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The date of the Feast of the Epiphany relates to the custom of celebrating the Feast of the Nativity of Christ in the winter solstice. The north European pre-Christian tradition of celebrating the birth of the Sun on 25 December differed from the Mediterranean and Eastern tradition of observing 6 January as the solstice. As often happens, the two dates merged into a beginning and an end of the same celebration. The Western Church adopted ‘the twelve days of Christmas’ climaxing on the eve of Epiphany, or ‘Twelfth Night’. The implication by the fifth century was that this was the night on which the Magi arrived. The complications of dating became even more confused with the change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar in the West, the Eastern Church refusing to participate in the change. So the Feast of the Epiphany remains the chief day of celebrating the incarnation in Orthodox Churches.

Proper readings focusing on the traditional themes of the feast, namely, the arrival of the Magi and the mystical significance of their gifts, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the miracle at Cana of Galilee – ‘the first of the signs that revealed his glory’ – are provided for The Epiphany and for the days that follow until the Sunday after the feast which is observed as The Baptism of Christ. If, for pastoral reasons, the celebration of the Epiphany is transferred to the Sunday between 2 and 8 January, then the provision of readings will need to be supplemented with unused material from the Christmastide section.

The subtitle of the Feast of the Epiphany in The Book of Common Prayer – ‘The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles’ – reminds us that, from the moment of the incarnation, the good news of Jesus Christ is for all: Jew and Gentile, the wise and the simple, male and female. The readings throughout the season resonate with this truth, celebrating the universality of God’s love, particularly as exemplified in the call of the disciples and in the public ministry of Jesus; and in the mission of the Church to embody it.

The season culminates on 2 February with The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly known as Candlemas. According to St Luke, the occasion of Mary’s ritual purification was made memorable by Simeon the High Priest acclaiming the Christ-child as ‘the light of the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel’. Recent liturgical revision has restored the feast to its pivotal place in the calendar. It now forms the finale of the incarnational cycle and turns our attention towards the forthcoming passion.

The Epiphany

A Reading from a sermon of Peter Chrysologos, Bishop of Ravenna

In the mystery of our Lord’s incarnation there were clear indications of his eternal Godhead. Yet the great events we celebrate today disclose and reveal in different ways the fact that God himself took a human body. Mortals, enshrouded always in darkness, must not be left in ignorance, and so be deprived of what they can understand and retain only by grace.

In choosing to be born for us, God chose to be known by us. He therefore reveals himself in this way, in order that this great sacrament of his love may not be an occasion for us of great misunderstanding.

Today the Magi find, crying in a manger, the one they have followed as he shone in the sky. Today the Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited as he lay hidden among the stars. Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, humankind in God, God in human flesh, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die.

So the Gentiles, who were the last, become the first: the faith of the Magi is the firstfruits of the belief of the Gentiles.

Today Christ enters the Jordan to wash away the sin of the world. John himself testifies that this is why he has come: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.’ Today a servant lays his hand on the Lord, a man lays his hand on God. John lays his hand on Christ, not to forgive but to receive forgiveness.

Today, as the psalmist prophesied: ‘The voice of the Lord is heard – above the waters.’ What does the voice say? ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

Today the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters in the likeness of a dove. A dove announced to Noah that the flood had disappeared from the earth; so now a dove is to reveal that the world’s shipwreck is at an end for ever. The sign is no longer an olive-shoot of the old stock: instead, the Spirit pours out on Christ’s head the full richness of a new anointing by the Father, to fulfil what the psalmist had prophesied: ‘Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.’

Today Christ works the first of his signs from heaven by turning water into wine. But water has still to be changed into the sacrament of his blood, so that Christ may offer spiritual drink from the chalice of his body.

alternative reading

A Reading from a hymn of Ephrem of Syria

Who, being a mortal, can tell about the Reviver of all,

Who left the height of his majesty and came down to smallness?

You, who magnify all by being born, magnify my weak mind

that I may tell about your birth,

not to investigate your majesty,

but to proclaim your grace.

Blessed is he who is both hidden and revealed in his actions!

It is a great wonder that the Son, who dwelt entirely in a body,

inhabited it entirely, and it sufficed for him.

Although limitless, he dwelt in it.

His will was entirely in him; but his totality was not in him.

Who is sufficient to proclaim that

although he dwelt entirely in a body,

still he dwelt entirely in the universe?

Blessed is the Unlimited who was limited!

Your majesty is hidden from us; your grace is revealed before us.

I will be silent, my Lord, about your majesty,

but I will speak about your grace.

Your grace made you a babe;

your grace made you a human being.

Your majesty contracted and stretched out.

Blessed is the power that became small and became great!

The Magi rejoiced from afar; the scribes proclaimed from nearby.

The prophet showed his erudition, and Herod his fury.

The scribes showed interpretations; the Magi showed offerings.

It is a wonder that to one babe the kinspeople rushed

with their swords,

but strangers with their offerings.

