of all, had bidden ere he ascended up into the secret places of the sky. . . .

Well is it spoken, as the Writings tell, that unto him in hosts came shining angels in that holy hour descending on the heavens. Then in heavenly glory arose the greatest of rejoicings. It was well fitting that servants in bright array came to the city of God, unto that bliss, a beauteous band; beheld their welcome Friend, the King of heaven, Life-Lord of men, on his high judgment seat, wielding in splendor the world and the hosts of glory.

From the Anglo-Saxon poem Christ 2 by Cynewulf, translated by Charles W. Kennedy (Cambridge, Ontario, 2000); found at http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Christ_Kennedy.pdf

Daily Reading for May 12

By the grace of the Spirit, the glory of the servants of God emerged after the ascension of the eternal Lord. Concerning this, Solomon, son of David, a man most accomplished in poems, a ruler of nations, sang in spiritual enigmas and spoke these words:

“It shall be made known that the King of the angels, the Lord strong in his powers,
will come springing upon the mountain, and leaping upon the high uplands;
he will garland the hills and heights with his glory;
he will redeem the world, all earth’s inhabitants, by that glorious spring.”

The first leap was when he descended into a virgin, a maiden unblemished,
and there assumed human form, free from sins,
which came to be a comfort to all earth’s inhabitants.

The second spring was the birth of the Child when he was in the manger,
wrapped up in garments in the form of a baby, the Majesty of all majesties.

The third leap was the heavenly King’s bound when he,
the Father, the comforting Spirit, mounted upon the Cross.

The fourth spring was into the tomb, secure in the sepulcher,
when he quitted the tree.

The fifth leap was when he humiliated the gang of hell’s inhabitants in long torment
and enchained the king within, the malignant mouthpiece of the fiends, in fiery fetters,
where he still lies, fastened with shackles in prison, pinioned by his sins.

The sixth leap was the Holy One’s hope-giving move
when he ascended to the heavens into his home of old.
Then in that happy hour the throng of angels became enraptured with happy jubilation.
They witnessed heaven’s Majesty, the Sovereign of princes,
reach his home, the gleaming mansions.
The Prince’s flittings to and fro became thereafter a perpetual delight
to the blessed inhabitants of that city.

Thus here on earth God’s eternal Son sprang in leaps over the high hillsides, courageous across the mountains. So must we men spring in leaps in the thoughts of our heart from strength to strength and strive after glorious things, so that we may ascend by holy works to the highest heaven where there is joy and bliss and the virtuous company of God’s servants. It greatly behooves us that we should seek salvation with our heart.

From the Anglo-Saxon poem Christ 2, quoted in High King of Heaven: Aspects of Early English Spirituality by Benedicta Ward SLG (Mowbray, 1999).

Daily Reading for May 13 • Ascension Day

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph;
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds, his chariot,
To his heavenly palace gate!
Hark! The choirs of angel voices
Joyful alleluias sing,
And the portals high are lifted
To receive their heavenly King.

He who on the cross did suffer,
He who from the grave arose,
He has vanquished sin and Satan;
He by death has spoiled his foes.
While he lifts his hands in blessing,
He is parted from his friends;
While their eager eyes behold him,
He upon the clouds ascends.

You have raised our human nature
On the clouds to God’s right hand:
There we sit in heavenly places,
There with you in glory stand.
Jesus reigns, adored by angels;
Man with God is on the throne;
Mighty Lord, in your ascension,
We by faith behold our own.

A hymn by Christopher Wordsworth, quoted in The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

Daily Reading for May 14 • Frances Perkins, Public Servant and Prophetic Witness, 1965 (transferred)

When I asked what I was to speak about today, the suggestion was made I talk about the roots, or beginnings, of the Social Security Act. So I have thought about the roots. I suppose the roots—the idea that we ought to have a systematic method of taking care of the material needs of the aged—really springs from that deep well of charitableness which resides in the American people, and the efforts and the struggles of charity workers and social workers to handle the problems of people who were growing old and had no adequate means of support. Out of this impulse to be kind to the poor sprang, I suppose, a mulling of ideas about social insurance for the aged. But those people who were doing it didn’t know that it was social insurance. They just kept thinking that something definite, something that people could look forward to, would be a great asset and a great assistance to them in their work. Even De Tocqueville, in his memoirs of his visit to America, mentioned he thought was a unique state of mind of the American people: That they were so honestly concerned about their poor and did so much for them personally. It was not an organization; it was not a national action; it was not a State action; it was not Government. It was personal action that De Tocqueville mentioned as being characteristic of the American people. They were so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.

Well, I don’t know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America. That was long ago, and I know little about the psychological state of mind of the people of this country at that time. But I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real. It was surprising what we were able to do through volunteer work—by the volunteer support of organizations who help the poor; and particularly the aged poor. Just look over the country at the old ladies’ homes and the old couples’ homes and the old members’ homes that sprang up because aged people had necessities that had to be met. In each case, somebody got money together and established these homes. And life went on for the aged, after a fashion, as recipients of a kind of charity. These things have been going on for years. . . .

