The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, that you may plainly recognize both God and man. More delightful than gold and precious stones,
My return, which at first had been hesitant and tentative, grew wholehearted and sure. I had come back to stay. I hoped to live here the rest of my life. And once that was settled I began to see the place with a new clarity and a new understanding and a new seriousness. Before coming back I had been willing to allow the possibility—which one of my friends insisted on—that I already knew this place as well as I ever would.
A study of James is indeed a study of the growth of the early Christian church as seen from the perspective of Jewish Christianity. James was the historical link between “his brother” Jesus and the emerging Christian church.
Somewhere deep in our hearts we already know that success, fame, influence, power, and money do not give us the inner joy and peace we crave. Somewhere we can even sense a certain envy of those who have shed all false ambitions and found a deeper fulfillment in their relationship with God. Yet, somewhere we can even get a taste of that mysterious joy in the smile of those who have nothing to lose.
A nineteenth-century teacher in the Celtic world, Alexander Scott, used the analogy of royal garments. Apparently in his day, royal garments were woven through with a costly thread, a thread of gold. And if somehow the golden thread were taken out of the garment, the whole garment would unravel.
The manner in which our Hindu friends recommend the gospel to others is very pleasing. They speak of the love of Christ in suffering and dying, and this appears to be all in all with them. Their conversation with others is somewhat like the following. A man says, “Well, Krishnu, you have left off all the customs of your ancestors;
There is no way for me to speak objectively of St. Luke or of his feast day. I live with a physician, have spent almost 75 percent of my life with him, and plan to spend 100 percent of its remainder with him.
Converting spoken prayer to doing prayer may start with the need to accompany words by moving the body: bowing again and again while reading Torah, my kneeling and standing in church, a nun bending to light votive candles, an elderly couple raising their hands and arms during praise, or your walking through the dark, ferny woods as you recite the Jesus prayer.
You may already be doing prayer.
Be ye zealous to do all things in godly concord, the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons also who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the worlds and appeared at the end of time.
N. Ridley
The causes that move me to abstain from the mass, be these:
I. It is done in a strange tongue, which the people doth not understand, contrary to the doctrine of the apostle.