van Dyke: time

Saturday, August 3, 2019
Meditation:
    Love is patient...
    —1 Corinthians 13:4a (NIV)
Quotation:
    Time is
    Too Slow for those who Wait,
    Too Swift for those who Fear,
    Too Long for those who Grieve,
    Too Short for those who Rejoice;
        But for those who Love,
            Time is not.
    ... Henry van Dyke (1852-1933), The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1920, p. 259 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 13; 2 Cor. 5:14; Gal 5:6; 1 Thess. 1:3; 1 John 3:14; 4:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may never begrudge time to one in need. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brogan: the godless establishment

Friday, August 2, 2019
Meditation:
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the LORD.
    —Lamentations 3:25-26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [In nineteenth-century America] religion became a matter of conduct, of good deeds, of works, with only a vague background of faith. It became highly functional, highly pragmatic; it became a guarantee of success, moral and material... “The proper study of mankind is man,” [Alexander Pope (1688-1744), An Essay on Man] was the evasion by which many American divines escaped the necessity for thought about God.
    ... Denis Brogan (1900-1974), The American Character, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1944, p. 102 (see the book)
    See also Lam. 3:25-26; Ps. 1:1-3; 104:34; 119:11,15,97-99; Josh. 1:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have caused me to hunger for knowledge of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: two kinds of men

Thursday, August 1, 2019
Meditation:
    When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
    On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    —Mark 2:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #534, p. 174 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:16-17; Matt. 9:11-12; Luke 5:30-32; 15:7; 16:14-15; Rom. 3:10-20; 5:20
Quiet time reflection:
    You have shown me my unrighteousness, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: giving oneself up in love

Wednesday, July 31, 2019
    Commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, 1556
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
    —John 12:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The “good” man, the man whose god is righteousness, has as his life’s ambition the keeping of rules and commandments and the keeping of himself uncontaminated by the world. This sounds admirable, but, as the truth of Christ showed, the whole of such living, the whole drive and ambition, the whole edifice, is self-centred. That entire process of effort must be abandoned if a man is to give himself in love to God and his fellows. He must lose his life if he is ever going to find it.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), When God was Man, London: Lutterworth Press:, 1954, p. 40 (see the book)
    See also John 12:25; Matt. 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:23-24; 17:33; Acts 20:24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I abandon my life to Your purposes. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wilberforce: training up

Tuesday, July 30, 2019
    Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833
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)
    See also Ex. 10:1-2; Num. 15:38-39; Deut. 6:6-7; Ps. 34:11; Pr. 22:6; Eph. 6:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may these children, _____ and _____, grow up to know and serve You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maurice: the desire for unity

Monday, July 29, 2019
    Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord
Meditation:
    [Jesus praying:] I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
    —John 17:22-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The desire for unity has haunted me all my life through; I have never been able to substitute any desire for that, or to accept any of the different schemes for satisfying it which men have desired.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice: Chiefly Told in His Own Letters, v. 1, ed. John Frederick Maurice, London: Macmillan, 1885, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also John 17:22-23; Ps. 133:1; Matt. 23:8; Rom. 15:5-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, only Your hand can unite Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stravinsky: God and music

Sunday, July 28, 2019
    Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750
Meditation:
Sing for joy to God our strength;
    shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
Begin the music, strike the tambourine,
    play the melodious harp and lyre.
    —Psalm 81:1,2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church knew what the Psalmist knew: music praises God. Music is as well or better able to praise Him than the building of a church and all its decoration; it is the Church’s greatest ornament.
    ... Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Conversations with Igor Stravinsky [1958], Robert Craft, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1959, p. 141 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 81:1-2; 33:3; 95:1-2; 96:1; 140:1; Isa. 42:10; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Jas. 5:13; Rev. 5:9-12
Quiet time reflection:
    My heart sings Your praises, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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