Since 1929 we had experienced the short, sudden drop of everything. The total economy had gone to pieces; just shook to pieces under us, beginning, of course, with the stock market crash. A banking crisis followed it. A manufacturing crisis followed it. Everybody felt it. In less than a year it was a terror. People were so alarmed that all through the rest of 1929, 1930, and 1931, the specter of unemployment—of starvation, of hunger, of the wandering boys, of the broken homes, of the families separated while somebody went out to look for work—stalked everywhere. . . .

Before I was appointed, I had a little conversation with Roosevelt in which I said perhaps he didn’t want me to be the Secretary of Labor because if I were, I should want to do this, and this, and this. Among the things I wanted to do was find a way of getting unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, and health insurance. I remember he looked so startled, and he said, “Well, do you think it can be done?” I said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “Well, there are constitutional problems, aren’t there?”

“Yes, very severe constitutional problems,” I said. “But what have we been elected for except to solve the constitutional problems? Lots of other problems have been solved by the people of the United States, and there is no reason why this one shouldn't be solved.”

“Well,” he said, “do you think you can do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but I wanted to try. “I want to know if I have your authorization. I won’t ask you to promise anything.” He looked at me and nodded wisely. “All right,” he said, “I will authorize you to try, and if you succeed, that’s fine.”

“Well,” I said, “that is all I want. I don’t want you to put any blocks in my way. We’ll see what we can do. There are plenty of people,” I said, “who want it badly and will work for it.”

This was the way it all began.

From a speech on “The Roots of Social Security” given by Frances Perkins in Baltimore, October 23, 1962; found at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/perkins5.html

Daily Reading for May 15 • The Martyrs of the Sudan (transferred)

While the historic faith of Christianity stands, and it is more than ever necessary to assert its supernatural character, it is only possible to do so convincingly if we are ready to learn much from the contemporary conflicts. In particular, if we are to convey to secularism the belief in transcendence, it must be a transcendence realized in the midst of secular life and not apart from it. . . .

The truth of God’s transcendence still stands. God is near, but God is different. God is here, but man is dependent. God’s otherness is the otherness of Creator to creature, of Saviour to sinner; and it is for the creature still to worship the Creator and for the sinner still to ask for the Saviour’s grace. . . . The transcendent and the numinous are to be seen not in a separated realm of religious practice but in human lives marked by an awe-inspiring self-forgetfulness, compassion, humility and courage.

From God, Christ, and the World by Michael Ramsey (London: SCM Press, 1969).

Daily Reading for May 16 • The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day

O Lord Most High, eternal King,
By you redeemed, your praise we sing.
The bonds of death are burst by thee,
And grace has won the victory.

Ascending to the Father’s throne
You claim the kingdom as your own;
And angels wonder when they see
How changed is our humanity.

You are our joy, O mighty Lord,
As you will be our great reward;
Let all our glory be in thee
Both now and through eternity.

O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
All praise to you let earth accord,
Who are while endless ages run,
With Father and with Spirit, One.

Latin hymn, quoted in The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

Daily Reading for May 17 • William Hobart Hare, Bishop of Njobrara, and of South Dakota, 1909

Though born and bred at the East, I had spent six months in Michigan and Minnesota, in 1863, and there seen something of the Indian problem. I had seen that there was nothing in the van of civilization to ameliorate the condition of the Red man, because the van of civilization is often its vilest off-scourings: that its first representatives generally despise the Indians, and condescend to them in nothing but the gratification of inordinate appetites and desires; and that when civilization of a better class appears, it is too often so bent on its own progress, and so far from helpful or kindly, that its advance, like that of a railroad train at full speed, dashes in pieces those unlucky wanderers who happen to stand in its way, and leaves the others with only a more discouraging sense of the length of the road, and the slowness with which they make their way along it. In a town in Michigan I had seen Indians made drunk on the Fourth of July, and employed by white men to perform diabolical antics to attract men to liquor saloons. But schools for Indians, there were none. In Minnesota I had read in the daily papers the offer of the State of $250 for the scalp of any Indian delivered at a designated office. I had returned to the East the Indian’s advocate; and while on many subjects connected with the Indians I was not in haste to reach a conclusion, I had become convinced of this: that the Indian’s claim upon the Church of Christ was most sacred; and that I had seen nothing to lead me to think that there was anything in the Indian problem to drive us to either quackery or despair. It would find its solution, under the favor of God, in the faithful execution of the powers committed by God to the Civil Government, and a common-sense administration of the gracious gifts deposited with His Church. . . .

