Bonhoeffer: participate in the sufferings of God

Sunday, September 27, 2026
    Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660
Meditation:
    Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
    —Colossians 1:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Man is challenged to participate in the sufferings of God at the hands of a godless world.
    He must therefore plunge himself into the life of a godless world, without attempting to gloss over its ungodliness with a veneer of religion or trying to transfigure it. He must live a ‘worldly’ life and so participate in the suffering of God. He may live a worldly life as one emancipated from all false religions and obligations. To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to cultivate some particular form of asceticism (as a sinner, a penitent, or a saint), but to be a man. It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison, London: Macmillan, 1962, p. 174 (see the book)
    See also Col. 1:24; Matt. 5:11; Acts 5:41; Rom. 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 2:17; 1 Thess. 2:14-16; Heb. 2:18; 5:8-10; 1 Pet. 2:21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am Your servant to use in the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Barclay: redemptive Christianity

Saturday, September 26, 2026
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
    —John 3:7-8 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It is fatally easy to think of Christianity as something to be discussed and not as something to be experienced. It is certainly important to have an intellectual grasp of the orb of Christian truth; but it is still more important to have a vital, living experience of the power of Jesus Christ. When a man undergoes treatment from a doctor, he does not need to know ... the way in which the drug works on his body in order to be cured. There is a sense in which Christianity is like that. At the heart of Christianity there is a mystery, but it is not the mystery of intellectual appreciation; it is the mystery of redemption.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John, v. 1, Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1965, p. 123 (see the book)
    See also John 3:7-8; Matt. 9:5-6; 16:2-4; Mark 2:17; Luke5:31-32; Acts 2:4,41
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, life is a mystery, yet You are there in the midst of it. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Andrewes: What will move you?

Friday, September 25, 2026
    Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
    Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392
Meditation:
    When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
    —Mark 6:34 (ESV)
Quotation:
    What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. Will duty? Here is a Person never the like. Will fear? Here is wrath never the like. Will remorse? Here are sins never the like. Will kindness? Here is love never the like. Will bounty? Here are benefits never the like. Will all these? Here they be all, ... all in the highest degree.
    ... Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), preached April 6, 1604, “Sermon on Good Friday”, in Ninety-six Sermons, v. II, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841, p. 154 (see the book)
    See also Mark 6:34; Matt. 5:7; 21:12,13; Luke 6:34,35; 11:37-54
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your mercy is beyond all that I can comprehend. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tournier: personal language

Thursday, September 24, 2026
Meditation:
    Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
    —Matthew 13:10-13 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. In them the Ancients personified living realities—intelligence, beauty, love, or lust, which are still at work in our hearts, and which fashion our person. The language they speak is that of image and myth, which touches the person much more directly than the explicit language of science and the intellectual dialectic of the modern world. It is also the language of the Bible, of the parables of Christ, which the rationalist of today finds it so difficult to understand, of the Word of God which demands of us not a discussion but a personal decision.
    ... Paul Tournier (1898-1986), The Meaning of Persons, New York: Harper, 1957, p. 132 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:10-13; 25:29; Luke 8:18; John 15:2-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I not shrink from the demands of Your parables. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jowett: right listening

Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Meditation:
    If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
    —Mark 4:23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    When a man listens to the voice of the tempter within him, he is inclined to do as others do, not to resist when the temptation seems great. But when he looks into the law of God and hears the words of Christ, his natural sense of right and wrong is restored to him, and he becomes elevated, purified, sanctified.
    ... Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, London: John Murray, 1901, p. 259 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:23; Matt. 11:15; Mark 4:9; 1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Tim. 4:13; Heb. 2:18; Rev. 2:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Speak Your law into my heart, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: what would Abraham do?

Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
    They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.”
    —John 8:37-40 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Because they were prejudiced against the meanness of our Saviour’s birth and condition, and had upon false grounds (though, as they thought, upon the infallibility of tradition, and of Scripture interpreted by tradition) entertained quite other notions of the Messiah from what he was really to be; because they were proud, and thought themselves too wise to learn of him: and because his doctrine of humility, and self-denial, did thwart their interest, and bring down their authority and credit among the people; therefore they set themselves against him with all their might, opposing his doctrine, and blasting his reputation and persecuting him to the death; and all this while did bear up themselves with a conceit of the antiquity and privileges of their church, and their profound knowledge in the laws of God, and a great external show of piety and devotion, and an arrogant presence and usurpation of being the only church and people of God in the world.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. IV, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon LXXXII, p. 524-525 (see the book)
    See also John 8:37-40; 5:39-40; 16:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, prevent me from using You to my own ends. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allshorn: shallow comfort

Monday, September 21, 2026
    Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist
Meditation:
    On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
    —John 7:37-38 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We religious leaders need to look very much more deeply. We can so easily have talks with people, and they can say we have helped, write us grateful letters, even stand steady for a time till the juice we have put into them has run out; but, we may have brought them no hunger for God (because that hunger is no ache in our own heart) nor [brought them] anywhere near to the end of self.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn, London: SCM Press, 1957, p. 23 (see the book)
    See also John 7:37-38; Ps. 42:1-2; 63:1-2; 84:1-2; 143:6-7; Isa. 26:8-9; 44:3; 59:21; John 4:14; 6:51; Gal. 5:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to point others to the Living Bread and the Living Water. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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