Daily Reading for November 1 • The Feast of All Saints

Joy of my life while left me here!
And still my Love!
How in thy absence thou dost steer
Me from above!
A life well led
This truth commends,
With quick or dead
It never ends.

Stars are of mighty use; the night
Is dark, and long;
The road foul; and where one goes right,
Six may go wrong.
One twinkling ray,
Shot o’er some cloud,
May clear much way,
And guide a crowd.

God’s saints are shining lights: who stays
Here long must pass
O’er dark hills, swift streams, and steep ways
As smooth as glass;
But these all night,
Like candles, shed
Their beams, and light
Us into bed.

They are—indeed—our pillar fires,
Seen as we go;
They are that City’s shining spires
We travel to :
A swordlike gleam
Kept man for sin
First out; this beam
Will guide him in.

From “Joy of My Life While Left Me Here” by Henry Vaughan, in The Poems of Henry Vaughan, edited by E. K. Chambers (London: Lawrence & Bullen Ltd., 1896).

Daily Reading for November 2 • All Faithful Departed

In the busyness of life many have lost the ability to recognize the Presence in their midst and the awareness that they can converse with the risen Lord. This is the only part of the gospel you can truly make your own. The whole of the gospel story is in a sense history; it is past and we can only enter it through using our imaginations and relating it to our lives. But the Christ is the risen Lord to be met and we can have a living relationship with him. . . . It is of little value talking about the resurrection if we do not seek to be aware of it in our lives and to relate to the risen Christ. St. Symeon the New Theologian said: “How can one who knows nothing of the resurrection in this life expect to discover it and enjoy it in his death?” . . .

Only the resurrection and the awareness that life is eternal can make this world, which is often dark and cruel, a place of light and hope. Only the knowledge that God welcomes us to be with him each day can make us truly at home in this world and able to say that “death is not fatal.” We cannot put off the kingdom of God or the resurrection until when we die, though we will experience them then in a deeper and more wonderful way. We must be at home in and delight in God’s kingdom now.

From Living in Two Kingdoms by David Adam. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for November 3 • Richard Hooker, Priest, 1600

Richard Hooker, who was born about the time Latimer died and who himself died three years before Elizabeth, comes nearer to being its definitive theologian than anyone else the Church of England has produced, with his Treatise on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity being the nearest approximation to an Anglican summa. . . . . Hooker’s most prestigious appointment was to be as master of the Temple, the minister in charge of the old Norman round church of the Knights Templar in London that became a parish church when the Templar property was taken over by the Inns of Court of the Inner and Middle Temple. That position, however, had its built-in difficulties, since there was another cleric at the Temple in the position of reader who was employed to preach in the afternoon. The reader in question was Walter Travers, a Presbyterian minister of strict Calvinist persuasion who had been disappointed in not being made master himself. To some extent Travers enjoyed the support of the lawyers who were the parishioners of the Temple, because many of their profession were Puritans. At any rate, Travers began to use the time of his sermons in the afternoon to refute what Hooker had preached in the morning, especially his point that “the Church of Rome might be considered a part of Christ’s church whose members might be saved in spite of erroneous official teaching.” Thus the situation became what was classically defined by Thomas Fuller as Canterbury speaking in the morning and pure Geneva in the afternoon. . . .

Thomas Fuller, who heard both Hooker and Travers, gives an unencouraging report of the former’s delivery: “His voice was low, stature little, gesture none at all, standing stone-still in the Pulpit . . . . Where his eye was left fixed at the beginning, it was found fixed at the end of his Sermon.”

Yet the sermons were masterfully crafted. Hooker had full knowledge of rhetorical theory, and his sermons followed the pattern of a classical oration. His sentences had the periodic structure of Latin prose, so his style has been called “Ciceronian,” but his vocabulary was colloquial, candid, and intimate. His range of biblical citation and allusion was enormous. He was concerned with the “on-going struggle within the individual believer’s soul,” and his theme was God’s infinite love and mercy.

From A History of Preaching by O. C. Edwards (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2004).

Daily Reading for November 4

If by “Anglican theology” we mean a set of definitive texts, creeds, and historical documents that sets Anglicans apart from other Christian bodies, we will search in vain to find it. We can, however, find a wide array of theologies being done by Anglicans. And there is a difference. Noting how Anglicans do theology may prove more fruitful than detailing what Anglicans believe. This doesn’t mean Anglican Christianity has no theological content. To the contrary, Anglicans actually do hold some strong theological convictions. Yet these convictions emerge as a function of how we go about the business of putting our faith into practice, of how we manage to dance, both with God and with each other.

The fluid character of Anglican Christianity continually provokes controversy, as any diocesan convention in the Episcopal Church amply demonstrates. How Anglicans struggle through such controversies offers an important insight into Christian faith more generally. Rather than a set of propositions to which we give our assent, Christian faith is something we hammer out, struggle with, knead like clay, sweat over, and, thankfully, dance to as we hear music we have always longed to hear. It won’t be handed to us in a biblical text. We won’t find it preserved for us in a historical creed or in a diocesan resolution. It won’t suddenly emerge in a perfectly crafted liturgy. All of these are important tools, without which our faith would be greatly impoverished, if not impossible to practice. Nevertheless, they are tools, and like every tool, they are designed for us, for actually doing something as we continue to journey, stumble, dance, and trip our way into what Jesus called the “kingdom of God.”

From Dancing with God: Anglican Christianity and the Practice of Hope by Jay Emerson Johnson. Copyright © 2005. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for November 5

O holy God,
as evening falls remain with us.
Remember our good deeds and forgive our failings.
Help us to reflect upon and live according to your covenant of love.
Be with our lonely and elderly sisters and brothers
in the evening of their lives.
May all who long to see you face to face
know the comfort of your presence.
This we ask in union with all who have gone before us,
blessing and proclaiming you by the fidelity of their lives. Amen.

From The New Companion to the Breviary, quoted in The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle (New York: Doubleday, 2000).

Daily Reading for November 6 • William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1944

For Temple, the incarnation of Christ brings about the realization of the ideal and the real together in history. In the incarnation, the power that creates the world and sustains it enters the world in its own forms of matter and Mind. Because the incarnate one is also the creator, the incarnation is the natural culmination of the very processes of the world itself. So Christianity “is the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions; its own most central saying is: ‘The Word was made flesh,’ where the last term was, no doubt, chosen because of its specially materialistic associations. By the very nature of its central doctrine Christianity is committed to a belief in the ultimate significance of the historical process, and in the reality of matter and its place in the divine scheme.”