Now a few words as to my general views on the Indian question. I soon came to look upon everything as provisional—to quote from one of my annual reports—which, if permanently maintained, would tend to make Indian life something separate from the common life of our country: a solid foreign mass indigestible by our common civilization. I saw that just because it has been an indigestible mass has our civilization been all these years constantly trying to vomit it, and so get rid of a cause of discomfort. Ordinary laws must have their way. All reservations, whether the reserving of land from the ordinary laws of settlement, or the reserving of the Indian nationality from absorption into ours, or the reserving of old tribal superstitions and notions and habits from the natural process of decadence, or the reserving of the Indian language from extinction, are only necessary evils or but temporary expedients. Safety for 250,000 Indians divided up into over a hundred tribes speaking as many different languages, scattered on about seventy different reservations among 50,000,000 of English speaking people can be found, only if the smaller people flow in with the current of the life and ways of the larger. The Indians are not an insulated people, like some of the islanders of the South Sea. Our work is not that of building up a National Indian Church with a national liturgy in the Indian tongue. It is rather that of resolving the Indian structure and preparing its parts for being taken up into the great whole in Church and State.

From the first, therefore, I struggled against the notion that we were missionaries to Indians alone and not missionaries to all men; I pressed the study of the English language and its conversational use in our schools, and, however imperfect my efforts, the aim of them has been to break down “the middle wall of partition” between whites and Indians, and to seek not the welfare of one class or race, but the common good.

From Reminiscences: An Address Delivered by William Hobart Hare, at a service commemorative of the fifteenth anniversary of his consecration (Philadelphia: William F. Fell, 1888). Found at http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/whhare/reminiscences1888.html

Daily Reading for May 18

Ode IX
Holy gift, surpassing comprehension!
Wond’rous mystery of each fiery tongue!
Christ made good his promise in Ascension:
O’er the twelve the clove flames have hung!

Spake the Lord, or ere he left the eleven:
“Here in Salem wait the gift I send:
Till the Paraclete come down from heaven:
Everlasting Guide and Guard and Friend.”

O that shame, now ended in that glory!
Pain untold, now lost in joy unknown!
Tell it out with praise, the whole glad story,
Human nature at the Father’s throne!

Catavasia
Declare, ye angel bands that dwell on high,
How saw ye him, the Victor, drawing nigh?
What strange new visions burst upon your sight?
One in the form of man, that claims by right
The very throne of God, the unapproached Light!

Exaposteilarion
Eternal! After thine own will
Thou born in time would’st be:
After the self-same counsel still
Was thine epiphany:

Thou in our flesh didst yield thy breath,
Immortal God, for man:
Thou by thy death didst conquer death,
Through thine almighty plan:
Thou, rising Victor to the sky,
Fill’st heav’n and earth above:
And send’st the promise from on high,
The Spirit of thy love!

A hymn by St. Joseph of the Studium, translated from the Greek by John Mason Neale, in Collected Hymns, Sequences and Carols (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), 63.

Daily Reading for May 19 • Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988

Dunstan went to school in Glastonbury Abbey, but in 923 he joined his uncle who had been translated from the See of Wells to that of Canterbury. This brought him close to the court of King Aethelstan, and over the next few years he was to spend much time there. . . . Dunstan enjoyed the court, and responded readily to its artistic influences, learning drawing and metalwork, how to write poetry, singing and playing music. But he was bookish and withdrawn, preferring the company of old men who could tell him the heroic tales of the struggles against the Danes to that of his contemporaries. He was also a great dreamer, prone to nocturnal visions to which he attached great significance, and which (like many another) he could not resist communicating to those around him. The young and boisterous hunting, shooting and fishing set of Aethelstan’s court found him very odd, and slowly the rumours grew. He was, they said, undoubtedly a witch.

The situation grew steadily worse, until Aethelstan acceded to the majority view, and sent him away from the court. His enemies followed after him and rolled him in the mud, and kicked him until they were tired. They had settled his hash for him, they thought, and that was the end of the matter.

Dunstan was 24, and returning home a failure, quite literally covered in disgrace. He wondered whether or not to become a monk: it was at that time no inviting prospect. The Danish invasions had hit the monasteries hardest of all, and though Alfred had worked hard to promote recovery, monastic life was petty, feeble, and corrupt, bearing little relation to the way of life St. Benedict had established. The very fabric was crumbling: at the time of his vocation, Dunstan was nearly killed by a falling stone from the roof of the church in which he was praying. . . . In 936 Dunstan entered Glastonbury as a monk, and began the work of reestablishing true monasticism that is known to historians as the “tenth-century Reformation.”

From “St. Dunstan” in Who’s Who in the Middle Ages: From the Collapse of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance by John Fines (Barnes & Noble, 1970).

Daily Reading for May 20 • Alcuin, Deacon, and Abbot of Tours, 804

It is, however, when we turn to his educational treatises that we are most struck with the sound philosophy and almost modern psychology of his teaching. Alcuin is never the mere crammer, but always the true teacher. “We need,” he makes his pupils say, in the introduction to his Treatise on Grammar, “to be instructed slowly, with many a pause and hesitation, and like the weak and feeble, to be led by slow steps until our strength shall grow. The flint naturally contains in itself the fire that will come forth when the flint is struck. Even so there is in the human mind the light of knowledge, that will remain hidden like the spark in the flint unless it be brought forth by the repeated efforts of a teacher.”