Blessed is your birth that stirred up the universe!

alternative reading

A Reading from a sermon of Lancelot Andrewes preached before King James I at Whitehall in 1620

What place more proper for him who is ‘the living bread that came down from heaven’, to give life to the world, than Bethlehem, the least and lowest of all the houses of Judah. This natural birth-place of his sheweth his spiritual nature. Christ’s birth fell in the sharpest season, in the deep of winter. As humility his place, so affliction his time. The time and place fit well.

And there came from the East wise men, Gentiles; and that concerns us, for so are we. Christ’s birth is made manifest to them by the star of heaven. It is the Gentiles’ star, and so ours too. We may set our course by it, to seek and find, and worship him as well as they. So we come in, for ‘God hath also to the Gentiles set open a door of faith,’ and that he would do this, and call us in, there was some small star-light from the beginning. This he promised by the patriarchs, shadowed forth in the figures of the law and the temple and the tabernacle, and foresung in the psalms, and it is this day fulfilled.

These wise men are come and we with them. Not only in their own names, but in ours did they make their entry; came and sought after, and found and worshipped, their Saviour and ours, the Saviour of the whole world. A little wicket there was left open, whereat divers Gentiles did come in, but only one or two. But now the great gate set wide opens this day for all – for these here with their camels and dromedaries to enter, and all their carriage. Christ is not only for russet cloaks, shepherds and such; but even grandees, great states such as these came too; and when they came were welcome to him. For they were sent for and invited by this star, their star properly.

They came a long journey, and they came an uneasy journey. They came now, at the worst season of the year. And all but to do worship at Christ’s birth. They stayed not their coming till the opening of the year, till they might have better weather and way, and have longer days, and so more seasonable and fit to travel in. So desirous were they to come with the first, and to be there as soon as possibly they might; broke through all these difficulties, and behold, they did come.

And we, what excuse shall we have if we come not? If so short and easy a way we come not, as from our chambers hither? And these wise men were never a whit less wise for so coming; nay, to come to Christ is one of the wisest parts that ever these wise men did. And if we believe this, that this was their wisdom, if they and we be wise in one Spirit, by the same principles, we will follow the same star, tread the same way, and so come at last whither they are happily gone before us.

[In the old ritual of the Church we find that on the cover of the canister wherein was the sacrament of his body, there was a star engraven, to shew us that now the star leads us thither, to his body there. So what shall I say now, but according as St John saith, and the star, and the wise men say ‘Come’. And he whose star it is, and to whom the wise men came, saith ‘Come’. And let them that are disposed ‘Come’. And let whosoever will, take of the ‘Bread of Life which came down from heaven’ this day into Bethlehem, the house of bread. Of which bread the Church is this day the house, the true Bethlehem, and all the Bethlehem we have now left to come to for the Bread of Life – of that life which we hope for in heaven. And this our nearest coming that here we can come, till we shall by another coming ‘Come’ unto him in his heavenly kingdom.]

7 January

A Reading from a sermon of Bernard of Clairvaux

‘The goodness and humanity of God our Saviour have appeared in our midst.’ We thank God for the many consolations he has given us during this sad exile of our pilgrimage here on earth. Before the Son of God became human his goodness was hidden, for God’s mercy is eternal, but how could such goodness be recognised? It was promised, but it was not experienced, and as a result few believed in it. ‘Often and in various ways the Lord used to speak through the prophets.’ Among other things, God said: ‘I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction.’ But what did we humans respond, thinking thoughts of affliction and knowing nothing of peace? They said: ‘Peace, peace, there is no peace.’ This response made the ‘angels of peace weep bitterly’, saying: ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ But now they believe because they see with their own eyes, and because ‘God’s testimony has now become even more credible.’ He has gone so far as to ‘pitch his tent in the sun’ so even the dimmest eyes see him.

Notice that peace is not promised but sent to us; it is no longer deferred, it is given; peace is not prophesied but achieved. It is as if God the Father sent upon the earth a purse full of his mercy. This purse was burst open during the Lord’s passion to pour forth its hidden contents – the price of our redemption. It was only a small purse, but it was very full. As the Scriptures tell us: ‘A little child has been given to us, but in him dwells all the fullness of the divine nature.’ The fullness of time brought with it the fullness of divinity. God’s Son came in the flesh so that mortals could see and recognise God’s kindness. When God reveals his humanity, his goodness cannot possibly remain hidden. To show his kindness what more could he do beyond taking my human form? My humanity, I say, not Adam’s – that is, not such as he had before his fall.

How could he have shown his mercy more clearly than by taking on himself our condition? For our sake the Word of God became as grass. What better proof could he have given of his love! Scripture says: ‘Lord, what are we that you are mindful of us; why does your heart go out to us?’ The incarnation teaches us how much God cares for us and what he thinks and feels about us. We should stop thinking of our own sufferings and remember what he has suffered. Let us think of all the Lord has done for us, and then we shall realise how his goodness appears through his humanity. The lesser he became through his human nature, the greater was his goodness; the more he lowered himself for me, the dearer he is to me. ‘The goodness and humanity of God our Saviour have appeared,’ says the Apostle.

