Fenelon: God's love

Saturday, October 6, 2012
    Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536
Meditation:
    Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
    —Hebrews 12:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God never strikes but in love, nor takes away save to give again. I pray Him to comfort you, to preserve your health, and to turn your heart wholly to Himself. Blessed is he who lives in faith, trusts to none save God, and uses this world as though he were already beyond it.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fénelon. Letters to men, London: Rivingtons, 1877, p. 259 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the faith to endure. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tolstoy: freedom

Friday, October 5, 2012
Meditation:
    Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
    —2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him.
    ... Lyof N. Tolstoy (1828-1910), The Kingdom of God is Within You [1894], in The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi, v. XIV, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1899, p. 196 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your redemption is freely available. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Francis of Assisi: prayer

Thursday, October 4, 2012
    Feast of Francis of Assisi, Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor, 1226
Meditation:
    In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
    —Romans 6:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    May the fiery and sweet strength of Thy love, I pray Thee, O my Lord, absorb my soul, and make all things under heaven as nothing unto me, that for the love of Thy love I may die, as Thou didst deign to die for love of mine. Amen.
    ... St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), The Writings of Saint Francis of Assisi, Paschal Robinson, tr., Dolphin Press, 1906, p. 144 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may You purge sin from my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the poem itself

Wednesday, October 3, 2012
    Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896
    Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958
Meditation:
But God made the earth by his power;
    he founded the world by his wisdom
    and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
    —Jeremiah 10:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Miracles, New York: Macmillan, 1947, p. 212 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I see Your hand behind all that is. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wilberforce: training up

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Meditation:
    Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
    —Ephesians 6:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In an age wherein it is confessed and lamented that infidelity abounds, do we observe in [Christians] any remarkable care to instruct their children in the principles of faith which they profess, and to furnish them with arguments for the defense of it? They would blush, on their child’s coming out into the world, to think him defective in any branch of that knowledge, or of those accomplishments, which belong to his station in life; and accordingly these are cultivated with becoming assiduity. But he is left to collect his religion as he may: the study of Christianity has formed no part of his education; and his attachment to it, where any attachment to it exists at all, is, too often, not the preference of sober reason and conviction, but merely the result of early and groundless prepossession.
    ... William Wilberforce (1759-1833), A Practical View, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1829, p. 76 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may these children, _____ and _____, grow up to know and serve You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Barth: faith from God

Monday, October 1, 2012
    Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533
    Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, 1897
Meditation:
    “... if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
    “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
    Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
    —Mark 9:22-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To speak as men, we can only say that we do not learn faith, never will learn faith, neither from ourselves nor under the stress of fate and evil times. Faith comes from God each moment, and when it comes we can say nothing else, astonished and perplexed, but: “I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief!”
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), from “The Name of the Lord”, in Come Holy Spirit: Sermons, New York: Round Table Press, 1933, reprint, Mowbrays, 1978, p. 33 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, increase my faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: the best of the ungodly

Sunday, September 30, 2012
Meditation:
Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath,
    but righteousness delivers from death.
    —Proverbs 11:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is, indeed, or at least there hath been, much good, useful good, done by others, on various convictions and for various ends; but there is one flaw or other in all they do. Either superstition, or vain-glory, or selfishness, or merit, or one thing or other, gets into all the good that is done by unholy persons, and brings death into the pot; so that although it may be of some use in particulars, unto individual persons, in some seasons, it is of none unto the general good of the whole. He that bears the likeness of God, and in all that he doth acts from that principle, he alone is truly useful, represents God in what he doth, and spoils it not by false ends of his own.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), V.1 in A Discourse Concerning Holy Spirit, bk. I-V [1674], in Works of John Owen, v. III, London: Johnson & Hunter, 1852, p. 583-584 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant a true heart of charity within me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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