He goes on to state his philosophy of education, showing that since eternal happiness is the real aim of every rational being, he is concerned with the things that are proper and peculiar to the soul that is to live for ever rather than with those that are alien to it. “That which is sought from without is alien to the soul, for example, the gathering together of riches; but that which is proper to the soul is what is within, that is to say, the graces of wisdom. Therefore, O man, if thou art master of thyself, thou shalt have what thou shalt never have to grieve at losing, and what no calamity shall be able to take away.”

“Wisdom is the chief adornment of the soul, and therefore I urge you to seek this above all things. It is an inseparable property of the soul and therefore immortal.” . . .

“Master,” his pupils cry, “raise us from earth by your hand, and set our foot upon the steps of wisdom.” To which he replies, “Wisdom is built upon the seven pillars of the liberal arts, and it can in no wise afford us access to any perfect knowledge unless it be set upon these seven pillars or ascents,” a reference to the Book of Proverbs, which says, “Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven columns.” Asked to name them, he replies, “Grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. On these the philosophers bestowed their leisure and their study; and by reason of these philosophers the Catholic teachers and defenders of our faith have proved themselves superior to all the chief heretics in public controversy. Therefore let your youthful steps, my dearest sons, run daily along these paths until a riper age and a stronger mind shall bring you to the heights of Holy Scripture.” . . .

Before many months had passed Alcuin knew his end was near. Eight years earlier, on the eve of his going to Tours, he had written wistfully to his old friends at York: “My fathers and brethren, dearer than all else in the world, pray do not forget me, for alike in life or death I shall ever be yours. And peradventure God, in His mercy, may grant that you, who nursed my infancy, may bury me in old age. But if some other place shall be appointed for my body, yet I believe that my soul may be granted repose among you through your holy intercession in prayer.”

The touching words suggest whither the weary old abbot was turning his eyes in those last days; yet it was but fitting that his mortal part should rest in the land to which he had given the best of his life. He had always hoped that he might die upon his favourite feast, the Feast of Pentecost; and on that day, the 19th of May, 804, just as dawn broke and the chant of Prime was heard in the Cathedral hard by, he passed away.

The epitaph, composed by himself, that commemorates his resting-place at Tours, breathes the humility of this “Lover of Wisdom” as well as his sense of the transitory nature of earthly fame.

“O thou who passest by, halt here a while, I pray, and write my words upon thy heart, that thou mayst learn thy fate from knowing mine. What thou art, once I was, a wayfarer not unknown in this world; what I am now, thou soon shalt be. Once was I wont to pluck earthly joys with eager hand; and now I am dust and ashes, the food of worms. Be mindful then to cherish thy soul rather than thy body, since the one is immortal, the other perishes. . . . Alcuin, ever a lover of Wisdom, was my name; pray for my soul, all ye who read these words.”

From Alcuin by E. M. Wilmot-Buxton, in the Catholic Thought and Thinkers Series (New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1922). Found at http://www.archive.org/stream/alcuinwi00wilmuoft/alcuinwi00wilmuoft_djvu.txt

Daily Reading for May 21 • John Eliot, Missionary among the Algonquin, 1690

As Eliot spent much of his youth in Essex, where the zealous religious attitudes that came to be called “Puritan” were particularly widespread, he may have been influenced by them in his earliest years. His [Jesus] College educational experience would have been very different, directed towards preserving orthodoxy, though while in Cambridge he would have had the opportunity to meet other students and academics with a variety of religious sympathies. These would have included Puritans from Emmanuel College, recently founded by the Mildmay family and attended by the great patron of American colonisation Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick. Emmanuel also produced numerous early emigrants, among them Eliot's mentor in later years, Thomas Hooker.

The Master at the time of Eliot’s admission was John Duport, a man of high scholarly reputation and one of the group entrusted with preparing King James’s “Authorised Version” of the Bible (1611). In 1618 he was succeeded by Roger Andrewes, who had also been involved in translating for the Authorised Version and was the brother of Archbishop Lancelot Andrewes, the overall director of the enterprise. Andrewes proved a highhanded and unsatisfactory Master; as he did not engage in college teaching, Eliot probably had little contact with him. In contrast Eliot’s tutor, William Beale, was a young Fellow of good scholarly reputation who attracted numerous pupils. He later became Master of the College (1632-34), and moved on to be Master of St John’s until expelled as a Laudian in the Civil War period; he died in exile in Spain, where he had accompanied Ambassador Richard Fanshawe, another Jesuan.