Truly great and manifest are the goodness and humanity of God. He has given us a most wonderful proof of his goodness by adding humanity to his own divine nature.

8 January

A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great

The day on which Christ, the Saviour of the world, first appeared to the Gentiles is a great day of celebration for us all. In our hearts we should be experiencing those same joys which the three Magi first felt when, urged on by the sign and leading of a new star, they fell down in worship before the visible presence of the king of heaven and earth, in whose promise they had believed. Although this feast celebrates an event which took place many years ago, we are not simply commemorating an episode which has been handed down to us from the past. Our bounteous God is giving us the same gift now.

The gospel records the circumstances in which these three men who had no previous knowledge of the Jewish prophets or law, came from the remotest regions in the East to acknowledge the true God. But we see the same thing occurring before our eyes in the way in which people from far and wide who have been called by God, are receiving the light of faith. The prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled among us: ‘The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of the nations, and all the nations of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.’ And again: ‘Those who were not told of him shall see, and those who had not heard will understand.’ We are seeing people who have only a worldly kind of knowledge and who are far from belief in Jesus Christ, being led out of the darkness of ignorance to acknowledge the true light. There can be no doubt that the splendour of God’s grace is at work among us; and whatever new light that shines in their darkened hearts is coming from rays of that same star which leads us all to the worship of God.

The gifts the Magi first brought to Bethlehem are still being offered by all who come to Christ in faith. When we acclaim Christ as King of the universe we bring him gold from the treasury of our hearts; when we believe that the only-begotten of God has become one with our human nature, we are offering myrrh for his embalming; and when we declare him to be equal in majesty to the Father, we are burning the incense of our worship before him.

9 January

A Reading from a treatise On the Incarnation by Athanasius of Alexandria

The Word of God did not abandon the human race, his creatures, who are hurtling to their own ruin. By the offering of his body, the Word of God destroyed death which had united itself to them; by his teaching, he corrected their negligences; and by his power, he restored the human race.

Why was it necessary for the Word of God to become incarnate and not some other? Scripture indicates the reason in these words: ‘It was fitting that in bringing many children to glory, God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make their leader in the work of salvation perfect through suffering.’ This signifies that the work of raising men and women from the ruin into which they had fallen pertained to none other than the Word of God, who had made them in the beginning.

By the sacrifice of his body, he put an end to the law which weighed upon them, and he renewed in us the principle of life by giving us the hope of the resurrection. For if it is through ourselves that death attained dominance over us, conversely, it is through the incarnation of the Word of God that death has been destroyed and that life has been resurrected, as indicated by the Apostle filled with Christ: ‘As death came through one man, so the resurrection of the dead comes through another also. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will come to life.’ It is no longer as condemned that we die. Rather, we die with the hope of rising again from the dead, awaiting the universal resurrection which God will manifest to us in his own time, since he is both the author of it and gives us the grace for it.

When the figure of someone has been painted on wood, but then effaced by external elements, we need the presence of the person whose portrait it was if we are to restore their image on the same material. And if this material is not discarded, it is because of the image painted on it which we value and wish to restore. In like manner, the most holy Son of the Father, being the image of the Father, has come into our land to renew us who had been made similar to him, and to seek us out when we had been lost, pardoning our sins, as Scripture says: ‘I have come to search out and save that which was lost.’

Thus, when Jesus says, ‘Unless you are born again’, he does not allude to birth from a woman, but to the rebirth and recreation of humanity in his image.

10 January

A Reading from a treatise Against Heresies by Irenaeus

No one can know the Father apart from God’s Word, that is, unless the Son reveals him, and no one can know the Son unless the Father so wills. Now the Son fulfils the Father’s good pleasure: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and he comes. The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling. In turn, the Father alone has knowledge of his Word. And the Lord has revealed both truths. Therefore, the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father by his revelation of himself. Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son, for all is revealed through the Word.

The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will.

Through creation itself the Word reveals God the Creator. Through the world he reveals the Lord who made the world. Through all that is fashioned he reveals the artist who crafted it all. Through the Son the Word reveals the Father who begot him as Son. All speak of these things in the same language, but they do not believe them in the same way. Through the law and the prophets the Word revealed himself and his Father in the same way, but though all the people equally heard the message not all believed it. Through the Word, made visible and palpable, the Father was revealed, though not all believed in him. But all saw the Father in the Son, for the Father of the Son cannot be seen, but the Son of the Father can be seen.

The Son performs everything as a ministry to the Father, from beginning to end, and without the Son no one can know God. The way to know the Father is the Son. Knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed through the Son. For this reason the Lord said: ‘No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him.’ The word ‘revealed’ refers not only to the future as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him.

11 January

A Reading from The Ascent of Mount Carmel by John of the Cross

The chief reason why it was permissible under the old Law to ask God questions and quite in order for the prophets and priests to seek revelations and visions from him was that, in those times, the faith was not yet firmly founded, nor was the law of the gospel inaugurated. Hence, it was necessary for them to question God and for God to reply. This he did sometimes in words, sometimes by visions and revelations, sometimes in figures and types, and then again by many other ways that expressed his meaning. Everything he replied and spoke and revealed was about the mysteries of our faith or matters touching upon or leading up to it.