The incarnate Christ embodies God’s determination to fulfill the divine purposes at the same time that the incarnation is an earnest of God’s presence and activity in history, showing how God will fulfill or perfect creation. Because of the Word made flesh, hope in even the direst of social conditions is possible and richly warranted. In Christ, human persons and groups find their way from selfishness to fellowship. That, at least, is the ideal.

Humanity develops in community, where personality—what today we call full human dignity—is formed and supported and nurtured. To develop as intended, personality requires liberty, social fellowship, and the opportunity for service (through which persons recognize that they need and are needed by others). Theologically, society is properly structured only insofar as it serves the purpose of fulfilling personality. Sin disrupts the divine purposes as persons misunderstand their true good and establish groups or societies based on selfishness and the privileging of some groups over others. That is, sin is manifest as social injustice as well as in individual behavior.

The mission of the church, then, is not only to proclaim God’s purposes and the place of human persons within them. The church is also called to continue the incarnation by manifesting, however partially and imperfectly, the fellowship for which humanity is created.

From “William Temple” by Ellen K. Wondra, in Empire and the Christian Tradition: New Readings of Classical Theologians, edited by Kwok Pui-lan, Don H. Compier, and Joerg Rieger (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).

Daily Reading for November 7 • The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Often, indeed, a particular conversion takes a long time and is effected through a gradual process; yet even then its completion takes place at a moment, and though the transition effected in that moment may be very small, yet it is in its essential nature abrupt. Most of us have watched the sun setting behind a sharp horizon. Its disc slowly disappears; at last there is only a speck of light; then suddenly it is gone. Its going is a gradual process; but between the last moment when it is visible and the first when it is entirely hidden there is abrupt transition for the eyes that are watching it. . . .

So it is with the setting of the self as it passes over the horizon of its own contemplation. Whether it be in relation to Truth, or Beauty, or Holiness—or that entire dedication of life which alone deserves the Christian name of Love—the self may gradually forgo its grip upon its own activities or it may relax it suddenly; but the vital difference comes when the grip is gone and the object of contemplation or aspiration has free play with it. For that moment there may be a long preparation, or it may come as a lightning-flash. Regarded from one standpoint it is, like the sunset, a continuous process; regarded from another, the process is crowned by a moment which is not itself process at all; that moment is decisive for the quality of life so far as the type of conversion involved affects it. In religion the quality thus induced is called saintliness. And it is most important to notice that this, like the parallel devotion to Truth or Beauty, may be departmental. A man may have been lifted clean out of himself in some functions or activities, and brought into fellowship with the Holy and Eternal, and yet remain in many respects unconverted and self-centred. Such are fanatics—men who are capable of combining with true spiritual exaltation the utterly self-centred passions of cruelty and malignity, or who are ready to speak falsely on behalf of truth. . . . There have been cruel saints, and contemptuous saints, and unscrupulous saints; such saintliness is very incomplete, but may not the less be genuine in itself. And there have been saints who in the unconverted functions of their nature care so much for their own saintliness that for it they are ready to cause great pain to others. It is evidence how mortally deep is our self-centredness that even our deliverance from it in respect of many sides of life may become itself an occasion of self-esteem. This is that demon of spiritual pride, which most of us are not nearly good enough even to encounter. . . .

The true aim of the soul is not its own salvation; to make that the chief aim is to ensure its perdition; for it is to fix the soul on itself as centre. The true aim of the soul is to glorify God; in pursuing that aim it will attain to salvation unawares. No one who is convinced of his own salvation is as yet even safe, let alone “saved.” Salvation is the state of him who has ceased to be interested whether he is saved or not, provided that what takes the place of that supreme self-interest is not a lower form of self-interest but the glory of God.

From “Divine Grace and Human Freedom” by William Temple, in Nature, God, and Man (Edinburgh: R & R Clark, 1934).

Daily Reading for November 8 • Willibrord, Archbishop of Utrecht, Missionary to Frisia, 739 (transferred)

It came about, however, that Pippin, King of the Franks, died, and his son Charles became head of the realm. Charles brought many nations under the power of the Franks, and among these were the Frisians, whose lands were added to his dominions after the defeat of Radbod. At that time St. Willibrord was officially appointed to preach to the Frisian people, and his episcopal see was fixed at the fortress of Utrecht. Being given greater scope for the preaching of the Gospel, he now attempted to bring into the Church by baptism the people that had recently been won by the sword. He allowed no error or past ignorance to pass unnoticed and lost no time in shedding upon them the light of the Gospel, so that soon among that people the statement of the prophet was fulfilled: “In that place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” [Hos 1:10].

Many miracles were also wrought by divine power through His servant. Whilst the ministry of preaching the Gospel is to be preferred to the working of miracles and the showing of signs, yet, because such miracles are recorded as having been performed, I think mention of them ought not to be suppressed; and so that glory may be given to God who vouchsafed them, I will insert them into this narrative, and in this way what we know to have been achieved in former times may not be lost to future ages. Thus, when the venerable man, according to his custom, was on one of his missionary journeys he came to a village called Walichrum, where an idol of the ancient superstition remained. When the man of God, moved by zeal, smashed it to pieces before the eyes of the custodian, the latter, seething with anger, in a sudden fit of passion struck the priest of Christ on the head with a sword, as if to avenge the insult paid to his god. But, as God was protecting His servant, the murderous blow did him no harm. On seeing this, Willibrord’s companions rushed forward to kill the wicked man for his audacity. The man of God good-naturedly delivered the culprit from their hands and allowed him to go free. The same day, however, he was seized and possessed by the devil and three days later he ended his wretched life in misery. And thus, because the man of God followed the Lord’s command and was unwilling to avenge the wrongs done to him, he was vindicated all the more by the Lord Himself, just as He had said regarding the wrongs which the wicked inflicted upon His saints: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

From Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord, c. 796; found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/Alcuin-willbrord.html

Daily Reading for November 9

I have reflected at length upon spiritual discipline, what it is, what motivates it at best, what it is oriented toward. I have concluded that I cannot “capture” it with my mind, because it inevitably involves what I regard as opposites—strictness and fear as well as generosity and delight. It seems to me that at some point I must simply give up my struggle to understand and give myself to a regimen that has been tested by others of faith.