Eliot was of a gentle disposition and never showed the kind of Calvinist dogmatic severity associated with the extremer kinds of Puritanism, but he would have shared the views reputedly expressed by another departing emigrant: “We do not go to New-England as separatists from the Church of England; though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it: but we go to practice the positive part of church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.” The speaker was Francis Higginson, another former Jesuan student (1613) and a friend of Hooker’s; he was one of the earliest emigrants (1629) and co-founder of Salem, Massachusetts.

It seems very likely that Eliot was familiar with Higginson’s pamphlet: New-Englands Plantation. Or, a short and true description of the commodities and discommodities of that countrey. The author predictably made a great deal more of the commodities than the “discommodities,” listing the latter as “little Flyes called Musketoes,” two months snow and sharp frost in winter, the abundance of snakes (fatalities rare), and the lack of “honest Christians . . . to make use of this fruitfull Land,” much of which (he believed) lay unoccupied. Many of the native inhabitants had been swept away by a plague, but the survivors “doe generally professe to like well of our comming and planting here; partly because there is abundance of ground that they cannot possesse nor make use of, and partly because our being here will be a meanes both of reliefe to them when they want, and also a defence from their Enemies. . . . We purpose to learn their Language as soone as we can, which will be a meanes to do them good.”

The person who most influenced the later course of Eliot’s life, after he had left college, was Thomas Hooker. Hooker was older than Eliot; he had been a scholar at Emmanuel in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and had been influenced by John Dod—the one (relatively moderate) Puritan Fellow of Jesus. A line of descent may be traced from Dod through Hooker to Eliot, with their shared emphasis on thorough teaching from the most basic catechising onwards. . . .

Hooker was involved in discussions with the founders of the new Massachusetts Bay Colony, who had just received a royal grant of land (1628) and begun to attract settlers. Their charter stated that to “wynn and incite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the onelie true God and Saviour of mankind and the christian faythe” was in the “royall intention and the adventurers’ free profession the principall ende of this Plantation.” Inspired by Hooker’s example, Eliot decided to devote his life to Christian ministry and was naturally drawn in to the same circles and projects.

From “John Eliot, ‘Apostle to the Indians’ of New England: Cambridge influences: Duport, Andrewes, Beale, Higginson, Hooker,” part of an exhibition on John Eliot at Jesus College, Cambridge; found at http://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/college/history/eliotexhib2.html

Daily Reading for May 22

The Spirit is simple in being. His powers are many. They are entirely present everywhere and in everything. He is distributed but does not change. He is shared yet remains whole. Consider the analogy of the sunbeam: each person on whom its kindly light falls rejoices as if the sun existed for him alone, yet it illumines land and sea and is master of the atmosphere. In the same way, the Spirit is given to each one who receives him as if he were the possession of that person alone, yet he sends forth sufficient grace to fill the entire universe. Everything that partakes of his grace is filled with joy according to its capacity—the capacity of its nature, not of his power. . . .

Through him hearts are lifted up, the infirm are held by the hand, and those who progress are brought to perfection. He shines on those who are cleansed from every spot and makes them spiritual people through fellowship with himself. When a sunbeam falls on a transparent substance, the substance itself becomes brilliant and radiates light from itself. So too Spirit-bearing souls, illumined by him, finally become spiritual themselves, and their grace is sent forth to others. From this comes knowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of hidden things, distribution of wonderful gifts, heavenly citizenship, a place in the choir of angels, endless joy in the presence of God, becoming like God, and the highest of all desires, becoming God.

From On the Holy Spirit 9.22-23 by Basil the Great, 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 May 23 • The Day of Pentecost

But why did the Holy Spirit not come to them while Christ was present, rather than immediately after his departure? Instead, although Christ ascended on the fortieth day, the Spirit came to them when the day of Pentecost had come. . . . It was necessary for them to have a longing for the event, and so receive the grace. For this reason Christ himself departed, and then the Spirit came. For if he had been present, they would not have expected the Spirit so earnestly as they did. For this reason he did not come immediately after Christ’s ascension, but after eight or nine days. Our desire toward God is most awakened when we stand in need. For this reason, John sent his disciples to Christ at the time when they were to be most in need of Jesus, during his own imprisonment. Besides, it was necessary that our nature should be seen in heaven and that the reconciliation should be perfected, and then the Spirit should come and the joy be unalloyed. For, if Christ had then departed, when the Spirit had already come, and the Spirit remained, the consolation would not have been so great as it was. For indeed they clung to him and could not bear to part with him. To comfort them he said, “It is to your advantage that I go away.” For this reason he delayed also for the intervening days, that they, for a while disheartened and standing, as I said, in need of him, might then reap a full and unalloyed joy.

