Fenelon: be silent

Sunday, August 17, 2025
Meditation:
“But the LORD is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth be silent before him.”
    —Habakkuk 2:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    How can you expect God to speak in that gentle and inward voice which melts the soul, when you are making so much noise with your rapid reflections? Be silent, and God will speak again.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Selections from Fénelon, ed. Mary Wilder Tileston, Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879, p. 38 (see the book)
    See also Hab. 2:20; Ps. 46:10; 85:8; Zech. 2:13; Heb. 12:25
Quiet time reflection:
    Speak, Lord; Your people are listening. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Coleridge: virtue vs. righteousness

Saturday, August 16, 2025
Meditation:
    Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.
    —1 Timothy 6:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.
    ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Aids to Reflection [1825], London: W. Pickering, 1839, p. 6, fn. (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:20-21; Matt. 5:6,20,48; Acts 17:18; Rom. 1:17; 3:21-24; 4:3; 6:18; 2 Cor. 10:5; Col. 2:8,16-19; 2 Tim. 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the truth of Your word comes first. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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de Sales: unholy attachment

Friday, August 15, 2025
Meditation:
    Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
    —1 John 2:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There must be no dallying with an attachment which is incompatible with the Love of God.
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622), Introduction to the Devout Life [1609], London: Rivingtons, 1876, III.xxi, p. 211 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 2:15-16; John 15:19; Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 7:29-31; 1 Tim. 6:10; Jas. 4:4-5; 1 Pet. 2:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, assist me to discard those things that I hang onto. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Willard: no gimmick

Thursday, August 14, 2025
    Commemoration of Maximilian Kolbe, Franciscan Friar, Priest, Martyr, 1941
Meditation:
    Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
    —Galatians 5:24-26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God’s guidance is not a gimmick that we can keep on tap for our own gain. It is not there to enable us to beat our competitors. We cannot invoke it to help us win bets on football matches or horse races or to prove that something is theologically correct. While it is available to every person who walks with God, it is not at our disposal as we see fit without regard to the purposes of God’s government. Nor should it be, for that would be very dangerous.
    ... Dallas Willard (1935-2013), Hearing God, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999, p. 70 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 5:24-26; Acts 8:9-24; Rom. 8:4-5,26; Jas. 4:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, use me for Your purposes. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Taylor: Don't lie to God

Wednesday, August 13, 2025
    Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667
    Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910
    Commemoration of Octavia Hill, Worker for the Poor, 1912
Meditation:
    The man who says, “I know [Jesus Christ],” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
    —1 John 2:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which, though not observed, is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.
    ... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), The Golden Grove, London: A. Wilson, 1811, p. 50 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 2:4; Ps. 32:5; Pr. 28:13; Acts 19:18; 1 John 1:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep the truth on my tongue. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newman: holding up Christ

Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Meditation:
    Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
    —Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The fashion of the day has been ... to attempt to convert by insisting on conversion; to exhort men to be converted; to tell them to be sure they look at Christ, instead of simply holding up Christ to them; to tell them to have faith, rather than to supply its Object; to lead them to ... work up their minds, instead of impressing upon them the thought of Him who can savingly work in them; to bid them to be sure their faith is justifying, not dead, formal, self-righteous, and merely moral, instead of delineating Him whose image, fully delineated, destroys deadness, formality, self-righteousness; to rely on words, vehemence, eloquence, and the like, rather than to aim at conveying the one great idea, whether in words or not.
    ... John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892, p. 325-326 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:1-2; John 6:40; 9:32-38; Rom. 10:9-11; 1 Cor. 12:3; Heb. 4:14; 1 John 1:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the sight of You cures all my infirmities. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newman: contemplating self instead of Christ

Monday, August 11, 2025
    Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253
    Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890
Meditation:
    When [John] saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
    —John 1:36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A system of doctrine has risen up during the last three centuries, in which faith or spiritual-mindedness is contemplated and rested on as the end of religion, instead of Christ. I do not mean to say that Christ is not mentioned as the author of all good, but that stress is laid rather on the believing than on the object of belief, on the comfort and persuasiveness of the doctrine than on the doctrine itself. And in this way religion is made to consist of contemplating ourselves instead of Christ; not simply in looking to Christ, but in ascertaining that we look to Christ; not in His Divinity and Atonement, but in our conversion and faith in Him... [Continued tomorrow]
    ... John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892, p. 324-325 (see the book)
    See also John 1:23-36; Isa. 45:22; Matt. 10:32; Luke 12:8; Heb. 3:1; 1 Pet. 1:18-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I look upon You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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