One of the very difficult things about such self-giving (submission) for a person like me is the sense in which it must involve a leap of faith. At some points along the journey, it is not permitted to me to ask “why.” That is not because I cannot or do not want to ask, but because I haven’t yet the capacity to receive the true answer. I have discovered that the very essence of spiritual formation is that it involves encounter and engagement with something/Someone of whom I am profoundly ignorant. It seems right that initially I test the path I wish to consider for its reasonableness and its compassion. But it is equally appropriate for me to realize that there are times in which my present worldview is totally inadequate for me to receive the response I seek. So I must simply continue to give myself to that which I do not understand. In such a journey, how very much I value the guides of tradition and authority that give me occasional markers, letting me know that others have trod here before me.

From Norvene Vest’s Preferring Christ: A Devotional Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for November 10 • Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461

There is no doubt that the Son of God took our human nature into so close a union with himself that one and the same Christ is present, not only in the firstborn of all creation, but in all his saints as well. And so all that the Son of God did and taught for the world’s reconciliation is not for us simply a matter of past history. Here and now we experience his power at work among us.

Although it was primarily to Peter that he said: “Feed my sheep,” yet the one Lord guides all pastors in the discharge of their office and leads to rich and fertile pastures all those who come to the rock. There is no counting the sheep who are nourished with his abundant love, and who are prepared to lay down their lives for the sake of the good shepherd who died for them.

But it is not only the martyrs who share in his passion by their glorious courage: the same is true, by faith, of all who are born again in baptism. That is why we are to celebrate the Lord’s paschal sacrifice with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The leaven of our former malice is thrown out, and a new creature is filled and inebriated with the Lord himself. For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive. As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him, so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do.

From a sermon of Leo the Great, quoted in Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, edited by J. Robert Wright. Copyright © 1991. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for November 11 • Martin, Bishop of Tours, 397

An ex-soldier like the Egyptian pioneer Pachomius, Martin abandoned his military career in Gaul (France) to live a life apart from the world. Around him, probably in the year 361, there gathered the West’s first known monastic community at what seems to have been an ancient local cultic site in a marshy valley, now called Ligugé. . . . Archaeological traces still remain of Martin’s first community buildings at Ligugé, treasured by the monks who, after many vicissitudes, have returned to this place so resonant in the story of the religious life. Not long afterwards, in 372, Martin was one of the first ascetics anywhere in the Church to be chosen as a bishop, in the Gaulish city far north of Poitiers called Civitas Turonum (now Tours). While bishop, he still lived as a monk, and his second monastic foundation near Tours was destined to fare rather better than Ligugé in its later monastic history: as Marmoutier, it remained one of the most famous and ancient abbeys in France until its near-total destruction in the French Revolution.

In his public career, Martin retained enough of his soldierliness to emerge as a notably aggressive campaigner for the elimination of the traditional religion still strong in rural areas of western Europe such as his. His ministry, played out against formidable opposition, was clearly dramatic. . . . Bishop Martin’s work excited those who sought to preach their faith in similar areas where city life was either decaying or had never existed, and it can be no coincidence that now a number of individuals began taking missionary initiatives beyond Gaul and even beyond the empire. . . . North of the furthest imperial frontiers in Britain, an ascetic called Ninian established amission around 400 in what is now south-west Scotland, reputedly building a church in stone, such a rare sight in the area that it was called the “White House,” Candida Casa. Ninian or one of his early successors dedicated this church in honour of Martin the Gaulish bishop, who had only very recently died.

From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch (New York: Viking, 2009).

Daily Reading for November 12 • Charles Simeon, priest, 1836

In different ages of the world it has pleased God to reveal himself to men in different ways; sometimes by visions, sometimes by voices, sometimes by suggestions of his Spirit to their minds: but since the completion of the sacred canon, he has principally made use of his written word, explained and enforced by men, whom he has called and qualified to preach his Gospel; and though he has not precluded himself from conveying again the knowledge of his will in any of the former ways, it is through the written word only that we are now authorized to expect his gracious instructions. This, whether read by ourselves or published by his servants, he applies to the heart, and makes effectual for the illumination and salvation of men. It must be confessed, however, that he chiefly uses the ministry of his servants, whom he has sent as ambassadors to a guilty world. . . .

But this circumstance, so favourable to all classes of the community, imposes on them a duty of the utmost importance. If there be a well from which we are to receive our daily supplies, it becomes us to ascertain that its waters are salubrious: and, in like manner, if we are to receive instruction from men, who are weak and fallible as ourselves, it becomes us to try their doctrines by the touchstone of the written word; and to receive from them those sentiments only which agree with that unerring standard; or, to use the words of an inspired Apostle, we must “prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.” To preachers also there arises an awful responsibility; for, as the people are “to receive the word at their mouth,” and their “word is to be a savour of life or of death to all that hear it,” it concerns them to be well assured, that they set before their people “the sincere unadulterated milk of the word”; that in no respect they “corrupt the word of God,” or “handle it deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.”

Hence it appears that we all are deeply interested in this one question, What is truth? what is that truth, which ministers are bound to preach, and which their people should be anxious to hear? There will however be no difficulty in answering this question, if only we consult the passage before us; wherein St Paul explicitly declares what was the great scope of his ministry, and the one subject which he laboured to unfold. He regarded not the subtleties which had occupied the attention of philosophers; nor did he affect that species of knowledge which was in high repute among men: on the contrary, he studiously avoided all that gratified the pride of human wisdom, and determined to adhere simply to one subject, the crucifixion of Christ for the sins of men: “I came not unto you,” says he, “with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God: for I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

From “Evangelical Religion: A Sermon Preached Before the University of Cambridge” by the Rev. Charles Simeon (published in 1837); found at http://anglicanhistory.org/england/csimeon/evangelical1837.html

Daily Reading for November 13 • Samuel Seabury, First American Bishop, 1796 (transferred)

Seabury was a hard-working bishop, in marked contrast to some others of his day in England and America. He was also a straightforward man, who could observe with regard to confirmation that “it is unreasonable to expect that people should comply with a rite before they are convinced of their obligation to do so.” Accordingly, his view of the compleat clergyman was highly pragmatic; his most commonly employed adjective with regard to them is “useful.” In his first charge to the clergy, when discussing qualifications for candidates, he makes his point unforgettably: “By qualifications, I mean not so much literary accomplishments, though these are not to be neglected, as aptitude for the work of the ministry. You must be sensible that a man may have, and deservedly have, an irreproachable moral character, and be endued with pious and devout affections, and a competent share of human learning, and yet, from want of prudence, or from deficiency in temper, or some singularity in disposition, may not be calculated to make a good Clergyman; for to be a good Clergyman implies, among other things, that a man be a useful one. A clergyman who does no good, always does hurt: There is no medium.”

