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

Whoever seeks to be received into the discipline of the cenobium is never admitted until, by lying outside for ten days or more, he has given an indication of his perseverance and desire, as well as of his humility and patience. And when he has embraced the knees of all the brothers passing by . . . and when the ardor of his intention has been proven and he has thus been received, he is asked with the utmost earnestness if, from his former possessions, the contamination of even a single copper coin clings to him. For they know that he could not remain subject to the discipline of the monastery for any length of time, nor indeed grasp hold of the virtue of humility and obedience or be content with the poverty and strictness of the cenobium, if some amount of money, however small, lay hidden on his conscience; rather, when the first disturbance arose for any reason whatsoever, he would be encouraged by the security of that sum and would flee the monastery as fast as a whirring slingstone. . . .

When someone has been received, all his former possessions are removed from him, such that he is not even permitted to have the clothing that he wore. He is brought to the council of the brothers, stripped of what is his in their midst, and clothed in the garb of the monastery at the hands of the abba. Thus he may know not only that he has put off all worldly pride and has stooped to the poverty and want of Christ, and that now he is to be supported not by wealth obtained in worldly fashion or stored up by his former lack of faith but that he will receive the pay for his soldiering from the holy and gracious supplies of the monastery. Thenceforth, knowing that he will be clothed and fed from there, he will learn both to possess nothing and never to be worried about the morrow, according to the words of the Gospel, and he will not be ashamed in to be on a par with the poor—that is, with the body of the brotherhood—among whom Christ was not ashamed to be numbered and whose brother he did not blush to call himself; rather he will glory in having become the companion of his servants.

From the “Fourth Book: The Institutes of the Renunciants” in John Cassian: The Institutes, translated and annotated by Boniface Ramsey, O.P. (Mahwah, N.J.: The Newman Press, 2000).

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

Theodore visited all the island, wherever the tribes of the Angles inhabited, for he was willingly entertained and heard by all persons; and everywhere attended and assisted by Hadrian, he taught the right rule of life, and the canonical custom of celebrating Easter. It was the first archbishop whom all the English church obeyed. . . . Theodore, visiting all parts, ordained bishops in proper places, and with their assistance corrected such things as he found faulty. Among the rest, when he upbraided Bishop Chad that he had not been duly consecrated, he, with great humility, answered, “If you know I have not duly received episcopal ordination, I willingly resign the office, for I never thought myself worthy of it; but, though unworthy, in obedience submitted to undertake it.” Theodore, hearing his humble answer, said that he should not resign the bishopric, and he himself completed his ordination after the Catholic manner. . . .

At that time, the Mercians were governed by King Wulfhere, who, on the death of Jaruman, desired of Theodore to supply him and his people with a bishop; but Theodore would not obtain a new one for them, but requested of King Oswy that Chad might be their bishop. He then lived retired at his monastery, which is at Lestingau. . . . Chad, having received the bishopric of the Mercians and Lindisfarne, took care to administer the same with great rectitude of life, according to the example of the ancients. King Wulfhere also gave him land of fifty families, to build a monastery, at the place called Ad Barve, or “At the Wood,” in the province of Lindsey, wherein marks of the regular life instituted by him continue to this day.

He had his episcopal see in the place called Lichfield, in which he also died, and was buried, and where the see of the succeeding bishops of that province still continues. He had built himself a habitation not far from the church, wherein he was wont to pray and read with seven or eight of the brethren, as often as he had any spare time from the labour and ministry of the word. When he had most gloriously governed the church in that province two years and a half, the Divine Providence so ordaining, there came round a season like that of which Ecclesiastes says, “That there is a time to cast stones, and a time to gather them”; for there happened a mortality sent from heaven, which, by means of the death of the flesh, translated the stones of the church from their earthly places to the heavenly building. And when, after many of the church of that most reverend prelate had been taken out of the flesh, his hour also drew near wherein he was to pass out of this world to our Lord.

From Book IV of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation; found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book4.html

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

I mean by preaching the gospel, preaching the love of God to sinners, preaching the life, death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ, with all the blessings which, in consequence thereof, are freely given to true believers.

By preaching the law, I mean, explaining and enforcing the commands of Christ, briefly comprised in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, it is certain, preaching the gospel to penitent sinners “begets faith”; that it “sustains and increases spiritual life in true believers.” Nay, sometimes it “teaches and guides” them that believe; yea, and “convinces them that believe not.” . . .

I think the right method of preaching is this: At our first beginning to preach at any place, after a general declaration of the love of God to sinners, and his willingness that they should be saved, to preach the law, in the strongest, the closest, and most searching manner possible; only intermixing the gospel here and there, and showing it, as it were, afar off.

After more and more persons are convinced of sin, we may mix more and more of the gospel, in order to “beget faith,” to raise into spiritual life those whom the law hath slain: but this is not to be done too hastily neither. Therefore, it is not expedient wholly to omit the law; not only because we may well suppose that many of our hearers are still unconvinced; but because otherwise there is danger that many who are convinced will heal their own wounds slightly; therefore, it is only in private converse with a thoroughly convinced sinner that we should preaching nothing but the gospel. . . . Both should be preached in their turns; yea, both at once, or both in one: All the conditional promises are instances of this. They are law and gospel mixed together.

From John Wesley’s “Letter on Preaching Christ,” December 20, 1751, quoted in The Company of Preachers: Wisdom on Preaching, Augustine to the Present, edited by Richard Lischer (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002).

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

The Indians on Long Island, on the arrival of the white people, were found divided into distinct tribes, or perhaps more properly, collections of families, having different names, and exercising an independent authority or control over separate portions of territory; and these tribes had, moreover, each their chiefs and head men, called sachems or sagamores, exercising authority in the conduct of public affairs, questions of war, treaties, and the payment of tribute. From the sachems of the different tribes, and sometimes from a few other head men associated with them, the lands were purchased by the white people, and from them have descended the titles to most if not all the real estate upon Long Island. Motives of honor, justice, and humanity, as well as true policy, dictated the propriety of this course by strangers, coming to settle a country already occupied by those who were the ancient and rightful tenants of the soil. The price to be paid was always agreed upon by the parties, and good faith, it is believed, was in most cases observed on the part of the white people.