But now that the faith is founded in Christ and the law of the gospel has been made known in this age of grace, there is no longer any reason to question God in that way. Nor need God speak and answer as he did then. When he gave us, as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say.

This is the meaning of that passage where St Paul tries to persuade the Hebrews to abandon the primitive ways and means of communicating with God which are in the law of Moses, and instead fix their eyes on Christ alone. He says: ‘In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’ The Apostle gives us to understand that God has become as if dumb, with nothing more to say, because what he spoke before in fragments to the prophets he has now said all at once by giving us the All who is his Son.

Consequently, anyone who today would want to ask God questions or desire some further vision or revelation, would not only be acting foolishly but would be offending God by not fixing his eyes entirely on Christ, without wanting something new or something in addition to Christ.

God might give this answer: ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’ I have already told you all things in my Word. Fix your eyes on him alone, because in him I have spoken and revealed all. Moreover, in him you will find more than you ask or desire.

12 January

A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great

The loving providence of God, having determined in these last days to save the world, set as it was on its course to destruction, decreed that all nations should be saved in the person of Christ.

A promise had already been made to the holy patriarch Abraham that he was to have a countless progeny, born not from his body, but from the seed of faith. His descendants were therefore to be compared with the multitude of the stars. The father of all nations was to hope not for an earthly progeny but for a progeny from heaven. For the creation of this promised progeny, the heirs designated under the sign of the stars are awakened by the rising of a new star. The heavens themselves perform their service and bear witness: a star more brilliant than all others startles wise men from the East who, not unskilled in the observation of such things, recognise in its rising the presence of a sign.

So let the full number of the nations now come and take their place in the family of the patriarchs. Yes, let the children of the promise enter and receive their blessing in the seed of Abraham, which his children according to the flesh have spurned. In the persons of the Magi let all people adore the Creator of the universe; let God be known, not in Judea only, but throughout the whole world, so that ‘his name may be great in all Israel’.

Dear friends, now that we have received instruction in this revelation of God’s grace, let us celebrate with joy the day of our first harvesting, of the calling of the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the merciful God who has counted us worthy, in the words of the Apostle, ‘to share the inheritance of the saints in light; and who has rescued us from the power of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’. For as Isaiah prophesied: ‘The people of the Gentiles, who sat in darkness, have seen a great light, and on those who dwelt in the region of the shadow of death has a light dawned.’ He spoke of them to the Lord: ‘The Gentiles, who do not know you, will invoke you, and the peoples, who knew you not, will take refuge in you.’

This is ‘the day that Abraham saw, and was glad’, when he knew that the children born of his faith would be blessed in his seed, that is, in Christ. Believing that he would be the father of the nations, he looked into the future, ‘giving glory to God, in full awareness that God is able to do what he has promised’. This is the day that David prophesied in the psalms, when he said: ‘All the nations that you have brought into being will come and fall down in adoration in your presence, Lord, and glorify your name’; and again, ‘The Lord has made known his salvation; in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.’

This came to be fulfilled, as we know, from the time when the star beckoned the Magi out of their distant country and led them to recognise and adore the King of heaven and earth. Their worship bids us imitate their humble service, and to be servants, as best we can, of the grace that invites all people to seek Christ.

The First Sunday of Epiphany

The Baptism of Christ

A Reading from an oration of Gregory of Nazianzus

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: ‘I ought to be baptized by you.’ He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. ‘I ought to be baptized by you’; we should also add: ‘and for you’, for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; and a drowned world rises with him. The heavens like paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that once long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honour to the body that is one with God.

Today let us honour Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of human beings, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all humanity, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendour, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever.

alternative reading

A Reading from an oration of Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople

Christ has been revealed to the world, and has brought order to our disordered world, making it resplendent with his glory. He has taken upon himself the sin of the world, and cast down our ancient enemy. He has sanctified the flowing waters, and enlightened our souls. He has enfolded miracles with yet greater ones.

For today both earth and sea share in the grace of the Saviour, and joy has spread over the face of the whole world. Today’s feast is even more miraculous than the one we have just celebrated. On the feast of our Saviour’s birth, earth joined in the celebrations because she bore the Lord in a crib; but today on the Theophany, the sea leaped with exultant joy and danced with delight, delighting that it had received the blessing of sanctification in the midst of the Jordan. In the former celebration an immature infant was revealed to our gaze, witnessing to our own incompleteness; but today a full-grown man is to be seen, in obscure fashion pointing us to him who being perfect proceeds from the perfect God. At his birth the King put on the purple robe of a human body; today the deep swells round him like a river as if to clothe him.

Come then and see new and overwhelming miracles: the Sun of Righteousness bathing in the Jordan, the fire immersed in water, and God being sanctified by human ministry. Today all creation resounds with hymns, crying out: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Blessed is he who comes at all times, for this is not the first time that he has come.

