But since, I am not over sanguine to hope for any publick Funds for the PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, either in this, or the other Colonies: And my great hopes are from the pious Clergy themselves, and such particular Persons amongst the devout Laity, whose Hearts are inflamed with a Love of God, and of those Souls which he has purchased with his own Blood:
When the time came for him to set out from this world to the peace of his heavenly homeland, [Cyril] prayed to God with his hands outstretched and his eyes filled with tears: “O Lord, my God, you have created the choirs of angels and spiritual powers; you have stretched forth the heavens and established the earth, creating all that exists from nothing.
I thought I would stop in Philadelphia a week or two. I preached at different places in the city. My labour was much blessed. I soon saw a large field open in seeking and instructing my African brethren, who had been a long forgotten people and few of them attended public worship. I preached in the commons, in Southwark, Northern Liberties, and wherever I could find an opening.
So we are faced each day with the terrible temptation, the powerful pull of two forces: our need and enjoyment of goods that are of this world, and our need for the good that is not. We need both. For we cannot live by bread alone; we do not live without it either. How can we face that temptation?
Temptation does not usually come when we are ready for it. It does not come when we are strongest, when we are at our best. It comes when we are weak. It came to Jesus when he was hungry, very hungry. . . .
There are so many difficulties in life that we seem to be engaged in a daily battle just to keep from going under. We struggle to keep on top of our job, maintain our household, take care of our children, cope with bad health, homework, and money problems.
When the season of Lent is at hand, it is observed in the following manner. Now whereas with us the forty days preceding Easter are observed, here they observe the eight weeks before Easter. This is the reason why they observe eight weeks:
The perennial question, centuries old and ever new, harries us: What is the spiritual life? How do we develop it? Is it real? Is it possible? Is it even desirable? Isn’t earth about earth and heaven time enough for heaven?
If prayer is something important to us, then much more of our time will be directed to trying to bring about possible conditions for prayer than to actually doing it. I have several times compared the act of prayer with the act of writing, and here once again the comparison holds true.
Lent is not a temporary affectation of gloom or a brisk interlude for self-improvement. It is for being in the wilderness, which means stopping long enough to recognize the truth of our inertia and faithlessness. This deadness inside is a fact. On Ash Wednesday we are called first to face this fact—but then what? What shall we do?