The principal tribes or clans inhabiting the island at that distant period and occupying particular portions of territory, were thirteen in number, being the undisputed claimants of the tracts of land, over which they exercised political jurisdiction. . . . The Shinnecock Tribe claimed the territory from Canoe Place to Easthampton, including Sag Harbor and the whole south shore of Peconic Bay. Their sachem was Nowedina in 1640. The Rev. Paul Cuffee, son of Peter, was of this tribe. He was a man of some eloquence, and of considerable powers of mind, although his education was limited. He was on the whole a useful and respectable man, and labored to much advantage among his Indian brethren of Montauk and Shinnecock for several years. He was said to be the second of seven sons, and grandson on his mother’s side of the Rev. Peter John, who labored also among the natives of the island after the departure of the Rev. Sampson Occum, and lived to the age of eighty-eight years, having been born in 1714. His son Paul was born at Brookhaven March 4, 1757, and lies buried about a mile west of Canoe Place, where the Indian church then stood. Over his grace a neat marble slab has been placed, with the following inscription:

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

From History of Long Island from its Discovery and Settlement by Europeans to the Present Time by Benjamin Franklin Thompson, third edition, volume 1 (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1918).

Daily Reading for March 5 • William W. Mayo, 1911, and Charles Menninger, 1953, and Their Sons, Pioneers in Medicine (transferred)

Years ago as a seminarian I had the happy experience of being mentored by the Rev. Charles Meyer at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas. Chuck was something of an iconoclast. He insisted that we as a society, and as a people of faith, needed to explicitly acknowledge that we were mortal and that dying would happen to all of us. He did not have much patience with the seminarians who distanced themselves from patients in the hospital, essentially saying, “A deadly thing has fastened on him” (Psalm 41:8). Chuck taught with humor and story.

He also taught by example and deed as much as by speech. He often said, “Never bury someone until they are dead.” Sometimes when we are living with illness, we will deal with friends and family who inadvertently begin to treat us as if we were not fully alive. Even when we are in hospice care, we are still not dead. Even when a disease has claimed mobility and mental faculty, we have a sacred personhood in Christ.

Notice the persons who help you remember that you are alive. Notice the friends and acquaintances, caregivers and doctors whose engagement with you offers companionship along the way of illness. Give thanks for them and remember to thank them for the gift of receiving your life, however marked by illness it may be—receiving your life as life, singular, sacred, and true.

From Days of Grace: Meditations and Practices for Living with Illness by Mary C. Earle. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 6 • The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

When I read, “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves,” I recognize the promise of adventure and come along, at least in my imagination. I had read this story many times, repeatedly asking myself, “Why these three disciples?” Finally it dawned on me that impulsive, imperfect Peter, James who never gets much to say, and his brother John the beloved, were also chosen to walk with Jesus to Gethsemane on that final night before his arrest. That is why there were singled out for this walk up into the heights. . . .

What happened to Jesus’ friends when they reached the mountaintop is almost beyond imagination. The Jesus they thought they knew is transformed, transfigured, a blinding vision. Moses and Elijah, representing and embodying the law and the prophets, appear out of nowhere and start a conversation with Jesus. What were they talking about? We don’t have a clue, but neither do the disciples. They are overshadowed by a cloud, and then a voice comes from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Peter, James, and John weren’t around for Jesus’ baptism, or they would have heard the same words, but with an added command: “Listen to him!” Implied, of course, is a deeper message: “Pay attention! This is no ordinary walk in the sunshine. If he is transfigured, then you are transformed. You won’t be the same again.”

From Walking Home: From Eden to Emmaus by Margaret Guenther. Copyright © 2011. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 7 • Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 202

While we were still under arrest, my father out of love for me was trying to persuade me and shake my resolution. “Father,” said I, “do you see this vase here, for example, or waterpot or whatever?”

“Yes, I do,” said he. And I told him: “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?” And he said: “No.”

“Well, so too I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”

At this my father was so angered by the word “Christian” that he moved towards me as though he would pluck my eyes out. But he left it at that and departed, vanquished along with his diabolical arguments.

For a few days afterwards I gave thanks to the Lord that I was separated from my father, and I was comforted by his absence. During these few days I was baptized, and I was inspired by the Spirit not to ask for any other favour after the water but simply the perseverance of the flesh. A few days later we were lodged in the prison; and I was terrified, as I had never before been in such a dark hole. What a difficult time it was! With the crowd the heat was stifling; then there was the extortion of the soldiers; and to crown all, I was tortured with worry for my baby there.

Then Tertius and Pomponius, those blessed deacons who tried to take care of us, bribed the soldiers to allow us to go to a better part of the prison to refresh ourselves for a few hours. Everyone then left that dungeon and shifted for himself. I nursed my baby, who was faint from hunger. In my anxiety I spoke to my mother about the child, I tried to comfort my brother, and I gave the child in their charge. I was in pain because I saw them suffering out of pity for me. These were the trials I had to endure for many days. Then I got permission for my baby to stay with me in prison. At once I recovered my health, relieved as I was of my worry and anxiety over the child. My prison had suddenly become a palace, so that I wanted to be there rather than anywhere else. . . .

The day before we were to fight with the beasts I saw the following vision. Pomponius the deacon came to the prison gates and began to knock violently. I went out and opened the gate for him. He was dressed in an unbelted white tunic, wearing elaborate sandals. And he said to me: “Perpetua, come; we are waiting for you.”

Then he took my hand and we began to walk through rough and broken country. At last we came to the amphitheatre out of breath, and he led me into the centre of the arena. Then he told me: “Do not be afraid. I am here, struggling with you.”

From the prison diary of Perpetua, quoted in The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, texts and translation by Herbert Musurillo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

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

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters”—the very beauty of this picture may serve only to hide from us the depths of its meaning. We seem to see the shepherd walking before his flock through fields decked out with green and gold and all the glory of a generous God, coming at last to the silent pool with the reflection of the sky sleeping in its heart, and it seems as though it were for the glory of the summer and the sleeping beauty of the pool that the sheep followed the shepherd. And indeed it is for that reason that many do seek the Good Shepherd. They think of religion not as a necessity but as a luxury, not as life but as a kind of addition to life which it is very nice to have but which we could quite well do without.

But it is not for the green and gold of summer fields that the sheep seeks to find them, but because they are good to eat. It is not for the sleeping beauty in the heart of silent waters that the flock follows on to find them, but because they are good to drink. It is not luxury that they ask of the shepherd, it is the bare necessities. And we cannot make too sure of this: that religion, communion with God, is not luxury, but a necessity for the soul. We must have God.

From The New Man in Christ by Geoffrey A. Studdert Kennedy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932).

