For Francis, poverty was the key to the loving, Christ-like life. He looked upon money as a kind of drug, addictive and lethal, to be shunned. Even minimal private property was repulsive to him.
Then the queen asked saint Remi, bishop of Rheims, to summon Clovis secretly, urging him to introduce the king to the word of salvation. And the bishop sent for him secretly and began to urge him to believe in the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and to cease worshipping idols, which could help neither themselves nor any one else.
After various early attempts at a Latin translation of the Bible, in whole or in part, . . . the assignment of bridging the chasm between Latin and the biblical languages in a definitive version fell to Jerome—or, to give him his full proper name, Eusebius Hieronymus—at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century.
Sleight-of-hand magic is based on the demonstrable fact that as a rule people see only what they expect to see. Angels are powerful spirits whom God sends into the world to wish us well. Since we don’t expect to see them, we don’t.
No one can enter into their deepest centre
and pass through that centre into God,
unless they are able to pass entirely out of themselves
The first time I read this parable [of the vineyard owner and his workers], I must admit it struck me as being rampantly unfair. I found myself saying, “But that is not just!” After some reflection, it dawned on me that I was starting at the wrong place.
Andrewes declares that on the mystery of the incarnatio Dei, the incarnation of God, there follows a corresponding mystery, the inspiration hominis, the in-spiration of man. The once for all event of the birth of Christ finds its fulfillment in the ever-renewed process of the coming of the Spirit.
Let us examine one particular aspect of asceticism in the Christian Orthodox spiritual practice, namely fasting. We Orthodox fast from all dairy and meat products for half of the entire year, almost as if in an effort to reconcile one half of the year with the other, secular time with the time of the kingdom.
Drench your thoughts in the streams of scripture and study the example of the saints, then try to live like them. Do all this modestly and let the blossom flourish in your brothers like leaves and flowers on a tree.
Most of those who listened to Matthew’s Gospel in the late first century experienced tough living conditions. Regular food shortages, squalid conditions, hard work, sickness, and poverty marked the life of these followers of Jesus in one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire. . . . The Gospel offers a frequently contestive vision and alternative identity and way of life, even while enmeshed in and imitating imperial values and practices.