Seabury has an idea of which personal characteristics promise usefulness: “good temper, prudence, diligence, capacity and aptitude to teach,” and confesses himself countercultural in emphasizing these gifts. Other pragmatic concerns were “their personal appearance, voice, manner, clearness of expression, and facility of communicating their sentiments,” again implying that this is a higher standard than was usually applied. He has no interest in perpetuating the English custom of sending the less promising sons of wealthy families into the church. He is determined to do as careful a job of discernment at the beginning of the journey towards ordination as he can, for “it is always easier to keep such persons out of the ministry, than to get rid of them when once admitted.”

There was a point to this concern for practicality; it was not an abstract passion for good order or an obsessive task-orientation. When Seabury wrote that the clergy exist for the sake of the laity, he meant just that. For Seabury, “hierarchy” was totally a pragmatic concept. Thus clergy were to be useful so that the whole church would grow in holiness.

From One, Catholic, and Apostolic: Samuel Seabury and the Early Episcopal Church by Paul Victor Marshall. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for November 14 • The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Death comes to either the soul or the body. The soul cannot die, and yet it can die. It cannot die, because its consciousness is never lost. It can die, if it loses God. You see, just as the soul itself is the life of the body, so in the same way God is the life of the soul. As the body dies when the soul that is its life abandons it, in the same way when God abandons the soul, it dies. To make sure, however, that God does not abandon the soul, it must always have enough faith not to fear death for God’s sake. Then God does not abandon it, and it does not die.

It remains that the death that is feared is feared for the body. Even on this point, the Lord Christ reassured his martyrs. After all, how could they be unsure of the integrity of their bodies, when they had been reassured about the number of their hairs? “He said that your hairs have all been counted.” In another place he says even more plainly, “For I tell you, that not a hair of your head shall perish.” Truth speaks. Does weakness hesitate?

From Sermon 273.1 of Augustine, 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 November 15 • Francis Asbury, 1816, and George Whitefield, 1770, Evangelists

Let us consider what it is to live godly in Christ Jesus. This supposes that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ, that we are born again, and are one with Christ by a living faith, and a vital union, even as Jesus Christ and the Father are One. Unless we are thus converted, and transformed by the renewing of our minds, we cannot properly be said to be in Christ, much less to live godly in him. To be in Christ merely by baptism, and an outward profession, is not to be in Him in the strict sense of the word: no; “They that are in Christ, are new creatures; old things are passed away, and all things are become new” in their hearts. Their life is hid with Christ in God; their souls daily feed on the invisible realities of another world. To “live godly in Christ,” is to make the divine will, and not our own, the sole principle of all our thoughts, words, and actions; so that, “whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we do all to the glory of God.” Those who live godly in Christ, may not so much be said to live, as Christ to live in them: He is their Alpha and Omega, their first and last, their beginning and end. They are led by his Spirit, as a child is led by the hand of its father; and are willing to follow the Lamb withersoever he leads them. They hear, know, and obey his voice. Their affections are set on things above; their hopes are full of immortality; their citizenship is in heaven. Being born again of God, they habitually live to, and daily walk with, God. They are pure in heart; and, from a principle of faith in Christ, are holy in all manner of conversation and godliness.

This is to “live godly in Christ Jesus”: and hence we may easily learn, why so few suffer persecution? Because, so few live godly in Christ Jesus. You may live formally in Christ, you may attend on outward duties; you may live morally in Christ, you may (as they term it) do no one any harm, and avoid persecution: but they “that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.”

From “Persecution every Christian’s Lot,” Sermon 55, by George Whitefield; found at http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/Whitefield.html

Daily Reading for November 16 • Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093

Nor need we wonder that the queen governed herself and her household wisely when we know that she herself acted under the wisest of masters, the guidance of the Holy Scriptures. I myself have had frequent opportunities of admiring in her how, even amidst the distractions of lawsuits, amidst the countless cares of state, she devoted herself with wonderful assiduity to the word of God, about which she used to ask profound questions from the learned men who were sitting near her. But just as no one among them possessed a deeper intellect than herself, so none had the power of clearer expression. Thus it very often happened that these doctors went from her wiser men by much than when they came. She sought with a religious earnestness for those sacred volumes, and oftentimes her affectionate familiarity with me urged me to exert myself to obtain them for her use. Not that in doing this she cared for her own salvation only; she thought of that of others too.

First of all, in regard to King Malcolm: by the help of God she made him most attentive to the works of justice, mercy, almsgiving, and other virtues. From her he learnt how to keep the vigils of the night in constant prayer; she instructed him by her exhortation and example how to pray to God with groaning from the heart and abundance of tears. . . . There was in him a sort of dread of offending one whose life was so venerable; for he could not but perceive from her conduct that Christ dwelt within her; nay, more, he readily obeyed her wishes and prudent counsels in all things. Whatever she refused, he refused also; whatever pleased her, he also loved for the love of her. Hence it was that, although he could not read, he would turn over and examine books which she used either for her devotions or her study; and whenever he heard her say that she was fonder of one of them than the others, this one he too used to look at with special affection, kissing it, and often taking it into his hands. Sometimes he sent for a worker of precious metals, whom he commanded to ornament that volume with gold and gems, and when the work was finished, the king himself used to carry the volume to the queen as a kind proof of his devotion.

From Life of St. Margaret Queen of Scotland by Turgot, Bishop of St. Andrews, translated from the Latin by William Forbes-Leith, S.J. (Edinburgh: William Peterson, 1884).

Daily Reading for November 17 • Hugh, 1200, and Robert Grosseteste, 1253, Bishops of Lincoln

In November 1197 there came a demand from the king for three hundred knights, or money sufficient to hire as many mercenaries, to serve against Philip of France. The archbishop convened a council of bishops and barons at Oxford, where the Bishop of London, speaking as dean of the province, declared his willingness to comply with the demand. Not so the holy Bishop of Lincoln. “I know,” he said, “that the Church of Lincoln is bound to provide military service for our lord the king, but only in this country. Outside England no such service is due. I would rather return to my native solitudes in the Alps than suffer my church to be subjected to this novel burden.” Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, refused on the same grounds, and it must be presumed that other bishops, emboldened by their example, took the same course, for the archbishop dissolved the meeting in great wrath and reported its failure to the king. Richard was furiously angry, and ordered the property of the two leading offenders to be confiscated. The order was executed on the Bishop of Salisbury, who afterwards redeemed his possessions by a heavy fine; but none of the royal officials dared to lay hands on the property of the revered Bishop of Lincoln.