Daily Reading for March 9 • Ash Wednesday

Time is measured by a threefold division, past, present, and future. In all three we receive the munificence of the Lord. If you consider the present, it is through Him that you live; if the future, your hope that your expectations might be fulfilled in founded on Him; if the past, you realize that you did not even exist before He made you. Your very birth you have received as a benefit from Him; and once born, another benefit was conferred on you in that, as the Apostle says, you should live and move in Him. The hopes of the future depend upon the same Divine action. You, however, are master only of the present. Therefore, even if you never cease to give thanks to God throughout your life, you will hardly thank Him for the present; and as for the future and the past, you will not be able to find a means of rendering Him His due.

Yet, though we are so far from being able to thank Him properly, we do not even show our good intention as far as we can—I will not say all day long, but not even by devoting a tiny part of the day to the service of God. Who has spread the earth under my feet? Whose wisdom has made water passable? Who has set up the vault of the sky? Who carries the sun before me like a torch? Who causes the springs to come forth from ravines? Who has given the rivers their beds? Who has subjected the animals to my service? Who, when I was but lifeless ashes, gave me both life and a mind? Who fashioned this clay in the image of the Divine? And, when this Divine Image had been tarnished by sin, did not He restore it to its former beauty? When I was exiled from Paradise, deprived of the tree of life, and submerged in the gulf of material things, was it not He who brought me back to man’s first beatitude? There is none that understandeth, says the Scripture. Truly, if we considered these things, we should give thanks all our life without ceasing.

From “The Lord’s Prayer” by Gregory of Nyssa, in St. Gregory of Nyssa: The Lord’s Prayer, The Beatitudes, Ancient Christian Writers series (Mahway, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1954).

Daily Reading for March 10

He told me that God always gave us light in our doubts when we had no other design but to please Him and to act for His love.

That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which commonly we do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.

That the most excellent method which he had found of going to God was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of God . . . .

That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, for He regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. . . .

“The time of business,” said he, “does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.”

From a conversation held on 25 November 1667, in The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

Daily Reading for March 11

Charity does not demand of us that we should not see the faults of others; we must in that case shut our eyes. But it commands us to avoid attending unnecessarily to them, and that we be not blind to the good, while we are so clear-sighted to the evil that exists. We must remember too God’s continual kindness to the most worthless creature, and think how many causes we have to think ill of ourselves; and finally we must consider that charity embraces the very lowest human being. It acknowledges that in the sight of God the contempt that we indulge for others has in its very nature a harshness and arrogance opposed to the spirit of Jesus Christ. The true Christian is not insensible to what is contemptible; but he bears with it.

Because others are weak, should we be less careful to give them their due? You who complain so much of what others make you suffer, do you think that you cause others no pain? You who are so annoyed at your neighbour’s defects, are you perfect?

How astonished you would be if those whom you cavil at should make all the comments that they might upon you. But even if the whole world were to bear testimony in your favour, God, who knows all, who has seen all your faults, could confound you with a word; and does it never come into your mind to fear lest He should demand of you why you had not exercised towards your brother a little of that mercy which He, who is your Master, so abundantly bestows on you?

From the Letters and Reflections of François de la Mothe Fénelon (1906 English translation), quoted in A Diary of Readings by John Baillie (New York: Macmillan, 1955).

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

The unique and supreme proof of love is this: to love a person who opposes us. That is why Truth himself bore the suffering of the cross, and even bestowed his love on his persecutors. He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Should we marvel that his living disciples love their enemies when their dying Master loved his? He expressed the extent of his love when he said that no one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends. The Lord had come to die even for his enemies. He said that he would lay down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our enemies by our love for them, then even our persecutors are our friends.

But no one is persecuting us to the point of death, and so how can we prove that we love our friends? In fact there is something we ought to do during times of peace to make clear whether we are strong enough to die for the sake of love during a time of persecution. John, the author of the gospel I have been quoting from, says in his first letter: Those who have this world’s goods and see a brother or sister in need, and who close their hearts, how does God’s love dwell in them? And John the Baptist says: Let one who has two coats give to one who has none. Will those who refuse to give up a coat for the sake of God during a time of peace give up their lives during a persecution? You must cultivate the virtue of love during times of tranquility by showing mercy, and then your love will be unconquerable in a time of chaos. First you must learn to give up your possessions for almighty God, and then yourself.

From Homily 27 of Gregory the Great, quoted in Be Friends of God: Spiritual Readings from Gregory the Great, edited by John Leinenweber (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1990).

Daily Reading for March 13 • The First Sunday in Lent

It was said that one of the Desert Fathers had prayed to the Lord and the Lord had taken away all his passions, so that he became impassible. And in this condition he went to one of the elders and said, “You see before you a man who is completely at rest and has no more temptations.”

The elder said, “Go and pray the Lord to command some struggle to be stirred up in you, for the soul is matured only in battles.”

And when the temptations started up again he did not pray that the struggle be taken away from him, but only said, “Lord, give me strength to get through the fight.”

A saying of Abbot Pastor, quoted in The Desert: An Anthology for Lent by John Moses. © 1997. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com.

Daily Reading for March 14 • James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, and of the Dominican Republic, 1911 (transferred)

Notwithstanding the remarkable progress of philanthropic ideas and humanitarian feelings, during the last half century, among almost every nation and people throughout the habitable globe; yet the great mass of the Caucasian race still deem the negro as entirely destitute of those qualities, on which they selfishly predicate their own superiority. And we may add to this overwhelming class that cherish such self-complacent ideas of themselves, to the great prejudice of the negro, a large quota also of that small portion of the white race, who profess to believe the truths, “That God is no respecter of persons”; and that “He has made of one blood, all the nations that dwell upon the face of the earth” . . . because too many of those pseudo-humanitarians have lurking in their heart of hearts, a secret infidelity in regard to the real equality of the black man, which is ever ready to manifest its concealed sting, when the full and unequivocal recognition of the negro, in all respects, is pressed home upon their hearts. . . . This sentiment unnerves their hands and palsies their tongue; and no pen is wielded or voice heard, among that race of men, which fearlessly and boldly places the negro side by side with the white man, as his equal in all respects. But to the contrary, every thing is done by the enemies of the negro race to vilify and debase them. And the result is, that many of the race themselves, are almost persuaded that they are a brood of inferior beings. . . .

These recollections are to be found in the history of the heroic events of the Revolution of Hayti. This revolution is one of the noblest, grandest, and most justifiable outbursts against tyrannical oppression that is recorded on the pages of the world’s history. A race of almost dehumanized men—made so by an oppressive slavery of three centuries—arose from their slumber of ages, and redressed their own unparalleled wrongs with a terrible hand in the name of God and humanity. In this terrible struggle for liberty, the Lord of Hosts directed their arms to be the instruments of His judgment on their oppressors, as the recompense of His violated law of love between man and his fellow, which these tyrants of the new world had been guilty of, in the centuries of blood, wrong, and oppression, which they had perpetrated on the negro race in that isle of the Caribbean Sea.