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

Daily Reading for May 24 • Jackson Kemper, First Missionary Bishop in the United States, 1870

He rendered divine service in an ideal manner, with simplicity and feeling. He loved the study of divinity, and made it a practice to read theological works, both the standard Anglican doctors, Hooker, Person, Bull, Barrow, Butler, Waterland, etc., and current treatises as well. . . . He also made it a rule daily to read a chapter of the New Testament in original Greek. He used Bishop Andrewes’ book of devotion and Bishop Wilson’s “Sacra Privata,” but, as before said, was exceedingly reticent about his religious frames and feelings, and delicate about discussing those of others. As was inevitable in one who had been trained by Dr. Hobart, he was a strong, hearty and loyal Churchman, but owing to Bishop White’s temperate influence, not as stiffly so as his first preceptor. To quote again from his correspondence with Milnor: “I have not infrequently been perplexed in mind, wondering at the mysterious providence of God in permitting a Church whose doctrines are apparently an exact transcript of the Sacred Scriptures to continue in so lifeless a state. But those days of coldness are, I trust, fleeing away. Many are becoming sensible of the vast importance of their immortal souls, who, if they continue seeking, will soon glory in the cross of Christ.”. . .

His temperament was pastoral rather than sacerdotal or oratorical. He was in his element when making a round of parish visits, which he found to be an easy and eligible means of imparting religious instruction; and his tenderness and personal kindness in times of trouble, sickness, or death endeared him deeply to his people. . . . He was not a great man intellectually, not a thinker, scholar, writer, or eloquent preacher. Such is the testimony of one who knew him best and loved him most, and none was better aware of these facts than he himself. He had the most modest view of his powers and attainments, and was never satisfied with them but ever strove to improve himself. . . . He read newspapers on principle, believing that a minister should keep up with what is going on in the world. He was by no means lacking in humor of a gay and gentle kind; one of his most attractive qualities, which he never lost, was a certain boyish light-heartedness and zest in living. He had a quick and keen appreciation of the ludicrous side of things, expression of which, like Bishop Griswold, he thought it a duty to restrain.

From An Apostle of the Western Church: Memoir of the Right Reverend Jackson Kemper, Doctor of Divinity, First Missionary Bishop of the American Church by the Reverend Greenough White A.M., B.D. (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1900).

Daily Reading for May 26 • Augustine, First Archbishop of Canterbury, 605

Why did Gregory choose Augustine to head his mission? For those to whom Augustine appears as an unintelligent coward and bigot it is naturally a puzzle why so shrewd a man as Gregory should have sent him. . . . There were indeed plenty of able clergy in Rome on whom Gregory’s choice might have fallen, but perhaps they would not exactly have leapt at the opportunity to come to this island, ridden as it was with fogs, swamps, forests and kings with unpronounceable names. On the other hand, Augustine was a monk. He was the prefect of Gregory’s own monastery, with responsibility for its discipline and the supervision of its estates. His companions on the journey were likewise monks. They were all bound to Gregory by the vow of obedience; and to Augustine, especially when he was appointed their abbot. Moreover, there were by now many precedents, both in the East and in the West, for the use of monks as missionaries, near to their monasteries and far away from them. . . .

It is worth considering briefly the nature of the establishment founded by Augustine at Canterbury. Was it a monastery, with ascetic and contemplative monks, living a communal life according to a monastic rule? Or was it a cathedral church, staffed by clergy who were essentially administrators, engaged in pastoral work, and perhaps even living in private quarters on their own stipends? In Rome at this time the distinction was a perfectly clear one. Monks lived a contemplative life in monasteries, while the secular clergy were responsible for organizing the finances, the pastoral work and the celebration of mass in the city’s basilicas. Gregory the Great insisted that the duties of each way of life were so onerous that nobody should combine the two; nobody in the daily service of the church should be bound by the restraint of the monastic life. But in Canterbury, and in the early Anglo-Saxon church in general, the distinction was not nearly so clear. Augustine himself was a monk, and Gregory advised him that, as he had been instructed in the monastic rule, he should not live apart from his clergy. Gregory also envisaged, however, that Augustine would be taking in Anglo-Saxon boys and training them for the ministry, and that some of these, while remaining in the service of the church in minor orders, might wish to marry, receive stipends and live in separate houses. In fact, it was probably envisaged that the cathedral church would become in the future a corporation of secular clergy, of the kind common in city and country churches on the Continent. And so Augustine also founded the church of SS. Peter and Paul, just outside the city, as a specially monastic centre.

From The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England by Henry Mayr-Harting (Avon: The Bath Press, 1972).

Daily Reading for May 27 • Bertha and Ethelbert, Queen and King of Kent, 616

Gregory would certainly have little enough knowledge about this island on the fringes of his world; a few old geographies and a little hearsay might have accounted for most of it. But as Ethelbert was married to a Frankish Christian princess (Bertha, daughter of King Charibert), as Kent of which Ethelbert was king had important trading and other contacts with Gaul, particularly south of the Loire, and as Gregory also had contacts with Gaul, he clearly could have had an impression of Ethelbert’s position. . . .