In August 1198 Hugh crossed to Normandy and met the king at Roche d’Andeli. Richard first stared angrily at him, then averted his face and refused the kiss of peace, but the undaunted Hugh seized the king’s dress and shook it violently, saying, “The kiss is due to me, for I have come a long journey to see thee: yea, I have earned it.” Like his father, the king was softened by the bishop’s boldness and good-humoured persistency. He turned to him with a smile, and gave him the kiss. Presently he attended mass in the chapel of the castle, and when he received the pax from an archbishop whose duty it was to present it to him, he stepped forward and offered it to Hugh for him to kiss. The opposition of Hugh to the demands of the king may be compared to the resistance of Archbishop Thomas in 1163 to the new regulation made by Henry II respecting the sheriffs’ aid. The refusal of Hugh, however, appears to have been limited to the demand for men to serve outside the kingdom. He could not refuse to pay scutage, but claimed exemption for his church from all obligation to send knights beyond sea.

It is characteristic of Bishop Hugh’s courage and faithfulness to duty, that after his reconciliation with the king on this question, he was not deterred from reproving him for his unfaithfulness to his marriage vows. Richard received his admonitions on this and other matters, especially the sale of sacred offices, in good part, and said that if all bishops were like Hugh no sovereign in Christendom would presume to oppose them.

From The History of the English Church from the Norman Conquest to the Accession of Edward I (1066-1272) by W. R. W. Stephens (London: Macmillan, 1901).

Daily Reading for November 18 • Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680

In 664 a meeting was held at Whitby to discuss the date upon which Easter should be celebrated. Why discuss this old debate now? Partly out of love of the northern kingdom where it happened and of the writer who tells about it; but more than that, because the debate about Easter at Whitby in 664 shows how easily a secular appeal to uniformity can be confused with a theological concern for unity. . . . There were at least two issues discussed at Whitby, not just one. There was the situation of two differing dates for the celebration of Easter. This was not a frequent or an obvious clash, and it does not seem to have been a cause for conflict previously. . . . The other problem was two styles of hair-cut, something immediately seen, and therefore a more noticeable difference than Easter. External signs matter in non-writing societies, and whether the saving was of the whole head, the circle at the back only, or the front only, was something visible and obvious. . . .

The meeting was held in the royal foundation of the Irish monk Aidan and Hilda at Whitby, on the borders between Deira and Bernicia; it became the burial place of Anglo-Saxon kings of Northumbria. The meeting was called by Bede “synodus,” that is a meeting for consultation, but it was not necessarily a “church council.” It seems more profitable to regard it as a meeting of the king and his thanes and the local bishop to decide about many things, rather than to see it in terms of later church councils such as Hatfield. It was called by the king, he presided and the language of most people present was English; Cedd was employed as a translator from both Irish and Latin. . . .

When we look at who said what and why, it was all more mixed than at first appears. It was, after all, not a matter of the arrogant men from Rome baring their teeth at the simple Irish. At the council of Whitby, who supported which side? There was no clear cut division among the participants in terms of nationalism. An epitome of the mingling of traditions is seen in Hilda, the hostess oon this occasion. Hilda was an Anglo-Saxon princess (614-680), younger daughter of Hereic, nephew of Edwin of Northumbria and of Breguswith. . . . Hilda was baptized with Edwin and his court on April 12th 627, aged thirteen, in the new church dedicated to St Peter in York by Paulinus. She was almost certainly part of the group of nobles who fled south with the queen when Edwin was killed by Aethelred in 633. Thus, by birth one of the Anglo-Saxons, her first experience of Christianity was of that brought by the Roman missionaries, a tradition emphasized by her later life in Gaul and Kent. In 647, twenty years later, when she was thirty-three, Hilda decided to be a nun and went to her nephew in East Anglia for a year, planning to join her sister in the Gaulish convent at Celles. But she came to know and revere the Irish missionary from Iona, Aidan, and he persuaded her to stay in England: first as part of a new group at Hartlepool, then, when the abbess Heiu left for a life of greater seclusion, Hilda became abbess of Whitby. Hilda was hostess to the council of Whitby where, though by birth and baptism and life in exile one would have expected her to be a Romanist, because of the influence of Aidan and Colman she in fact inclined towards the Irish side. In her life there is a mixture of Anglo-Saxon, Roman, and Irish elements which blended together imperceptibly.

From A True Easter: The Synod of Whitby 664 AD by Benedicta Ward (Oxford: SLG Press, 2007).

Daily Reading for November 19 • Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, 1231

Whilst Elizabeth imposed so rigorous a restraint upon her own senses, and treated herself with such unremitting severity, her heart overflowed with charity and mercy towards her unfortunate fellow beings. The tender charity which had always animated her, from her earliest childhood, grew deeper with each day of her life; ere long it was to merit for her that glorious and sweet title under which Christianity still venerates her—Patroness of the Poor. Generosity towards the poor was one of the distinctive characteristics of the age in which she lived, notably among princes; but it was noticeable that with her charity did not proceed from the influences of her birth, still less from any desire to merit praise, or a purely human recognition; but rather from a celestial and interior inspiration. From her very infancy she had never been able to bear the sight of a poor person without having her heart pierced, as it were, with grief; and now that her husband had granted her the most complete liberty in all things touching the honor of God and the welfare of her neighbor, she indulged without restraint her natural inclination to console the suffering members of Jesus Christ. This was her constant thought every moment of the day; it was to the poor that she devoted all that superabundance which she refused to the customs of her sex and of her rank; and in spite of the resources which the charity of her husband placed at her disposal, she gave away so quickly all that she had, that she was often compelled to strip herself of her own garments, that she might have wherewith to relieve the distressed. . . .

But it was not by her gifts alone, or with money, that the young Princess satisfied her love for the poor of Christ; it was much more by her personal devotion, by her tender and patient care, which, in the eyes of God, as well as to those in misfortune, is certainly the greatest and most pleasing charity. She devoted herself to this care with that simplicity and exterior cheerfulness which never left her. When the sick came to invoke her charity, after having given them what she could, she ascertained where they lived, in order that she might go and see them. And then no distance nor difficulty in reaching a place prevented her from going there. She knew that nothing kindles the spirit of charity so much as to see and to search into human misery in its material and actual existence. She made her way to the hovels most remote from her castle and most repulsive for their squalor and foul air; she entered into these homes of the poor with a sort of devotion and at the same time of familiarity; she brought herself whatever she thought necessary for the unfortunate occupants, and consoled them much less by her generous gifts than by her sweet and affectionate words. When she found that they were in debt, and without the means of releasing themselves, she assumed the debts herself, paying them with her own funds. Poor women in confinement were especially the object of her compassion; as often as she could she went and sat by the side of their miserable beds, assisting and encouraging them; she took their newly born into her arms with the love of a mother, covered them with clothes which she herself had made, and often held them at the baptismal font, in order that this spiritual maternity might furnish her an additional motive for loving and caring for them during all their life. When one of these poor creatures died, she came, as soon as she could, to watch with the body, laid it out with her own hands, often with sheets from her own bed, and assisted at the burial; and people saw with admiration this noble sovereign following with humility and recollection the coffin of the lowliest of her subjects.