But aside from this great providential and religious view of this great movement, that we are always bound to seek for, in all human affairs, to see how they square with the mind of God, more especially if they relate to the destinies of nations and people;—the Haytian Revolution is also the grandest political event of this or any other age. In weighty causes, and wondrous and momentous features, it surpasses the American revolution, in an incomparable degree. The revolution of this country was only the revolt of a people already comparatively free, independent, and highly enlightened. Their greatest grievance was the imposition of three pence per pound tax on tea, by the mother country, without their consent. But the Haytian revolution was a revolt of an uneducated and menial class of slaves, against their tyrannical oppressors, who not only imposed an absolute tax on their unrequited labor, but also usurped their very bodies; and who would have been prompted by the brazen infidelity of the age then rampant, to dispute with the Almighty, the possession of the souls of these poor creatures, could such brazen effrontery have been of any avail, to have wrung more ill-gotten gain out of their victims to add to their worldly goods. . . .

Never before, in all the annals of the world’s history, did a nation of abject and chattel slaves arise in the terrific might of their resuscitated manhood, and regenerate, redeem, and disenthrall themselves: by taking their station at one gigantic bound, as an independent nation, among the sovereignties of the world.

From A Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self-Government and Civilized Progress, as Demonstrated by Historical Events of the Haytian Revolution by James Theodore Holly, in a lecture given in New Haven, Connecticut on August 1, 1857 (New Haven, Conn.: William H. Stanley, 1857).

Daily Reading for March 15

God, who is the fountain of good, did choose rather to bring good out of evil, than not to suffer any evil to be: not only because variety of accidents and natures do better entertain our affections and move our spirits, who are transported and suffer great impressions by a circumstance, by the very opposition and accidental lustre and eminency of contraries; but also that the glory of the divine providence, in turning the nature of things into the designs of God, might be illustrious, and that may in a mixed condition have more observation, and after our danger and our labour we may obtain a greater reward. For temptation is the opportunity of virtue and a crown: God having disposed us in such a condition, that our virtues must be difficult, our inclinations averse and corrigible, our avocations many, our hostilities bitter, our dangers proportionable; that our labour might be great, our inclinations suppressed and corrected, our intentions be made actual, our enemies be resisted, and our dangers pass into security and honour, after a contestation, and a victory, and a perseverance.

It is every man’s case: trouble is as certainly the lot of our nature and inheritance, and we are so sure to be tempted, that in the deepest peace and silence of spirit oftentimes is our greatest danger: not to be tempted, is sometimes our most subtle temptation. It is certain then, we cannot be secure, when our security is our enemy: but therefore we must do as God himself does, make the best of it, and not be sad at that which is the public portion and the case of all men, but order it according to their intention, place it in the eye of virtue, that all its actions and motions may tend thither, there to be changed into felicities. But certain it is, unless we first be cut and hewn in the mountains, we shall not be fixed in the temple of God; but by incision and contusions our roughnesses may become plain, or our sparks kindled, and we may be either for the temple or the altar, spiritual building or holy fire, something that God shall delight in; and then the temptation was not amiss.

From Discourse V, “On Temptations,” in The Great Exemplar, or The Life of our Ever-blessed Saviour Jesus Christ by Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1859).

Daily Reading for March 16

The first great principle of temptation I shall note, is a general mistake, which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of infirmity, calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined (though by carelessness and evil customs they are heightened to a habit) by the name of sins of infirmity; to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend. If, when they have committed a crime, their conscience checks them and they are troubled, and, during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire, resolve against it, and commit it readily at the next opportunity; then they cry out against the weakness of their nature, and think, as long as this body of death is about them, it must be thus, and that this condition may stand with the state of grace. . . .

Another principle of temptation pregnant with sin, and fruitful of monsters, is a weaker pretence, which less wary and credulous persons abuse themselves withal, pretending as a ground for their confidence and incorrigible pursuance of their courses, that they have a good meaning, that they intend sometimes well, and sometimes not ill, and this shall be sufficient to sanctify their actions, and to hallow their sin. And this is of worse malice, when religion is the colour for a war, and the preservation of faith made the warrant for destruction of charity, and a zeal for God made the false light to lead us to disobedience to man, and hatred of idolatry is the usher of sacrilege, and the defiance of superstition the introducer of profaneness, and reformation made the colour for a schism, and liberty of conscience the way to a bold and saucy heresy; for the end may indeed hallow an indifferent action, but can never make straight a crooked and irregular. . . . For we are the makers of our religion, if we in our zeal for God do what he hath forbidden us. And every sin committed for religion is just such a violence done to it as it seeks to prevent or remedy. . . .

A third principle of temptation is an opinion of prosecuting actions of civility, compliance, and society, to the luxation of a point of piety and stricter duty; and good natures, persons of humane and sweeter dispositions, are too apt to dash upon this rock of offence. But the evil that I would note is, that there are some conditions of men to whom a vice is so accustomed, that he that mingles with them must handle the crime and touch the venom. There are some vices which are national, there are some that are points of honour, some are civilities of entertainment; and they are therefore accounted unavoidable, because the understandings of men are degenerous as their manners, and it is accounted sottish and fantastical not to communicate in their accustomed looseness. . . . To which purposes we must be careful not to engage too freely in looser company, never without business or unavoidable accidents; and when we mingle in affairs, it will concern our safety to watch, lest multitude of talk, goodness, and facility of nature, the delight of company, and the freedom and ill-customed civilities do by degrees draw us away from our guards and retirement of spirit. For in these cases every degree of dissolution disarms us of our strengths: and if we give way so far as we think it tolerable, we instantly and undiscernibly pass into unlawful and criminal. . . . But in all the instances of this great evil, the very stating the question right is above half the victory. For it is a question between mistaken civility and certain duty; piety on one side, and the disguises of humanity on the other. God and man are the parties interested: and to counterpoise the influence of the sight and face of man, there are all the excellencies of God, the effects of his power, his certain presence and omniscience, the severities of his judgment, and the sweetness and invitation of his mercies.

From Discourse V, “On Temptations,” in The Great Exemplar, or The Life of our Ever-blessed Saviour Jesus Christ by Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1859).