So who is this? Speak more clearly, I pray, blessed David. ‘God is the Lord, and he has given us light.’ David the prophet does not speak alone in this; in fact the apostle Paul supports his statement with his own testimony when he says: ‘The grace of God has appeared with healing for all the world.’ Not just to some people, but to all – that is, both Jews and Greeks equally, God has poured forth our salvation through baptism, offering to all people everywhere a common blessing in baptism.

Come then, and see this strange and new flood, greater and more powerful than that which occurred in the days of Noah. There the water of the flood destroyed the human race; but here the water of the baptism, by the power of him who is baptized in it, has called back the dead to life. There the dove carried an olive branch in its beak, denoting the fragrance of the sweet-smelling savour of the Lord Christ, but here the Holy Spirit, descending in the form of a dove, reveals to us the presence of our merciful God.

Monday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from the Instructions of Columbanus

Moses wrote in the law: ‘God made humankind in his image and likeness.’ Consider, I ask you, the dignity of these words. God is all-powerful. We cannot see or understand him, describe or assess him. Yet he fashioned us from clay and endowed us with the nobility of his own image. What have we in common with God? Or earth with spirit? – for ‘God is a spirit.’ It is a glorious privilege that God should grant us his eternal image and the likeness of his character. Our likeness to God, if we preserve it, imparts high dignity.

If we apply the virtues planted in our souls to the right purpose, we will be like God. God’s commands have taught us to give him back the virtues he sowed in us in our first innocence. The first command is ‘to love our Lord with our whole heart because he loved us first’ from the beginning, before our existence. Loving God renews his image in us. Anyone who loves God keeps his commandments, for he said: ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’ His command is that we love one another. In his own words: ‘This is my command, that you love one another as I also have loved you.’

True love is shown not merely ‘in word, but in deed and in truth’, so we must turn back our image undefiled and holy to our God and Father, for he is holy; in the words of Scripture: ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’ We must restore his image with love, for he is love; in John’s words: ‘God is love.’ We must restore it with loyalty and truth, for God is loyal and truthful. The image we depict must not be that of one who is unlike God; for one who is harsh and irascible and proud would display the image of a despot.

Let us not imprint on ourselves the image of a despot, but let Christ paint his image in us with his words: ‘My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you.’ But the knowledge that peace is good is of no benefit to us if we do not practise it. The most valuable objects are usually the most fragile; costly things require the most careful handling. Particularly fragile is that which is lost by wanton talk and destroyed with the slightest injury of a brother or sister. People like nothing better than discussing and minding the business of others, passing superfluous comments at random and criticising people behind their backs. So those who cannot say: ‘The Lord has given me a discerning tongue, that I may with a word support those who are weary’ should keep silent, or if they do say anything it should promote peace.

Tuesday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from an oration ‘On the Love of the Poor’

by Gregory of Nazianzus

Recognise to whom you owe the fact that you exist, that you breathe, that you understand, that you are wise, and, above all, that you know God and hope for the kingdom of heaven and the vision of glory, now darkly and as in a mirror but then with greater fullness and purity. You have been made a child of God, a co-heir with Christ. Where did you get all this, and from whom?

Now let me turn to what is of less importance: the visible world around us. What benefactor has enabled you to look out upon the beauty of the sky, the sun in its course, the circle of the moon, the countless number of stars, with the harmony and order that are theirs, like the music of a harp? Who has blessed you with rain, with the art of husbandry, with different kinds of food, with the arts, with houses, with laws, with states, with a life of humanity and culture, with friendship and the easy familiarity of kinship?

Who has given you dominion over animals, both those that are tame and those that provide you with food? Who has made you master of everything on earth? In short, who has endowed you with all that makes humankind superior to all other living creatures? Is it not God who asks you now in your turn to show yourself generous above all other creatures and for the sake of all other creatures? Because we have received from God so many wonderful gifts, will we not be ashamed to refuse him this one thing only, our generosity? Though he is God and Lord he is not afraid to be known as our Father. Shall we for our part repudiate those who are our kith and kin?

Friends, let us never allow ourselves to misuse what has been given us by God’s gift. If we do, we shall hear St Peter say: ‘Be ashamed of yourselves for holding on to what belongs to someone else. Resolve to imitate God’s justice, and no one will be poor.’ Let us not labour to heap up and hoard riches while others remain in need. If we do, the prophet Amos will speak out against us with sharp and threatening words: ‘Come now, you that say: When will the new moon be over, so that we may start selling? When will sabbath be over, so that we may start opening our treasures?’

Let us put into practice the supreme and primary law of God. He sends down rain on the righteous and sinful alike, and causes the sun to rise on all without distinction. To all earth’s creatures he has given the broad earth, the springs, the rivers and the forests. He has given the air to the birds, and the waters to those who live in water. He has given abundantly to all the basic needs of life, not as a private possession, not restricted by law, not divided by boundaries, but as common to all, amply and in rich measure. His gifts are not deficient in any way, because he wanted to give equality of blessing to equality of worth, and to show the abundance of his generosity.