When at home she occupied her leisure moments, not in the luxurious recreations of wealth, but, like the valiant woman of the Scriptures, in laborious and useful works; she spun wool with her maids of honor, and then from it made with her own hands clothing for the poor, or for the mendicant religious, who came at that time to establish themselves in her States. She often directed her entire meal to be prepared from vegetables, poorly cooked on purpose, without salt or seasoning of any kind, in order that she might realize by experience how the poor were nourished; and these she would eat with great delight.

From the Life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Duchess of Thuringia by the Count de Montalembert, translated by Francis Deming Hoyt (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904).

Daily Reading for November 20 • Edmund, King of East Anglia, 870

Now rejoice, all ye powers of my soul, that you are so united with God that no one may separate you from Him. I cannot fully praise nor love Him therefore must I die, and cast myself into the divine void, till I rise from non-existence to existence. . . . While I am here, He is in me; after this life, I am in Him. All things are therefore possible to me, if I am united to Him Who can do all things. Previously I could not distinguish whether we were divine by nature or by grace. Then came Jesus and enlightened me so that I recognized in the Divine Nature Three Persons, and that the Father was the Bringer-Forth of all things, as St James says, “every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights.”

The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Ghost, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works. Just as a spring, which perpetually flows and waters the roots of the flowers, so that the flowers bloom and receive their colours from the water of the spring, so the Godhead imparts Itself to the capacities of the soul that it may grow in the likeness of God. The more that the soul receives of the Divine Nature, the more it grows like It, and the closer becomes its union with God. It may arrive at such an intimate union that God at last draws it to Himself altogether, so that there is no distinction left, in the soul’s consciousness, between itself and God, though God still regards it as a creature.

From “The Self-Communication of God,” a sermon by Meister Eckhart; found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/eckhart/sermons.viii.html.

In thanksgiving for the life and ministry of Eckart Horn, beloved priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine.

Daily Reading for November 21 • The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King

The Father of angels,
the true King of victory, will call a synod,
the Lord of retainers, to judge with righteousness.
Then all people on earth will
rise up as the almighty King will
command, the captain of angels, with the sound
of trumpets over the wide abyss, the Savior of souls.
Dark death through the Lord’s might
will end for all the blessed. . . . .

Bones will be gathered,
limbs and body together and the life’s spirit
before Christ’s knee. Gloriously the King
will shine with the saints from his high seat,
the beautiful jewel of wonder. . . .
Thus the noble ones are
the winsome plants with whom the wild bird
set out a new nest for himself
so that suddenly it surges with fire,
is swallowed up under the sun with himself in it,
and then after the flame again accepts
life, renewal. So everyone in the race of man
enfolded in flesh shall be
unique and young again, he who here
works his own will so glory’s King,
mighty at the judgment, will be mild to him.
Then the holy spirits will speak out,
the steadfast souls raise a song
clean and chosen, praise the King’s glory,
voice after voice, ascend to glory,
spiced in beauty with their best deeds.
Then the souls of the people will be purified,
brightly polished through the burning of fire.

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

Daily Reading for November 22 • Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c. 280 and Clive Staples Lewis, Apologist and Spiritual Writer, 1963

When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches and Gospel Halls. . . . It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn’t matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it’s very selfish of you and you upset the house. If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can’t do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

From “Answers to Questions on Christianity” by C. S. Lewis (1944), in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970).

Daily Reading for November 23 • Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100

Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours, and when he had finally suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.

To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircae, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from their husbands, and changed that saying of our father Adam, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Envy and strife have overthrown great cities and rooted up mighty nations.

These things, beloved, we write to you, not merely to admonish you of your duty, but also to remind ourselves. For we are struggling in the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned to both of us. So let us give up vain and fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us attend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all who would be converted to Him.

From the First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians.

Daily Reading for November 24 • James Otis Sargent Huntington, Priest and Monk, 1935 (transferred)

Right is founded upon Truth; it is the Truth gone into operation. Now the Truth that underlies our actions towards others is the relations we hold with others. What we can all do at once is to awake to a consciousness of these relations and begin to correspond to them in our dealings with the cook and the waiting-maid, the clerk and the cash-girl, the railway conductor and the telegraph-boy, the factory-operative, the dressmaker, the newspaper reporter, as well as the beggar and the charity “case.”. . . When we have learned to value the friendship of the woman who washes our clothes, and the man who carts off our rubbish, we shall find it easier to understand our neighbors, whether poor or rich. . . .

Tolstoi says, “The present position which we, the educated and well-to-do classes, occupy is that of the Old Man of the Sea riding on the poor man’s back, only, unlike the Old Man of the Sea, we are sorry for the poor man, very sorry. And we will do almost anything for the poor man’s relief; we will not only supply him with food sufficient for him to keep on his legs, but we will provide him with cooling draughts concocted on strictly scientific principles; we will teach and instruct him and point out to him the beauties of the landscape; we will discourse sweet music to him and give him lots of good advice. Yes, we will do almost anything for the poor man, anything but get off his back.”

The words are sharp, but are they any more searching than those of Henry Thoreau, from whom I just quoted? “If I devote myself,” he says, “to other pursuit and contemplation” (than the simple common labor of every-day life), “I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplation too.”

Only let us remember that we are so involved with others in our political and economic life that we cannot free ourselves from the shame of this injustice, however we may see and detect it; we can only do our best to bring home the horror of it to other individuals, until the whole community is stung with the sense of its own misery, and, like Samson, breaks the bands that bind it down. That will not be a war of classes, but a struggle of the whole people to be free. And if we are to stir others to enlist in this campaign against the monopoly of the very earth and air and light, we must make all we do to meet the immediate wants of the needy or the suffering contribute to the propaganda of reform. We must still feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but we shall try to show them, if we can, whence hunger and nakedness proceed; we may open orphanages and shelters, but they will be training-schools for the new age; we may go down into the slums, but we shall remember the words of the dying Pestalozzi, “I lived like a beggar, that beggars might learn to live like men,” and feel that our best mission is to show the poor how to make slums impossible.