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

May the strength of God pilot us.
May the power of God preserve us.
May the wisdom of God instruct us.
May the hand of God protect us.
May the way of God direct us.
May the shield of God defend us.
May the host of God guard us
Against the snares of the evil one
And the temptations of the world.

May Christ be with us
Christ above us
Christ in us
Christ before us.

May thy salvation, O Lord,
Be always ours
This day and for evermore.
Amen.

A prayer attributed to St. Patrick, quoted in Pocket Celtic Prayers compiled by Martin Wallace (London: Church House Publishing, 1999).

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

And lead us not into temptation, O Lord. Is this then what the Lord teaches us to pray, that we may not be tempted at all? How then is it said elsewhere, a man untempted, is a man unproved; and again, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations (James 1:2)? But does perchance the entering into temptation mean the being overwhelmed by the temptation? For temptation is, as it were, like a winter torrent difficult to cross. Those therefore who are not overwhelmed in temptations pass through, showing themselves excellent swimmers, and not being swept away by them at all; while those who are not such, enter into them and are overwhelmed. As for example, Judas having entered into the temptation of the love of money, swam not through it, but was overwhelmed and was strangled both in body and spirit. Peter entered into the temptation of the denial; but having entered, he was not overwhelmed by it, but manfully swam through it, and was delivered from the temptation.

Listen again, in another place, to a company of unscathed saints, giving thanks for deliverance from temptation: You, O God have proved us; You have tried us by fire like as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; You layed afflictions upon our loins. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; and you brought us out into a place of rest. You see them speaking boldly in regard to their having passed through and not been pierced. But You brought us out into a place of rest; now their coming into a place of rest is their being delivered from temptation.

From “On the Mysteries, V: On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion,” Catechetical Lecture 23, by Cyril of Jerusalem.

Daily Reading for March 19 • St. Joseph

Joseph, the practical patron saint of those who work with their hands, from artisans to plumbers, would seem an unlikely dreamer. Daily he crafted the tangible and measurable into the furniture of ordinary life. His eyes had to be keen and his hands strong and steady. His craft demanded that he be bold and cautious at the same time—my woodworking friends tell me that their maxim is “Measure twice and cut once.” Under those hands wood became tables and benches, yokes for oxen, and carts for donkeys. . . .

Joseph, the generous man who broke the rules of his society by saving Mary from disgrace, is a vital part of the story. As he fled Bethlehem from Herod, he took the infant Jesus on his first walk. . . .

As a practical dreamer Joseph is vital to the story, but definitely second string, usually relegated to the background with the focus centered on Mary and her winsome baby. Yet like his namesake in the Book of Genesis, this practical man, a worker with his hands, is still a dreamer. And he clearly trusts his dreams. . . . Matthew tells us he “planned to dismiss her quietly. But the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit’” (Matthew 1:20). I might have been tempted to resist the dream, especially since it called for radical action on my part, or at least to argue with the divine messenger, but Joseph recognized the voice of authority and followed instructions.

From Walking Home: From Eden to Emmaus by Margaret Guenther. Copyright © 2011. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 20 • The Second Sunday in Lent

When Jesus in the wild the conquest won,
Then His prophetic office was begun,
He faithful, no one saving truth conceal’d,
He gracious, the right way to Heaven reveal’d,
Some He exhorted, others He reproved,
Our fears and hopes by threats and blessings moved,
Condemn’d the errors which in public reign’d,
Mysterious types and prophecies explain’d,
Spake things celestial with celestial grace,
All prejudice inveterate to erase. . . .

He, God Incarnate, could the mind inspect,
And with sweet force the heart to God inflect.
His life, from His conception to His grave,
Strong demonstrations of Messiah gave;
Divinity shined bright in all He taught,
God-like benignity in all He wrought;
His miracles He graciously design’d,
To cure, convince, convert, endear mankind.

Eternal Word, who, clothed in human dust,
Didst teach lapsed man the wisdom of the just;
Illustrate by example Thy discourse,
Confirm it by a wonder-working force;
Open my ears, my eyes, my tongue unloose,
Into my heart Thy heavenly truth infuse;
That I Thy praise incessantly may sing,
That love may give my heart a heavenward spring!
That I may never more towards earth propend,
In vigorous, sweet efforts to Thee ascend;
Thy bright idea in my heart encase,
To copy out each imitable grace.

All praise to our great Prophet, by whose light
The world, born blind, receives its ghostly sight;
Glory to Jesus, o’er the mount was heard,
For doctrine, life, and miracles, revered.

From the Lenten hymn “The Life of Jesus” by Thomas Ken, in Bishop Ken’s Christian Year, or Hymns and Poems for the Holy Days and Festivals of the Church (London: B. M. Pickering, 1868).

Daily Reading for March 21 • Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr, 1556

Cranmer was not only a cautious man but a peaceable man. Faced with the necessity of making great changes, he followed Luther in not making greater ones than he could help; moreover, he made them by stages, not all at once. Thus, the 1552 Communion service was the fourth stage in a process which began with the first introduction of English into the Latin Mass in 1547. Similarly, the 1552 services of Morning and Evening Prayer were the fifth stage in a process which began with the first introduction of English into the Latin offices in 1543 and two draft revisions of the Breviary, before the publication of the two Prayer Books.

His concern in proceeding by stages was not simply the concern of the Tudor monarchy for national political unity (though this was doubtless a factor, and even so the 1549 Book provoked a rebellion in the South West), but also a concern for the spiritual unity of the Church. . . . The same twin motives, together with the threat of private revisions, led to the quest for a national uniformity more complete than the growing influence of the Sarum use had hitherto achieved. The possibility cannot be excluded that, had Edward VI lived longer, there would have been yet another stage of liturgical revision. . . .

One reason for Cranmer’s cautious and conservative leanings was the respect for antiquity which comes to expression in his preface “Of Ceremonies” and his controversial writings. He did not, however, cultivate antiquity for its own sake, as some of his successors in liturgical revision were to do. This would have conflicted with his principle of avoiding unnecessary change. The only points at which Cranmer recognized a necessity for change were points where the liturgy had gone astray from scriptural teaching, or was understood in an unscriptural sense, and there indeed antiquity often provided the best model for change. . . . But the Fathers were no absolute norm for Cranmer: he recognized faults in their teaching which were not to be imitated. . . . The combined evidence of his controversial writings, his library and the parliamentary debate on the 1549 Prayer Book show that he knew the liturgical evidence of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, the De Sacramentis, pseudo-Dionysius, Isidore and other of the Fathers, the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, the Mozarabic Missal and the epicleses from the eastern liturgies. As I have written elsewhere, “he certainly knew enough for us to be sure that if he had made the worship of the early church a model for close imitation he would have got much nearer to it than he did. . . .”