Wednesday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from a treatise Against the Pagans by Athanasius of Alexandria

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.’ In these words John the theologian teaches that nothing exists or remains in being except in and through the Word.

Think of a musician tuning a lyre. By skill the musician adjusts high notes to low, and intermediate notes to the rest, and produces a series of harmonies. So too the wisdom of God holds the world like a lyre and joins things in the air to those on earth, and things in heaven to those in the air, and brings each part into harmony with the whole. By his decree and will he regulates them all to produce the beauty and harmony of a single, well-ordered universe. While remaining unchanged with his Father, he moves all creation by his unchanging nature, according to the Father’s will. To everything he gives existence and life in accordance with its nature, and so creates a wonderful and truly divine harmony.

To illustrate this profound mystery, let us take the example of a choir of many singers. A choir is composed of a variety of men, women and children, of both old and young. Under the direction of one conductor, each sings in the way that is natural: men with men’s voices, boys with boys’ voices, old people with old voices, young people with young voices. Yet all of them produce a single harmony. Or consider the example of our soul. It moves our senses according to their several functions so that in the presence of a single object they all act simultaneously: the eye sees, the ear hears, the hand touches, the nose smells, the tongue tastes, and often the other parts of the body act as well – as, for example, the feet may walk.

Although this is only a poor comparison, it gives some idea of how the whole universe is governed. The Word of God has but to give a gesture of command and everything falls into place; each creature performs its own proper function, and all together constitute one single harmonious order.

Thursday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from a treatise On the Lord’s Prayer by Cyprian of Carthage

The gospel precepts are none other than instructions of God, foundations on which hope is built, firm bases for faith, fuel to rekindle the heart, guides to point out the way, and aids to the attainment of salvation. They instruct the minds of the faithful on earth in order to lead them to the kingdom of heaven. The words which God willed to let us hear from the prophets are many, but of much greater value are the words uttered by the Son, those which the Word of God who dwelled within the prophets attests with his own voice. He no longer asks that the way be prepared for the One who comes, but he comes himself to show us the way and to open it for us. Thus, we who were once blind and lacking foresight, wandering in the shadow of death, can now be enlightened by the light of grace and walk along the paths of life under the Lord’s leadership and direction.

Among other saving instructions and divine teachings intended for the salvation of his people, the Lord gave us the form of prayer and urged us to pray as he has instructed us. He who gave us life also taught us how to pray with that same graciousness by which he has given and bestowed on us everything else. Thus, when we speak to the Father in the prayer that his Son has taught us, we are more readily heard.

Jesus had already announced that the hour would come when true worshippers would worship the Father in spirit and in truth and he accomplished what he promised. Having received the Spirit and the truth by his sanctifying action, we can now worship in spirit and in truth through the transmission of his teaching. Indeed, could there be a more spiritual prayer than the one left us by Christ who has also sent us his Spirit? Is there a truer way of praying to the Father than the one which has come from the lips of Christ who is Truth?

Let us pray, then, as God our Master has taught us. Affectionate and familiar is the prayer with which we implore God in the words of God, and reach his ear through the words of his Son. Let the Father recognise his Son’s words in us when we offer up our prayer; and let him who dwells in our heart be always on our lips.

Friday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from a commentary on St Paul’s Letter to the Romans

by Cyril of Alexandria

Though many, we are one body, and members one of another, united by Christ in the bonds of love. ‘Christ has made Jews and Gentiles one by breaking down the barrier that divided us, and abolishing the law with its precepts and decrees.’ This is why we should all be of one mind, and if one member suffers some misfortune, all should suffer alongside; and if one member is honoured, all should be glad.

Paul says: ‘Accept one another as Christ accepted you, for the glory of God.’ Now accepting one another means being willing to share one another’s thoughts and feelings, bearing one another’s burdens, and preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is how God accepted us in Christ, for John’s testimony is true and he said that God the Father ‘loved the world so much that he gave his own Son for us’. God’s Son was given as a ransom for the lives of us all. He has delivered us from death, redeemed us from death and from sin.

Paul throws light on the purpose of God’s plan when he says that Christ became the servant of the circumcised to show God’s fidelity. God had promised the Jewish patriarchs that he would bless their offspring and make it as numerous as the stars of heaven. This is why the divine Word himself, who as God holds all creation in being and is the source of its well-being, appeared in the flesh and became human. He came into this world in human flesh not to be served, but, as he himself said, to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Christ declared that his coming in visible form was to fulfil the promise made to Israel. ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ he said. Paul was perfectly correct, then, in saying that Christ became a servant of the circumcised in order to fulfil the promise made to the patriarchs and that God the Father had charged him with this task, as also with the task of bringing salvation to the Gentiles, so that they too might praise their Saviour and Redeemer as the Creator of the universe. In this way God’s mercy has been extended to all, including the Gentiles, and it can be seen that the mystery of the divine wisdom contained in Christ has not failed in its benevolent purpose. In the place of those who fell away the whole world has been saved.