King Ethelbert met the party on the island of Thanet—in the open air for fear that indoors they might get the better of him with their magical arts. Augustine preached effectively, and the king, though not willing to abandon his own religion there and then, gave them a place in Canterbury and complete liberty to preach their religion. In the following year, July 598, Gregory wrote to the Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria. He had already had news of his mission to the English, a people “placed in the corner of the world and until this time worshipping sticks and stones.” Augustine had been so resplendent with miracles that he seemed to imitate the powers of the apostles; and on his first Christmas Day amongst them it was said that over 10,000 of these people had been baptized. In due course Augustine sent Laurentius, the priest, and Peter, the monk, to Rome and in the summer of 601 Gregory sent a second mission, headed by Mellitus, to join Augustine. With these he sent some answers to questions of church discipline which Augustine had put to him, and various books, sacred vessels, vestments and relics. . . .

We cannot be certain when King Ethelbert was baptized. . . . All that is certain is that he was baptized before his death in 616. There were, of course, some good reasons why Ethelbert should want to be a Christian. Quite apart from spiritual considerations about which we have no evidence, it was worth having the notice of the pope and being drawn closer to the civilized and wealthy axis of Mediterranean life. More particularly—and this was the point to impress an old warrior bretwalda--the Christian God seemed to serve his adherents well in battle. Ethelbert had been married 30 years to a Frankish queen and could not be ignorant of the handsome dividends which the great Merovingian, Clovis, and his successors had reaped from their Christianity and Catholicism. It may well be asked why he had not allowed his wife to convert him earlier. The answer seems to lie in the implication of political dependence on the Franks which such a step might raise. . . . Ethelbert was ready by 597 to think of accepting Christianity from Rome, where he had not been ready to accept it from the Franks earlier. On the other hand, there were also good reasons why he should pause before being converted, or why if he were converted, he should be tolerant towards those who remained loyal to the old religion. The chief reason was the strength of the attachment to paganism in Kent and in the other kingdoms of which Ethelbert was overlord. As Sir Frank Stenton, remarked, “five undoubted places of heathen worship can still be identified within a radius of 12 miles from Augustine’s church of Canterbury.” . . .

The strength of Anglo-Saxon paganism impressed itself on Gregory’s mind. . . . He did not think their temples should be destroyed; they should be sprinkled with holy water and used for Christian worship. Moreover, on the great feasts of the Church they should be allowed to slaughter cattle and have feasts as they had formerly done; people with such obdurate minds had to be allowed to reach the highest peaks by gradual steps rather than by sudden leaps.

From The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England by Henry Mayr-Harting (Avon: The Bath Press, 1972).

Daily Reading for May 28 • John Calvin, Theologian, 1564

It was requisite that the gift should be visible, that the bodily sense might the more stir up the disciples. For such is our slothfulness to consider the gifts of God, that unless he awake all our senses, his power shall pass away unknown. This was, therefore, a preparation that they might the better know that the Spirit was now come which Christ had promised. Although it was not so much for their sake as for ours, even as in that the cloven and fiery tongues appeared, there was rather respect had of us, and of all the whole Church in that, than of them. For God was able to have furnished them with necessary ability to preach the gospel, although he should use no sign. They themselves might have known that it came to pass neither by chance, neither yet through their own industry, that they were so suddenly changed; but those signs which are here set down were about to be profitable for all ages; as we perceive at this day that they profit us.

And we must briefly note the proportion of the signs. The violence of the wind did serve to make them afraid; for we are never rightly prepared to receive the grace of God, unless the confidence (and boldness) of the flesh be tamed. For as we have access unto him by faith, so humility and fear setteth open the gate, that he may come in unto us. He hath nothing to do with proud and careless men. It is a common thing for the Spirit to be signified by wind (or a blast). For both Christ himself, when he was about to give the Spirit to his apostles, did breathe upon them; and in Ezekiel’s vision there was a whirlwind and wind. Yea, the word Spirit itself is a translated word; for, because that hypostasis, or person of the Divine essence, which is called the Spirit, is of itself incomprehensible, the Scripture doth borrow the word of the wind or blast, because it is the power of God which God doth pour into all creatures as it were by breathing. The shape of tongues is restrained unto the present circumstance. For as the figure and shape of a dove which came down upon Christ had a signification agreeable to the office and nature of Christ, so God did now make choice of a sign which might be agreeable to the thing signified, namely, that it might show such effect and working of the Holy Ghost in the apostles as followed afterward.

From Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, volume 1, by John Calvin, translated by Henry Beveridge; found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom36.ix.i.html

Daily Reading for May 29 • The First Book of Common Prayer, 1549

The moment that the first Prayer Book was issued in 1549, it came under attack and not only from the people of Cornwall, who could not understand its form of English and preferred the old Mass. Reformed theologians also objected, such as Martin Bucer, who left Germany in the previous year to become a professor at Cambridge at Cranmer’s invitation, and who influenced the more obviously Protestant direction taken by the second Prayer Book of 1552. Debate continued when Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, led largely by churchmen who had fled Mary Tudor’s Catholic England, and who during that time were influenced by the centres of Reformed faith and practice in Frankfurt, Geneva, and, in particular, Zurich. . . .