All in all, Cranmer was a child of the Renaissance no less than of the Reformation. He was a scholar, learned in the ancients as well as the moderns, but chiefly concerned to follow the Holy Scriptures, as now known in the original tongues. His greatest gifts became apparent when he took a share in the task of reviving English vernacular literature, by creating an English liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer has an originality and power which are often lacking both in Reformation liturgies and in attempts to restore the worship of the primitive Church. His English liturgical style is not the least part of what he accomplished. Though owing something to its Latin antecedents, and sharing the redundancies and antitheses characteristic of existing religious English, it achieves the difficult art of being contemporary without being colloquial, of having dignity without sacrificing vigour, and of expressing fervour without lapsing into sentimentality.

From “Thomas Cranmer after Five Hundred Years” by Roger Beckwith, in Churchman 104:1 (1990).

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

The Holy Eucharist is the doing in the sensible world, by God’s appointment under material forms, what Christ our Head and Chief is ever doing in the spiritual world. There is an earthly altar, and a human priesthood, and bread and wine; but Christ is really present as priest, and offering, and the food of the faithful who feed upon the sacrifice. One would expect that since Christ is in the Eucharist as priest and offering. His human nature, by the presence of which in Heaven He ever pleads for us what once It endured, should also be in the Eucharist; and so we find that He said of the elements: “This is my body which is being given for you.” “This is my blood which is being shed for you.” And again: “He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.”

The controversies of the times compel us to go further than this simple assertion of the presence of Christ. God and man in one person, in the Holy Eucharist, to declare that while we assert our belief in the presence, we refuse to define the mode or manner of the presence.

We do not affirm with the Roman Catholic, that it is by transubstantiation, or the annihilation of the substance of the bread and wine, and the substitution for it of the substance of Christ’s body and blood.

We do not affirm (if there be any who do), that it is by consubstantiation or impanation; namely, that “the substance of the Lord’s body and blood co-exists in union with the substance, of bread and wine, as iron and fire are united in a bar of heated iron.”

We do not affirm that it is by identity of substance, that is, that the substance of the Eucharist is at one and the same time the substance of bread and wine and the substance of Christ’s body and blood.

We refuse to explain away the mystery by saying that the holy elements are mere figures or images or symbols of Christ’s absent body and blood. In short, we accept no device or explanation of human reason, and where Christ and the church have refused to define, we refuse to define also.

The only word which the church has used to express, without defining the fact of the presence, is the word “SACRAMENTAL,” and so I hold that Christ’s human nature is in sacramental union with the consecrated elements. This presence is called REAL, to show that it is no mere figurative or symbolical presence. It is called SPIRITUAL, to show that it is no visible, carnal, material or local presence; “for that which is seen is not real; that which is material is dissoluble; that which is local is but partial.” This presence is also called spiritual, because it is the especial work of God’s Holy Spirit to make Christ’s human nature present, for the third Person of the adorable Trinity has come “not to supply Christ’s absence, but to accomplish His presence.”

Thus whenever and wherever I have asserted that Christ is present “in the elements,” “under the form or species of bread and wine,” I mean thereby that He is there present sacramentally and spiritually, and thus really and truly.

From A Letter from the Rev. James DeKoven, D.D., Warden of Racine College, to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Illinois, in Convention Assembled September 14, 15, 16, 17, A.D. 1875 (Chicago: Mitchell and Hatheway, 1875); found at http://anglicanhistory.org/dekoven/letter1875.html.

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

In Armenian the word that we translate as “worship” is yergeerbakoutyoun. Repeated often in the Divine Liturgy, the word means literally “kissing the ground.” It says a lot about the Armenian understanding of what we do in church. The Armenian Church, like all the ancient Christian churches, worships not only in words, but also in gestures and rituals that express beyond words what we believe about God and our relationship with him. Words and thoughts alone cannot express all that we believe. The entire body and all the senses are involved. Offering incense, standing, raising our arms, bowing down, kneeling, venerating, moving in processions, elevating symbols of our faith, singing, these are the active ways in which we proclaim our faith.

Another word that all of the ancient churches use for “worship” is liturgy [bashdamounk], a word that in Armenian and Greek implies effort. (The same Greek root is found in the word “energy.”) Worship in the Armenian Church is liturgical; it involves effort and energy by the faithful. Though the pews, curtain, and elevated altar might make the Divine Liturgy appear as a performance for an audience to sit and watch, it is not at all a show. In the Armenian Church, all the people officiate, celebrating their salvation by Jesus Christ in the Church. . . .

Consequently, our worship is corporate. It is an undertaking of the Church, the community of people who have been blessed with God’s promises. Although private devotion also has a place in the Christian’s life, Christian faith is always based on a community of people. The first thing Christ did when he began his ministry was to gather a community of followers around him. The major theme of the Divine Liturgy, the Church’s main worship service, is the communion of the faithful of the Church with each other and with Jesus Christ in holy communion. This is why our worship services so often repeat, “Let us commit ourselves and one another to the Lord our God,” and most of our prayers use “we.”

Furthermore, our worship belongs to the entire Church. The Divine Liturgy is not just people saying their own private prayers in the same place at the same time. Worship means a community together in heart, soul and mind, praying to God “with one accord,” “with one mouth,” “with one word,” as our prayers say. So the progression of the liturgy should be known by all, not just the priest, choir director and deacons. In the Armenian Church we do not make the service up as we go along, or substantially change it from week to week. This is so that we can pray together.

From “An Introduction to the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church” by Fr. Daniel Findikyan; found at http://www.armenianchurchlibrary.com/files/introdivineliturgyfindikyan.pdf.

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

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.

What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is the word that, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims and accuses: proclaims to the people God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws—out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity.

This is the hard service of the word. But God’s Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for he is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming his reign to the people of all times.

From a sermon by Oscar Romero, preached at the ordination of two priests, December 10, 1977; quoted in The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero, compiled and translated by James R. Brockman, SJ (Farmington, Pa.: Plough Publishing House, 2007).

Daily Reading for March 25 • The Annunciation

Our Lady was not fifteen years old at the time of the Annunciation. What was the secret which enabled her to translate all this suffering into joy? It was the secret of the twofold love, which our Lord tells us is one and the same: the love of God and the love of man. It is in the Magnificat, that wonderful expression of joy, with which she answered the greeting of her cousin Elizabeth, that our Lady shows this twofold love, and shows how the love of God and the love of man was interlocked in her mind.

