The wild goose is a Celtic symbol of God’s Spirit. Hundreds of migrating wild geese alight on Holy Island each year. They include Canadian Brent and Pink-footed geese. A BBC TV programme entitled Hidden Forces stated: ‘We’ve only just begun to unravel some of the magnetic senses which guide the geese across the world.’ Some geese return to a place after over thirty years of absence.
Did I find solace in reading? Yes, but not at first. . . . Isola gave me a book called Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle, and a tedious thing he was—he gave me shooting pains in my head—until I came to a bit on religion.
Lord Jesus, as God’s Spirit came down and rested upon you, may the same Spirit rest upon us, bestowing his sevenfold gifts.
Why some of the Irish and also some of the English differed from the new Roman missionaries about [the date of Easter] was not a matter of alternative symbolism or theology or biblical study, but of calendric calculation.
It is impossible adequately to record amongst the other marks of his devotion, his great compassion and tenderness towards the sick, and even to those afflicted with leprosy. He used to wash and dry their feet and kiss them affectionately, and having refreshed them with food and drink gave them alms on a lavish scale.
Now we need to look at the shadow side of this parable [of the talents]: the third slave who was given only one talent and did not do anything with it. Here is a somber warning without doubt. There are two ways of being unfaithful.
In work, it has always taken courage to follow a unique and individual path exactly, because making our own path takes us off the path, in directions which seem profoundly unsafe. A pilgrimage into the night and the night wind.
Parish worship on the whole continued along pre-Revolutionary lines once the Episcopal Church had organized itself and adopted a Prayer Book. Regional variations persisted. Connecticut’s Bishop Seabury devoted himself energetically to his episcopal ministry, ordaining clergy for New England,
Holiness, Benedict argues, is not something that happens in a vacuum. It has something to do with the way we live our community lives and our family lives and our public lives as well as the way we say our prayers. The life-needs of other people affect the life of the truly spiritual person and they hear the voice of God in that. . . .
Simeon lived to preach. This was unusual at a time when most sermons were dry, learned discourses, memorized word-for-word or read from a manuscript. Many preachers used sermons written by other people, taken from books.