I don’t believe in spiritual formulae anymore. I believe God presents each of us with opportunities for redemption, and we either name them or not, embrace them or not. We can’t anticipate those moments—we can only become ready as best we can and pray for the grace that we will experience God.
The main reason that the Church is unfinished, of course, is that we humans are ourselves perpetually unfinished. We’ve all experienced the sense that there is always something more to learn, to accomplish, to become. It is this “incurable unfinishedness,” as one philosopher calls it, that sets us apart from other living things, because in trying to “finish” ourselves,
We hear much of modern skepticism. There is, perhaps, no more in the world now than there has always been, only its forms have changed. Its answer lies not in argument, but in the lives of Christ’s followers.
I observed many years ago, “It is hard to find words in the language of men, to explain the deep things of God.” Indeed, there are none that will adequately express what the Spirit of God works in His children. But perhaps one might say, (desiring any who are taught of God, to correct, soften, or strengthen the expression), by the testimony of the Spirit, I mean, an inward impression on the soul,
For many centuries, dating back to the ancient Jerusalem liturgy, the Church has singled out stories from John’s Gospel to be read at Mass during Lent. In our era, three of these stories—the most sacred narratives in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ public ministry—appear on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent.
Christ hear us, sovereign Lord,
lest I should suffer some oppression;
lamb-lion, alpha and omega,
god-man eternally true,
redeeming king you must dispense
true council to us against death. . . .
True progress is never made by spasms. Real progress is growth. It must begin in the seed. Then, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” There is something to encourage and inspire us in the advancement of individuals since their emancipation from slavery.
Anna Julia Cooper, the widow of an Episcopal priest and a teacher at St. Augustine’s College in North Carolina, was an important supporter of [Alexander] Crummell’s efforts to foster racial uplift. Cooper, who was born in slavery, emphasized the value of education, religion, and proper conduct in assisting the rise of black women and men in the South.
Herbert had a particular fondness for the imagery of bees and herbs. Bees represent productive lives not least when Herbert expresses his deep desire to serve God usefully (‘Employment I’) or when he laments his spiritual weakness (‘Praise I’).
Two old men had lived together for many years and they had never fought with one another. The first said to the other, “Let us also have a fight like other men.” The other replied, “I do not know how to fight.”