The most celebrated of the Mozbieker cultural brokers from the Western Cape is surely Bernard Mizeki, the Anglican missionary martyred during the Shona uprising of 1896. Mizeki was born as Mamiyeri Mizeki Gwambe near Inhambane in about 1860. He came to Cape Town, via Lourenço Marques, some sixteen years later under the Government labour importation scheme run by Monteiro.
Being attentive to God in prayer does not eliminate the distractions and conflicts of life, nor the hard work and responsibilities we share with so many others, but it does put these experiences solidly within the perspective of our relationship with God. We sort them out by looking at the reality of God and respond to them as we are able to discern God’s desires for the world.
In general a man ought not to do other people’s duty for them; for their duty was appointed them for their exercise; and besides, who will do it in case of his death?
The narrow limits within which even the physical world is accessible to us might warn us of the folly of drawing negative conclusions about the world that is not seen. We cannot penetrate far into the reality of any life other than our own.
Yes, it is true: a mustard seed is indeed an image of the kingdom of God. Christ is the kingdom of heaven. Sown like a mustard seed in the garden of the virgin’s womb, he grew up into the tree of the cross whose branches stretch across the world. Crushed in the mortar of the passion, its fruit has produced seasoning enough for the flavoring and preservation of every living creature with which it comes in contact.
The titles given to the Holy Spirit must surely stir the soul of anyone who hears them, and make one to realize that they speak of nothing less than the supreme Being. Is he not called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, the steadfast Spirit, the guiding Spirit? But his principal and most personal title is the Holy Spirit.
For our ancestors who built nations and cultures; who thrived and prospered long before the coming of strangers; for the forfeit of their lives, their homes, their lands, and their freedoms sacrificed to the rise of new nations and new worlds.
The only reason that the twelve were willing to have a face-to-face meeting with Saul at all was that their major contributor, the “son of encouragement,” vouched for him. Luke does not offer a reason why Barnabas suddenly appeared, nor why he stood up for Saul. It really does not matter. The fact is there probably would be no “apostle Paul” if Barnabas the encourager, Barnabas the steward of others, had not stood up for him.
Part of the interest in the salvific potential of textuality resulted from the affirmation of embodiment through the incarnation. Bodies were analogous to texts, a theme already explored in the hymns of the Syriac poet Ephrem.
For indeed after the lapse of many years, when St. Columba was excommunicated by a certain synod for some pardonable and very trifling reasons, and indeed unjustly, as it afterwards appeared at the end, he came to the same meeting convened against himself.