If you think of her circumstances at the time, it is astonishing that she should have loved the world as she did, and that she should have felt its sorrows so intensely. She was a country girl who had spent all her life between the temple and a sheltered home. She knew nothing of life in the cities, there was nothing, we would have thought, to fire her imagination with the injustice of the world, nothing to lay its sorrows upon her heart, nothing at all to make any of it a reality to her. Yet clearly, after God, it was the supreme reality.

Today the world’s agony is publicized, exploited, advertised, commercialized. It is thrown in front of our eyes on the screen, it is in the front page news, it is published everywhere in photographs, it is shouted into our ears in every propaganda speech, it is broadcast by the BBC. We cannot possibly avoid knowing it, do what we will. Moreover it is seared and carved on the bodies of the people we meet in the street. Even in London, there are districts where one is abashed by the numbers of mutilated people whom one meets in a single hour. The words of prophecy seem to smite one like a blow: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

How many of us, young or old, really take it to heart, really care at all? How many ask themselves honestly, “What is the root cause of all this? Have I done anything at all to ease one tittle of it? What is the effect of my indifference? Do I want to carry my full share of the weight of the world’s sorrow?” . . .

Our Lady had just such a love for the world—for us! It was that love which made her able to rejoice that her child had come to save the world, cost him and cost her what it must. Her imagination did seize upon our suffering, her heart did go out across the ages to us. Not the politicians of today, but the peasant girl of two thousand years ago knew the root and the remedy for our sorrow . . . because he who now lived in her was the world’s life, and his love would prevail from generation to generation.

From The Mother of Christ by Caryll Houselander (London: Sheed and Ward, 1978).

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

Our blessed Lord has not committed his goods to us as a dead stock, to be hoarded up, or to lie unprofitably in our own hands. He expects that we shall put them out to proper and beneficial uses, and raise them to an advanced value by doing good with them, as often as we have opportunity of laying them out upon the real interest and welfare of his poor children and subjects. By doing acts of mercy and charity, we acknowledge our dependence upon God, and his absolute right to whatever we possess through his bounty and goodness; we glorify him in his creatures, and reverence him by a due and cheerful obedience to his commands. . . .

Some may, perhaps, say, “Well, I have refrained from debauchery, folly and idleness; I have earned my honest penny, and kept it, and laid up a comfortable provision for my family.” Be it so; this is laudable and praiseworthy, and it were to be wished that many more in this country would do so much. But may not such a one be asked, have you been charitable withal? Have you been as industrious in laying up treasures in heaven, as you have been in hoarding up the perishable riches of this world? Have you stretched out your hand, as you had opportunity, beyond the circle of your own house and family? Have your poorer neighbors cause to bless you for your kind and charitable assistance? Have you dedicated any portion of your labors to God, who blessed them, by doing good to any besides your own? Has the stranger, the widow or the fatherless ever tasted of your bounty? If you have never done things of this kind, but have hitherto slighted, overlooked or put off occasions of this sort, your talent, is as yet hid in a napkin, it lies yet buried in the ground, huddled up within yourself. . . .

The love of this world is a heavy weight upon the soul, which chains her down and prevents her flight towards heaven. Habitual acts of charity loosen her from it by degrees, and help her in her struggle to disengage herself and mount upwards. A dying person would give the whole world, were it in his possession, for any rational assurance of acceptance with God, and an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven; why then will any man who knows he must one day die, neglect the insuring it to himself by such works of mercy in his health and strength, as he may be assured will help him to mercy in a dying hour? “Blessed are the merciful,” saith our dear Redeemer, “for they shall obtain mercy.” . . .

To be slow and uneasy at almsgiving, argues a strong distrust in Providence, either that God cannot or will not make up to us what we thus bestow. To suppose he cannot, is to deny his Almighty power and consequently that he is God. To imagine he will not, is to suspect his truth, who has not only promised eternal treasures in heaven, but has also engaged his sure word that he will repay it, even upon earth, as if it were lent to himself. He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth to the Lord, and that which he hath borrowed, he will repay him again. With how great reason did our Saviour so solemnly charge his disciples to beware of covetousness, since we see it borders so nearly upon infidelity.

From The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen by Richard Allen (Philadelphia: F. Ford and M.A. Riply, 1880).

Daily Reading for March 27 • The Third Sunday in Lent

Simplicity means not being complicated, not being double in any way, not deluding oneself or anyone else. The first exercise in simplicity is to accept oneself as one is. There are two tremendous results of this: one is humility; the other is that it enables other people to accept us as we are, and in this there is real charity. People whose demand on others is simple and uncomplicated add to the life of the world. One of the main reasons for devitalization, depression and psychological tiredness is that we make complicated demands on one another. Some people exhaust us. Others make only the slightest demands, and others actually give. . . .

The individual who is simple, who accepts himself as he is, makes only a minimum demand on others in their relations with him. His simplicity not only endows his own personality with unique beauty; it is also an act of real love. This is an example of the truth that whatever sanctifies our own soul at the same time benefits everyone who comes into our life. . . . We cease to want to be rich, successful or popular, and want instead the things that satisfy our deeper instincts: to be at home, to make things with our hands, to have time to see and wonder at the beauty of the earth, to love and to be loved. . . .

To accept oneself as one is; to accept life as it is: these are the two basic elements of childhood’s simplicity and humility. . . we have not the least idea of the miracle of life-giving love that we are. There is no pretence that can approach the wonder of the truth about us, no unreality that comes anywhere near the reality. . . . The acceptance of life as it is must teach us trust and humility.

From “Giving Ourselves Unreservedly to Life” in The Passion of the Infant Christ by Caryll Houselander (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1949).

Daily Reading for March 28 • Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Philippines, and of Western New York, 1929 (transferred)

Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. (Matthew 28:18-20)

I wish I could hear these words for the first time. Familiar as they are, they thrill me with their exultant strength whenever I read them anew. They open up new vistas of hope and happiness, of greatness and immortality, of a world exalted, completed, unified, made Christian wholly and irrevocably. They set their own seal upon their authenticity. Under their spell we move out into life with the joyous sting of certainty goading us on to renewed effort to do the great bidding of winning the nations of the earth to Him. . . .

We are familiar with authority in piecemeal fashion—authority over a nation, an institution, a department. But this is authority over all things seen or unseen. It is the unifying authority for which human life had been waiting. It is final and exercised by Man over man. There is no separation of the religious from the secular in His jurisdiction. It includes in one vast sweep the whole universe. . . .

