Eliot: the Church's unpleasant truths

Tuesday, January 26, 2016
    Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul
    Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963
Meditation:
    But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written:
    “‘The stone that the builders rejected
        has become the cornerstone’?
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
    —Luke 20:17-18 (ESV)
Quotation:
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death, and of all they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
    ... T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), Chorus VI from The Rock [1934], The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1952, p. 106 (see the book)
    See also Luke 20:17-18; 1 Cor. 1:17-25; 1 Pet. 2:6-8
Quiet time reflection:
    We are broken, Lord, on the stone of Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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