Saturday after Epiphany 1

A Reading from a commentary on the psalms

by Augustine

God could give no greater gift to us than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, our head and to join us to him as his members, so that the Word might be both Son of God and Son of Man, one God with the Father, and one human being with all humankind. The result is that when we speak with God in prayer we do not separate the Son from him, and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself: it is the one Saviour of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us and in us and is himself the object of our prayers.

He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, he is the object of our prayers as our God. Let us then recognise both our voice in his, and his voice in ours. When something is said, especially in prophecy, about the Lord Jesus Christ that seems to belong to a condition of lowliness unworthy of God, we must not hesitate to ascribe this condition to one who did not hesitate to unite himself with us. Every creature is his servant, for it was through him that every creature came to be.

We contemplate his glory and divinity when we listen to these words: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.’ Here we gaze on the divinity of the Son of God, something supremely great and surpassing all the greatness of his creatures. Yet in other parts of Scripture we hear him as one sighing, praying, giving praise and thanks.

We hesitate to attribute these words to him because our minds are slow to come down to his humble level when we have just been contemplating him in his divinity. It is as though we were doing him an injustice in acknowledging in a human being the words of one with whom we spoke when we prayed to God; we are usually at a loss and try to change the meaning. Yet our minds find nothing in Scripture that does not go back to him, nothing that will allow us to stray from him.

Our thoughts must then be awakened to keep their vigil of faith. We must realise that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of our flesh and found to be a man like others; he humbled himself by being obedient even to accepting death; as he hung on the cross he made the psalmist’s words his own: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

We pray to him as God, he prays for us as a servant. In the first case he is the Creator, in the second a creature. Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one with himself, head and body. We pray then to him, through him, in him, and we speak along with him and he along with us.

The Second Sunday of Epiphany

A Reading from The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The call of Jesus goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. But how could the call immediately evoke obedience?

The story of the call of the first disciples is a stumbling-block for the natural reason, and it is no wonder that frantic attempts have been made to separate the two events. By hook or by crook a bridge must be found between them. Something must have happened in between, some psychological or historical event. Thus we get the stupid question: Surely they must have known Jesus before, and that previous acquaintance explains their readiness to hear the Master’s call. Unfortunately Scripture is ruthlessly silent on this point, and in fact it regards the immediate sequence of call and response as a matter of crucial importance. It displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reasons for a person’s religious decisions. And why? For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, they follow at once.

This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequence but obedience to the call. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus summons us to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God. In this short episode Jesus Christ and his claim are proclaimed to the world. Not a word of praise is given to the disciple for his decision for Christ. We are not expected to contemplate the disciple, but only him who calls, and his absolute authority. There is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road – only obedience to the call of Jesus.

And what does Scripture inform us about the content of discipleship? Follow me, run along behind me! That is all. To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives us no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after. It is not a cause which human calculation might deem worthy of devotion, even the devotion of ourselves. At the call the disciples leave everything that they have – but not because they think that they might be doing something worthwhile, but simply for the sake of the call. Otherwise they cannot follow in the steps of Jesus. The disciples burn their boats and go ahead. They are dragged out of their relative security into a life of absolute insecurity.

When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person. The grace of his call bursts all the bonds of legalism. It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment. Christ calls; we are to follow.

alternative reading

A Reading from a hymn of Ephrem of Syria

I have invited you, Lord, to a wedding feast of song,

but the wine – the utterance of praise – at our feast has failed.

You are the guest who filled the jars with good wine,

fill my mouth with your praise.

The wine that was in the jars was akin and related to

this eloquent Wine that gives birth to praise,

seeing that wine too gave birth to praise

from those who drank it and beheld the wonder.

You who are so just, if at a wedding feast not your own

you filled six jars with good wine,

do you at this wedding feast fill, not the jars,

but the ten thousand ears with its sweetness.

Jesus, you were invited to a wedding feast of others,

here is your own pure and fair wedding feast:

gladden your rejuvenated people,

for your guests too, O Lord, need your songs:

let your harp utter.

The soul is your bride, the body your bridal chamber,

your guests are the senses and the thoughts.

And if a single body is a wedding feast for you,

how great is your banquet for the whole Church!

Monday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from The Light of Christ by Evelyn Underhill

The mystics keep telling us that the goal of prayer and the goal of our hidden life which should itself become more and more of a prayer, is union with God. We use that phrase often, much too often, to preserve the wholesome sense of its awe-fulness. For what does union with God mean? It is not a nice feeling we get in devout moments. That may or may not be a bi-product of union – probably not. It can never be its substance. Union with God means every bit of our human nature transfigured in Christ, woven up into his creative life and activity, absorbed into his redeeming purpose, heart, soul, mind and strength. Each time it happens it means that one of God’s creatures has achieved its destiny.