In closing, it seems best to provide against possible misunderstanding by saying that in speaking of morality I have not meant merely a system of ethics or a code of manners. I have set forward morality as at once deeper and loftier than philanthropy, as furnishing philanthropy with its only foundation and its indispensable guide, because I believe that in order to bless the world we must first of all do the will of God. That aim covers the whole field of duty, for the service of God demands the whole man. I do not for a moment dream that we shall find a ground on which to resist legalized wrong, and the despotism of vested interests, until we have discovered that behind laws there is a changeless and righteous Law, and that even if the “highest crime be written in the highest law of the land,” it may yet be known and branded as a crime, because there is in the souls of even plain and ordinary men the witness to an eternal Right.

From “Philanthropy and Morality” by James Otis Sargent Huntington, in Philanthropy and Social Progress: Seven Essays by Miss Jane Addams, Robert A. Woods, Father J. O. S. Huntington, Professor Franklin H. Giddings, and Bernard Bosanquet, delivered before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth, Massachusetts during the session of 1892 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1893).

Daily Reading for November 25 • Thanksgiving Day

O God, it is good to be alive,
and numbered with the people
whom thou has made:
and I thank thee for thy gift of life.

O God, it is good to have the power of thought,
and to seek and learn and know:
and I thank thee for thy gift of mind.

O God, it is good to dwell beneath the sun
in the world which is thy handiwork:
and I thank thee for earth’s beauty,
and thy rule within its laws.

O God, it is good to come to each new day,
and to find the passing years
a cure for wounds innumerable,
and I thank thee for the ministries of time.

O God, it is good to count in word and deed
for ends beyond our own:
and I thank thee for thy use of me
if I have been of any service to thy purposes.

O God, it is good to rejoice and to be glad,
and I thank thee for each person,
for each experience of life,
that has brought me happiness.

O God, it is good to feel the disciplines
that school the spirit,
and I thank thee for the trials and troubles
which have wrought in me some hardihood of soul.

O God, it is good to have thine everlasting arms beneath us,
and I thank thee now for all thy mercies,
both temporal and spiritual,
those I have known, those I have not recognized,
wherewith thou has upheld me
in thy wisdom, power, and love.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

“An Act of Thanksgiving to God for Great Blessings” by Miles Lowell Yates, quoted in Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for November 26 • Isaac Watts, Hymnwriter, 1748

The duty of prayer is so great and necessary a part of religion, that every degree of assistance toward the discharge of it will be always acceptable to pious minds. The inward and spiritual performance of this worship is taught us in many excellent discourses; but a regular scheme of prayer, as a Christian exercise, or a piece of holy skill, has been much neglected. The form, method, and expression, together with other attendants of it, such as voice and gesture, have been so little treated of, that few Christians have any clear or distinct knowledge of them: and yet all these have too powerful an influence upon the soul in its most spiritual exercises; and they properly fall under various directions of nature and scripture. Now, while institutions of Logic and Rhetoric abound, that teach us to reason aright, and to speak well among men, why should the rules of speaking to God be so much untaught?

It is a glory to our profession, that there is a great number of ministers in our day and nation, who are happy in the gift of prayer, and exercise it continually in an honorable and useful manner. Yet they have been contented to direct others to this attainment merely by the influence of a good example. Thus, all are taught to pray, as some profess to teach French and Latin; i.e., only by rote; whereas, those that learn by rule, as well as by imitation, acquire a greater readiness of just and proper expression in speaking those languages upon every occasion.

I am persuaded that one reason of this neglect has been the angry zeal for parties among us, which has discouraged men of sober and moderate principles from attempting much on this subject, while the zealots have been betrayed into two extremes. Some contend earnestly for pre-composed set forms of prayer, and will worship no other way. These have little need of any other instructions but to be taught to read well, since the words, matter, and method of their prayers are already appointed. Other violent men, in extreme opposition to them, have indulged the irregular wanderings of thought and expression, lest by a confinement to rules, they should seem to restrain the Spirit, and return to carnal ordinances.

But, if the leaders of one party had spent as much time in learning to pray, as they have done in reading liturgies, and vindicating their imposition; and if the warm writers of the other side, together with their just cautions against quenching the Spirit, had more cultivated this divine skill themselves, and taught Christians regularly how to pray; I believe the practice of free prayer had been more universally approved, and the fire of this controversy had never raged to the destruction of so much charity. My design in this treatise has been to write a prayer book without forms; and I have sought to maintain the middle way, between the distant mistakes of contending Christians.

From “A Guide to Prayer” by Isaac Watts, in Aids to Devotion: in Three Parts, including Watts’ Guide to Prayer by Isaac Watts (Boston: Lincoln and Emands, 1831).

Daily Reading for November 27

St. Paul kept holding up a vision of a new interconnected humanity. “Bear one another’s burdens,” he said. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” . . . No one understood this better than C.S. Lewis’s novelist friend Charles Williams, who believed that we humans are meant to be what he called “godbearers” to each other, channels of God’s love. And he said that the deepest truth of our lives is what he called the “co-inherence,” that our lives are immersed in God. There’s no separating out God in us and us in God and you and me in each other.

In Charles Williams’ novel Descent into Hell a woman who has been suffering with an almost pathological fear is confronted by a wise friend with a strange question: “Haven’t you asked [someone] to carry your fear?” “What do you mean?” she responds. “How can anyone carry my fear?” He tells her that she could hand that burden over to him and that he could carry it for her. “When you think you’ll be afraid, let me put myself in your place and be afraid instead of you.

“Haven’t you heard,” he says, “St. Paul’s words about bearing one another’s burdens? That’s no pious talk; it’s a fact of experience. I can carry your burden for you; it’s part of the law of the universe.” He is saying we can actually substitute for each other as we take on one another’s struggles.

C.S. Lewis himself, during the final stages of his wife’s illness with bone cancer, asked that some of her pain be given to him, and he reported that he developed in his own leg a painful condition, and for awhile his wife’s pain eased. A priest and close friend of mine has told me of times when, visiting someone overcome with fear, say, on the night before surgery, he has invited them to let him carry their fears for the night. And he has said that they have reported feeling relief from the burdens they were under as he himself felt weighted down.

These accounts may simply express the power of love and empathy. But could it be that our minds and spirits can profoundly affect each other? A great mystic of the early twentieth century, Baron Von Hügel, takes this seriously: “I wonder whether you realize a deep, great fact? That souls, all human souls, are interconnected … that we can not only pray for each other but suffer for each other.” . . .

