Nicolas of Cusa: pity

Saturday, January 13, 2024
    Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367
    Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603
Meditation:
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.
    —Psalm 121:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    With Thee, ’tis one to behold and to pity. Accordingly, Thy mercy followeth every man so long as he liveth, whithersoever he goeth, even as Thy glance never quitteth any.
    ... Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), The Vision of God [1453], tr., Emma Gurney Salter, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1928, p. 21 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 121:3-8; 127:1; Isa. 40:11; Matt. 6:26; 10:29-31; 14:14; 15:32; Mark 6:34; Luke 9:10-11; 2 Cor. 8:9; Heb. 2:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am safe in Your hands. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the motive of creation

Friday, January 12, 2024
    Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167
    Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689
Meditation:
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
    —Psalm 139:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that he may love and perfect them.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1960, p. 140 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 139:14; Gen. 1:26-28; Job 41:10-11; Ps. 90:2; John 5:26; Acts 17: 24-25; 1 John 4:10; Rev. 4:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit is perfecting each of Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Weil: remission of debts

Thursday, January 11, 2024
    Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
    —Matthew 6:12 (KJV)
Quotation:
    To remit debts is to renounce our own personality. It means renouncing everything that goes to make up our ego, without any exception. It means knowing that in the ego there is nothing whatever, no psychological element, that external circumstances could not do away with. It means accepting that truth. It means being happy that things should be so.
    The words “Thy will be done” imply this acceptance, if we say them with all our soul. That is why we can say a few moments later: “We forgive our debtors.”
    ... Simone Weil (1909-1943), Waiting for God, Emma Craufurd, tr., Putnam, 1951, p. 224 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:12; Ps. 32:1; 130:4; Matt. 6:10,14-15; 18:21-22; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37; 11:4; 17:3-5; Acts 13:38; Eph. 1:7; 4:32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, change my heart so that I may forgive my debtors. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gordon: Thy will be done

Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
    —Matthew 6:10 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Prayer is insistence upon God’s will being done. It needs for its practice a man in sympathetic touch with God. Its basis is Jesus’ victory. It overcomes the opposing will of the great traitor-leader.
    ... Samuel Dickey Gordon (1859-1936), Quiet Talks on Prayer, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1904, p. 124 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:10; Ps. 40:8; 103:19-21; Matt. 7:21; 12:50; 26:42; Mark 3:35; John 4:34; 6:40; Rom. 12:2; Col. 1:13-14; Heb. 13:20-21; 1 Pet. 4:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your will soon be accomplished in Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: discipleship and joy

Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Meditation:
    May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    —Romans 15:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 38 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 15:5-6; Matt. 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 16:24; 19:21; 28:8; Mark 1:17; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Luke 5:27; 9:23; 14:27; 18:22; John 1:43; 12:26; 1 Cor. 14:1; Tit. 3:4-7; 2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Pet. 2:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people rejoice in Your service. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Elliot: to touch His garment

Monday, January 8, 2024
    28th anniversary of CQOD
    Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Ecuador, 1956
Meditation:
    Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
    Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.
    —Matthew 9:20-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes—ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.
    ... Jim Elliot (1927-1956), The Journals of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot, Revell, 1990, p. 309 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 9:20-22; Ps. 19:1; Dan. 7:13-14; Luke 2:29-32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant the vision of Your unveiled presence to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stott: worshiping in spirit

Sunday, January 7, 2024
Meditation:
    [Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well:] “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
    —John 4:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Instead of worshiping God “in spirit” (recognizing that he is spirit himself and asks for spiritual worship), idolaters become preoccupied with external, visible, and tangible objects. Even the worship of the people of Israel had a constant tendency to degenerate into formalism and even blatant hypocrisy. The seventh and eighth century [B.C.] prophets were scathing in their denunciation of Israel’s empty religion, and Jesus applied their criticism to the Pharisees of his own day: “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’” So whatever outward forms we may use in Christian worship (liturgies, processions, drama, ritual, kneeling or raising our arms), we need to ensure that they escape the charge of idolatry by passing the double test of being “in spirit and in truth.”
    ... John R. W. Stott (1921-2011), Basic Christianity, Nottingham, U.K.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008, third edition, p. 94-95 (see the book)
    See also John 4:23-24; Isa. 1:13-17; 29:13-14; Amos 5:21-24; Mark 7:6-7; John 1:17; Rom. 8:15,26; Gal. 4:6; Col. 3:5; Jude 1:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give me the discernment to embrace truth and reject the counterfeit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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