Jesus chose, so it would appear, an inappropriate, even a foolish, moment in which to make His claim on human life. He was on the edge of His lowest moment of popularity and at the apex of dislike and hatred. He was esteemed in about the degree that a criminal caught red-handed is esteemed by the crowd that have caught him. Further than that, He knew it. He was aware that at that very moment the last little remnant of a following was held by a frayed cord about to snap, that one of His close comrades had already bargained for His life, and that the rest would be like a frightened flock of sheep in a moment, scattered hither and yon, and He would be left alone. This is the hour in which He announces His universal jurisdiction over mankind, the hour for which He has patiently waited—“I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.” The road of loneliness and nakedness was the only road to universal sovereignty.

Having spoken, His voice is stilled in death. He reappears, freshened and strengthened to reiterate His claim and to enlarge it so that it comprehends not only mankind but everything visible and invisible from the cluster of Hercules to the whirling universe of the atom, from the ordered phalanxes of angels and archangels to those splendors which are whispered in the sunset and hidden behind the blue eyes of babyhood.

From “The Authority of Christ,” a sermon preached by Charles Henry Brent at the consecration of the Rt. Rev. E. M. Stires, Bishop of Long Island, in 1926; found at http://www.bestsermons.net/1926/The_Authority_of_Christ.html.

Daily Reading for March 29 • John Keble, Priest, 1866

Sweet Bird! up earliest in the morn,
Up earliest in the year,
Far in the quiet mist are borne
Thy matins soft and clear.

As linnet soft, and clear as lark,
Well hast thou ta’en thy part,
Where many an ear thy notes may reach,
And here and there a heart.

The first snow-wreaths are scarcely gone,
(They stayed but half a day)
The berries bright hang ling’ring on;
Yet thou hast learn’d thy lay.

One gleam, one gale of western air
Has hardly brush’d thy wing;
Yet thou hast given thy welcome fair,
Good-morrow to the spring!

Perhaps within thy carol’s sound
Some wakeful mourner lies,
Dim roaming days and years around,
That ne’er again may rise.

He thanks thee with a tearful eye,
For thou hast wing’d his spright
Back to some hour when hopes were nigh
And dearest friends in sight;

That simple, fearless note of thine
Has pierced the cloud of care,
And lit awhile the gleam divine
That bless’d his infant prayer;

Ere he had known, his faith to blight,
The scorner’s withering smile;
While hearts, he deem’d, beat true and right,
Here in our Christian Isle.

That sunny, morning glimpse is gone,
That morning note is still;
The dun dark day comes lowering on,
The spoilers roam at will;

Yet calmly rise, and boldly strive;
The sweet bird’s early song,
Ere evening fall shall oft revive,
And cheer thee all day long.

Are we not sworn to serve our King?
He sworn with us to be?
The birds that chant before the spring,
Are truer far than we.

“To a Thrush Singing in the Middle of a Village, January 1833” by John Keble, in Miscellaneous Poems, second edition (Oxford: James Parker, 1869).

Daily Reading for March 30 • Innocent of Alaska, Bishop, 1879

Every individual instinctively strives for happiness. This desire has been implanted in our nature by the Creator Himself, and therefore it is not sinful. But it is important to understand that in this temporary life it is impossible to find full happiness, because that comes from God and cannot be attained without Him. Only He, who is the ultimate Good and the source of all good, can quench our thirst for happiness.

Material things can never wholly satisfy us. Indeed, we know from experience that every item we have desired has pleased us only for a short while. Then it became boring, and we started to desire something else. This process of satisfaction and boredom then repeated itself many times. The most striking example of unquenchable thirst for happiness was Solomon, the famous King of Israel, who lived around 1000 B.C. He was so rich that all the household utensils in his palaces were made of pure gold. He was so wise that kings and famous people from far away lands came to hear him. He was so famous that his foes trembled at the mere mention of his name. He could easily satisfy any of his wishes, and it seemed that there was no pleasure that he did not possess or could not obtain. But with all of this, Solomon could not find total happiness to the end of his life. He described his many years of searching for happiness and his continual disappointments in the book of Ecclesiastes, which he began with the following phrase: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity (Ecc. 1:2).

Innumerable other wise people who were also successful in life came to the same conclusion. It seems that in the depth of our subconscious something reminds us that we are just wanderers on this earth and that our true happiness is not here but there, in that other and better world known as Paradise or the Heavenly Kingdom. Let man own the whole world and everything that is in it, yet all this will interest him for no more than a short period, while the immortal soul, thirsting for personal communication with God, will remain unsatisfied.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth in order to return to us our lost capacity to spend eternity in the blissful presence of God. He revealed to people that all their evil lies in sin and that no one through their own efforts can overcome the evil within themselves and attain communion with God. Sin, ingrained in our nature since the fall, stands between us and God like a high wall. If the Son of God had not descended to us through His mercy for us, had not taken on our human nature, and had not by His death conquered sin, all mankind would have perished for ever! Now, thanks to Him, those who wish to cleanse themselves from evil can do so and return to God and obtain eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven.

From Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven by Saint Innocent of Alaska; found at http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/kingdomofheaven.aspx.

Daily Reading for March 31 • John Donne, Priest, 1631

As the Tabernacle of God was, so the Scriptures of God are of this Mosaick work: The body of the Scriptures hath in it limbs taken from other bodies; and in the word of God, are the words of other men, other authors, inlaid and inserted. But, this work is onely where the Holy Ghost is the Workman: It is not for man to insert, to inlay other words into the word of God. It is a gross piece of Mosaick work, to insert whole Apocryphal books into the Scriptures. It is a sacrilegious defacing of this Mosaick work, to take out of Moses tables, such a stone as the second Commandment; and to take out of the Lords Prayer, such a stone as is the foundation-stone, the reason of the prayer, Quia Tuum, For thine is the kingdom, &c. It is a counterfeit piece of Mosaick work, when having made up a body of their Canon-Law, of the rags and fragments torne from the body of the Fathers, they attribute to every particular sentence in that book, not that authority which that sentence had in that Father from whom it is taken, but that authority which the Canonization (as they call it) of that sentence gives it; by which Canonization, and placing it in that book, it is made equal to the word of God. . . . But when the Holy Ghost is the workman, in the true Scriptures, we have a glorious sight of this Mosaick, this various mingled work.

From a Lent sermon preached at White-hall by John Donne on February 20, 1617; found http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2FJohnDonneat