Many of you know of the wonderful Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry, who writes constantly about the interconnectedness of everything--past and present, human beings and the earth. A character in one of his stories sums it up this way: “We are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference isn’t in who is a member and who isn’t, but who knows and who doesn’t.”

From “One Communion” by the Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, a sermon preached at the National Cathedral on All Saints’ Sunday, November 7, 2010. Found at http://www.nationalcathedral.org/worship/sermonTexts/stl20101107.shtml.

Daily Reading for November 28 • The First Sunday of Advent

When we watch, we’re watching for signs. Signs are things we watch for because they are the leading edge of a larger reality we await. We may await recovery, rescue, or reconciliation. We may await fulfillment, recognition, or love. We long for so many things. We need signs that they are on the way, or even already present. . . .

God was up to something in Jesus. What Jesus said God was up to was the kingdom of God. In his living and teaching, Jesus pointed to the reign of God in justice, compassion, reconciliation. Jesus’ coming and his preaching of God’s reign signified, or signed, that God cherishes human history. Our story is a prime location for God’s presence and action—not the only location, but a prime location.

God’s up to something now. What’s God up to? That’s where signs come in. “Keep awake!” “Watch!” For what? Signs of the kingdom, signs of what God is up to! Where? Right here in the world where God has set up shop!

Expecting, not waiting, is the keynote of this season. We wait in ticket lines and doctors’ offices as we idly thumb the magazines. But when the pitcher winds up or the interviewer asks the jaw-dropping question—then we’re watching, eager for signs of what will happen next. What if we were to take the quality of our watching at a sporting event, or at a movie, or in a delicate conversation, and turn that attention on our life direction, or the life of our family, or the life of our community? And ask: What’s God up to? . . . That’s the key question, because being on mission means joining what God is up to in the world. Discerning what God is up to means watching for signs of God’s presence and action. Where in our particular place do we see signs of the reign of God pushing up through the debris of people’s confusion and wrangling? Where do we see signs of God reconciling? God healing? God renewing?

From Alert for Signs: Seeing and Praying through Advent by Titus Presler (Cincinnati: Forward Movement, 2007).

Daily Reading for November 29

Advent, despite all earnestness, is a time of refuge because it has received a message. Oh, if people know nothing about the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience the four walls and the prison windows of their gray days, and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the announcing angels, if the angels’ murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls—then it is over for us. Then we are living wasted time, and we are dead, long before they do anything to us.

To believe in the golden seeds of God that the angels have scattered and continue to offer an open heart are the first things we must do with our lives. And the next is to go through these gray days as announcing messengers ourselves. So much courage needs strengthening; so much despair needs comforting; so much hardship needs a gentle hand and illuminating interpretation; so much loneliness cries out for a liberating word; so much loss and pain seek a spiritual meaning. God’s messengers know about the blessing that the Lord God has planted, even within these historic times. To wait in faith, for the fruitfulness of the silent earth and for the abundance of the coming harvest, means to understand the world—even this world—in Advent. To wait in faith—no longer because we trust the earth or the stars or our temperament and good courage—but only because we have perceived God’s messages and know about His announcing angels, and even have encountered one. . . .

The sounds of devastation and destruction, the cries of self-importance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and powerlessness still fill the world. Yet, standing silently, all along the horizon are the eternal realities with their age-old longing. The first gentle light of the glorious abundance to come is already shining above them. From out there, the first sounds are ringing out like shepherds’ flutes and a boys’ choir singing. They do not yet form a song or melody—it is all still too far off and only the first announcement and intimation. Still, it is happening. This is today. And tomorrow the angels will relate loudly and jubilantly what has happened, and we will know it and will be blessed if we have believed and trusted in Advent.

From “Figures of Advent” by Alfred Delp, S.J., written in Tegel Prison, Berlin, December 1944, quoted in Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944 by Alfred Delp, edited by Roman Bleistein, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

Daily Reading for November 30 • St. Andrew the Apostle

Yet, little as Scripture tells us concerning him, it affords us enough for a lesson, and that an important one. These are the facts before us. St. Andrew was the first convert among the Apostles; he was especially in our Lord’s confidence; thrice is he described as introducing others to Him; lastly, he is little known in history, while the place of dignity and the name of highest renown, have been allotted to his brother Simon, whom he was the means of bringing to the knowledge of his Saviour.

Our lesson, then, is this; that those men are not necessarily the most useful men in their generation, nor the most favoured by God, who make the most noise in the world, and who seem to be principals in the great changes and events recorded in history; on the contrary, that even when we are able to point to a certain number of men as the real instruments of any great blessings vouchsafed to mankind, our relative estimate of them, one with another, is often very erroneous: so that on the whole, if we would trace truly the hand of God in human affairs, and pursue His bounty as displayed in the world to its original sources, we must unlearn our admiration of the powerful and distinguished, our reliance on the opinion of society, our respect for the decisions of the learned or the multitude, and turn our eyes to private life, watching in all we read or witness for the true signs of God’s presence, the graces of personal holiness manifested in His elect; which, weak as they may seem to mankind, are mighty through God, and have an influence upon the course of His Providence, and bring about great events in the world at large, when the wisdom and strength of the natural man are of no avail. . . .

Why indeed should we shrink from this gracious law of God’s present providence in our own case, or in the case of those we love, when our subjection to it does but associate us with the best and noblest of our race, and with beings of nature and condition superior to our own? Andrew is scarcely known, except by name; while Peter has ever held the place of honour all over the Church; yet Andrew brought Peter to Christ. And are not the Blessed Angels unknown to the world? and is not God Himself, the Author of all good, hid from mankind at large, partially manifested and poorly glorified, in a few scattered servants here and there? and His Spirit, do we know whence It cometh, and whither It goeth? and though He has taught men whatever there has been of wisdom among them from the beginning, yet when He came on earth in visible form, even then it was said of Him, “The world knew Him not.” His marvellous providence works beneath a veil, which speaks but an untrue language; and, to see Him who is the Truth and the Life, we must stoop underneath it, and so in our turn hide ourselves from the world. . . . Hid are the saints of God; if they are known to men, it is accidentally, in their temporal offices, as holding some high earthly station, or effecting some mere civil work, not as saints. St. Peter has a place in history, far more as a chief instrument of a strange revolution in human affairs, than in his true character, as a self-denying follower of his Lord, to whom truths were revealed which flesh and blood could not discern.

From Sermon I, “The Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle: The World’s Benefactors” by John Henry Newman, in Parochial Sermons, volume 2 (London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1836).