The man who addressed these issues head-on was Richard Hooker, who, after a high-profile ministry at the Temple Church, London, became a country parish priest. He set about writing his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, a series of books which argued for the necessity of the church in a visible, historic form. The fifth book, which dealt specifically with the Prayer Book, appeared in 1598. . . . Hooker adopts a twofold method. First, he argues for general principles. God is God, and we must approach him humbly, and without too many words. People need rhythms in their public prayer, especially those who are less articulate. Tradition provides the best kind of framework, when it has been judiciously reformed.

The second strand to his work, which some scholars think was inserted at the behest of friends, is made up of specific examples, where Hooker takes on the criticisms one by one. Kneeling at communion is a sign of reverence. The surplice is a dignified garment, symbolizing baptism. The Lord’s Prayer at the start of any service is a form of preparation—as was the case in private devotion in the later Middle Ages. Reciting it straight after Communion is a way of giving thanks for spiritual feeding—a practice Calvin did not allow, since he believed the prayer should normally be linked only with intercession.

Hooker’s aim was to see in the Prayer Book the teaching of the church. He knew many of its critics took a different view, in which the inward and the outward were often regarded as separate. For him, however, the sacramental water, and the bread and wine, are chosen and used to express in a heavenly manner what the outward signs convey: water is for washing and birth, bread and wine are for eating and drinking. The words and gestures of the Prayer Book rites are meant to interpret these sacred actions as what they are intended for by the church. “The divine mystery is more true than plain,” Hooker remarks, in the face of those who seem to want every syllable and moment in worship to teach, and nothing else. In an equally pithy sentence, he distinguishes between the distinct functions of the two dominical sacraments: “The grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life.” And to those who want to argue endlessly about eucharistic theology, he writes, “I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament and less to dispute the manner how.”

From “The Prayer Book as ‘Sacred Text’” by Kenneth Stevenson, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, edited by Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for May 30 • Trinity Sunday

I have already said that God reared this fabric of the world out of nothing, by his word, wisdom, or power; and it is evident that your sages of old were of the same opinion, that the Ao’yos, that is, the Word, or the Wisdom, was the Maker of the universe, for Zeno determines the Logos to be the creator and adjuster of everything in nature. The same Logos he affirms to be called by the name of Fate, God, Mind of Jove, and Necessity of all Things. Cleanthes will have the author of the world to be a spirit which pervades every part of it. And we Christians also do affirm a spirit to be the proper substance of the Logos, by whom all things were made, in which he subsisted before he was spoken out, and was the wisdom that assisted at the creation, and the power that presided over the whole work. The Logos or Word issuing forth from that spiritual substance at the creation of the world, and generated by that issuing or progression, is for this reason called the Son of God, and the God, from his unity of substance with God the Father, for God is a Spirit.

An imperfect image of this you have in the derivation of a ray from the body of the sun; for this ray is a part without any diminution of the whole, but the sun is always in the ray, because the ray is always from the sun; nor is the substance separated, but only extended. Thus is it in some measure in the eternal generation of the Logos; he is a spirit of a spirit, a God of God, as one light is generated by another; the original parent light remaining entire and undiminished, notwithstanding the communication of itself to many other lights. Thus it is that the Logos which came forth from God is both God and the Son of God, and those two are one. Hence it is that a spirit of a spirit, or a God of God, makes another in mode of subsistence, but not in number; in order of nature, but not in numericalness or identity of essence; and so the Son is subordinate to the Father as he comes from him as the principle, but is never separated. This ray of God then descended, as it was foretold, upon a certain Virgin, and in her womb was incarnated, and being there fully formed the God-man, was born into the world; the divine and human nature making up this person, as soul and body does one man. The flesh being wrought and perfected by a divine Spirit, was nursed and grew up to the stature of a man, and then addressed the Jews, and preached and worked miracles among them; and this is the Christ, the God of Christians.

From The Apology of Tertullian, translated by William Reeve, A.M., volume 31 of The Ancient & Modern Library of Theological Literature. Found at http://www.tertullian.org/articles/reeve_apology.htm

Daily Reading for May 31 • The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

How awesome to be in the presence
Of you, Lord, the One
Who brings Good News. . . .

How delightful the indwelling of
Your Holy Spirit,
Who has set on fire my battered heart,
Babbled my twisted tongue,
Strengthened my feeble knees
And
Purified my sin-sick soul. . . .

Your name will be forever glorified
In the songs that I sing,
The tears that I shed,
and
In all of my afflictions.
Lift up my words.
Humble my pride.
Let my love for you be shown.
Not only with my lips,
But in the life that I live.

From “An Awesome Lord” by Joanne Starks, quoted in Women’s Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated edited by Elizabeth Rankin Geitz, Marjorie A. Burke, and Ann Smith. Copyright © 2000. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com