Love for God cannot be separated from love of neighbor. Jesus calls us to love God through our neighbor—by visiting prisoners, by hospitality to strangers, by actions that ostensibly give us no reward at the end of a long day’s work. Jesus seems idealistic at best. When we look around and see others prospering through violence or greed, most of us pay little attention to God’s love. How can we?
Repentance itself is nothing else but a kind of circling; to return to him by repentance, from whom by sin we have turned away. This circle consists of two things. These two things need to be in two different movements. One is done with the whole heart, while the other is broken and torn. So both things cannot happen at the same time.
January 1-8, 1812. Spared by mercy to see the beginning of another year. The last has been in some respects a memorable year; transported in safety to Shiraz, I have been led by the particular providence of God to undertake a work, the idea of which never entered my mind till my arrival here, but which has gone on without material interruption,
The third Evangelist is Luke, who was a physician in the world,
and dwelt with the apostles, and with Paul afterward,
serving the Almighty without any sin
in a pure life, ever without a wife, filled with God’s Spirit,
There are some who think frequent Communion apt to produce too great familiarity, and consequently abate of the reverence with which we should approach the dreadful Mysteries: ’tis true, familiarity amongst men, creates many times contempt; because the more we are acquainted with one another, the more we discover our infirmities and defects, and that lessens our esteem.
Oh, dear brother, seeing the time is now come when it pleaseth the heavenly Father, for Christ our Saviour his sake, to call upon you, and to bid you come, happy are you that ever you were born, thus to be awake at the Lord’s calling. O dear brother, what meaneth this, that you are sent into your own native country?
I would advise those who give themselves to prayer, particularly at first, to form friendships; and converse familiarly, with others who are doing the same thing. It is a matter of the last importance, even if it lead only to helping one another by prayer: how much more, seeing that it has led to much greater gain!
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, who had lived in Peking for several years laying the foundations of a deep knowledge of the Chinese language, was elected Bishop of Shanghai in 1875, after Bishop Williams’ withdrawal to Japan. He declined the bishopric at first, but yielded his wish when elected a second time in 1876.
In its loving description of the most ordinary events like sleeping and the most ordinary objects like knives, the Rule of St. Benedict invites a rich way of seeing. Your hours of sleep continue the rhythm of the Rule, made holy by the act of consecration of your life to God. Your trip to the supermarket is a pilgrimage.
The truth of universal force is recognized by science as a physical fact; it becomes in poetry a spiritual law. It follows that the delight of the poets centres no longer in permanent scenes, but dwells rather on those constantly shifting and successive manifestations of power which forever struggle to shadow forth to us the ideal beauty that lies beyond our senses’ ken.