Maurice: what we truly are

Saturday, June 11, 2011
    Feast of Barnabas the Apostle
Meditation:
    [Peter:] “When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”
    —Acts 3:26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    “The Bible,” we are told sometimes, “gives us such a beautiful picture of what we should be.” Nonsense! It gives us no picture at all. It reveals to us a fact; it tells us what we really are; it says, This is the form in which God created you, to which He has restored you; this is the work which the Eternal Son, the God of Truth and Love, is continually carrying on within you.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), The Prayer-Book and the Lord’s Prayer, London: Macmillan, 1880, p. 221 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have restored Your image in Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the moral test

Friday, June 10, 2011
Meditation:
    For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
    —2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This, indeed, is probably one of [God’s] motives for creating a dangerous world—a world in which moral issues really come to the point. He sees... that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Screwtape Letters, Macmillan, 1944, p. 148 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me courage that I may not fail You in the test. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: Why do the nations rage?

Thursday, June 9, 2011
    Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597
    Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373
Meditation:
    [The LORD to Abram:] “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
    —Genesis 12:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    All that is great on earth is united together; the learned, the wise, the kings. The first write; the second condemn; the last kill. And notwithstanding all these oppositions, these [disciples], simple and weak, resist all these powers, subdue even these kings, these learned men and these sages, and remove idolatry from all the earth. And all this is done by the power which had foretold it.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #783, p. 277 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have fulfilled Your promises. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: the message of professionalism

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
    Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711
    Commemoration of Roland Allen, Mission Strategist, 1947
Meditation:
    If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.
    —1 Corinthians 9:17-18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is almost universally taken for granted that missionary work is the work of a paid professional class, and that the utmost that can be expected of those who do not belong to this class is to support those who do; and even that is not expected of the majority. Missionary societies began their crusade, not by striving to call out the spirit of Christian men whose occupation carried them abroad, not by trying to impress upon the Church at home that Christ calls all His people to witness for Him wherever they may be, wherever they may go, but by creating an army of professional missionaries. The whole system of societies, boards, offices, accounts, contracts with missionaries, statistical returns, reports, reeks of it. From every missionary society there goes out every day and all day into every part of the world with one insistent, unceasing voice the proclamation, that the Gospel must be preached in all the world, and that it must be preached by special agents maintained by a society for this particular work.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It, London: World Dominion Press, 1949, reprint, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1997, p. 145-146 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have called me to Your service. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newman: faith

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Meditation:
    To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
    —Titus 1:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Faith is illuminative, not operative; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin. The will is the source of action.
    ... John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Lectures on certain difficulties felt by Anglicans in submitting to the Catholic Church, London: Burns & Lambert, 1850, p. 236 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, correct my will, that I might not sin against You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Trueblood: contents of the church

Monday, June 6, 2011
    Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945
Meditation:
    While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
    On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    —Matthew 9:10-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The more we study the early Church, the more we realize that it was a society of ministers. About the only similarity between the Church at Corinth and a contemporary congregation, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is that both are marked, to a great degree, by the presence of sinners.
    ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Incendiary Fellowship, New York: Harper, 1967, p. 39 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I must be counted among the sinners who need Jesus. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Smith: the feasts and the fasts

Sunday, June 5, 2011
    Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754
Meditation:
    My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
    —James 2:1-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The observances of the Church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well kept, upon the whole, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor keep the fasts.
    ... Sydney Smith (1771-1845), quoted in A Sketch of the Life and Times of the Rev. Sydney Smith, Stuart Johnson Reid, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1884, p. 127-128 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am rich, and I am ashamed of my attitude—deliver me from the sin of discrimination. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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