And if men and women want to know what this means in terms of human nature, what it costs and what it becomes, there is only one way – contemplation of the life of Christ. Then we see that we grow in wisdom and stature not just for our own sakes – just to become spiritual – but that his teaching, healing, life-giving power may possess us and work through us; that we may lose our own lives and find his life, be conformed to the pattern shown in him, conformed to the cross. Those are the rich and costly demands and experiences that lie before us as we stand and look at the Christ-child setting up a standard for both simple and learned, teaching the secrets of life; and what they ask from us on our side and from our prayer is a very great simplicity, self-oblivion, dependence and suppleness, a willingness and readiness to respond to life where it finds us and to wait, to grow and change, not according to our preconceived notions and ideas of pace, but according to the overruling will and pace of God.

Tuesday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from the Letter of Clement of Rome to the Church in Corinth

The blessing of God and the roads that lead to it must be our objective. Search the records of ancient times. Why was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because of his faith which inspired his life of righteousness and truth? As for Isaac’s faith, it was so strong that, assured of the outcome, he willingly allowed himself to be offered in sacrifice. Jacob had the humility to leave his native land on account of his brother, and went and served Laban, and as a reward was given the headship of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Honest reflection upon each of these examples will make us realise the magnitude of God’s gifts. All the priests and levites who served the altar of God were descended from Jacob. The humanity of the Lord Jesus derived from him. Through the tribe of Judah have issued kings, princes and rulers; while the other tribes are not without their own claim to fame. As God promised Abraham: ‘Your descendants shall be as the stars of heaven.’

It should be clear that none of these owed their honour and renown because of any inherent right, or in virtue of their achievements or deeds of virtue. No; they owed everything to God’s will. So likewise with us, who by his will have been called in Christ Jesus. We are not justified by our wisdom, intelligence, piety, or by any action of ours, however holy, but by faith, the one means by which almighty God has justified us from the beginning. To him be glory for ever and ever.

What must we do then? Give up good works? Stop practising Christian love? God forbid! We must be ready and eager for every opportunity to do good, and put our whole heart into it. Even the architect and Lord of the universe rejoices in his works. By his supreme power he set the heavens in their place; by his infinite wisdom he gave them their order. He separated the land from the waters surrounding it and made his own will its firm foundation. By his command he brought to life the beasts that roam the earth. He created the sea and all its living creatures, and then by his power set bounds to it. Finally, with his own holy and undefiled hands, he formed humankind, the highest and most intelligent of his creatures, the copy of his own image. ‘Let us make man,’ God said, ‘in our image and likeness. So God made human beings, male and female he made them.’ Then, when he had finished making all his creatures, God gave them his approval and blessing: ‘increase and multiply,’ he charged them.

We must recognise, therefore, that all the righteous have been graced by good works, and that even the Lord himself took delight in the glory his works gave him. With such examples before us, we should feel inspired to obey God’s will, and to put all our energies into the business of living a Christian life.

Wednesday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from a treatise On the Lord’s Prayer by Cyprian of Carthage

The teacher of peace and the master of unity does not wish us to pray individualistically or selfishly as if we are concerned only about ourselves. We do not say: ‘My Father in heaven’, or ‘Give me today my daily bread.’ Nor does anyone pray simply for their own sins to be forgiven, or request that he or she alone be not led into temptation or be delivered from evil. Christian prayer is public and offered for all. When we pray it is not as an individual but as a united people, for we are indeed all one. God, who is the teacher of prayer and peace, taught us peace. He wishes each of us to pray for all, just as he carries us all in himself.

What profound mysteries, my dear brothers and sisters, are contained in the Lord’s Prayer! How many and how great they are! They are expressed in few words but overflow in an abundance of virtue. Nothing is left out; everything is comprehended in these few petitions. It is a compendium of spiritual teaching. ‘This is how you must pray,’ says the Lord, ‘Our Father in heaven.’ The new man or woman who has been born again and restored to God through grace, says ‘Father’ at the beginning of all prayer because they are already beginning to be his son or daughter. As Scripture says: ‘He came among his own and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.’ Thus whoever has believed in his name and has been made a child of God should give thanks and acknowledge their adoption, and learn to call God their heavenly Father.

None of us would presume to call God our Father had not Christ himself taught us to pray in this way. We should realise then, dearest brothers and sisters, that if we are to call God ‘Father’, we ought to behave like sons and daughters of God, so that just as we are delighted to have God as our Father, so equally he can take delight in us his children.

Thursday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne

Knowing the greatness and sweetness of love, I can never be poor in any estate. How sweet a thing is it as we go or ride, or eat or drink, or converse abroad to remember that one is the heir of the whole world and the friend of God! That one has so great a friend as God is, and that one is exalted infinitely by all his laws! That all the riches and honours in the world are ours in the divine image to be enjoyed! That a man is tenderly beloved of God and always walking in his father’s kingdom under his wing, and as the apple of his eye! Verily that God hath done so much for one in his works and laws, and expressed so much love in his word and ways, being as he is divine and infinite, it should make a man to walk above the stars, and seat him in the bosom of men and angels. It should always fill him with joy and triumph, and lift him up above crowns and empires.

That a man is beloved of God, should melt him all into esteem and holy veneration. It should make him so courageous as an angel of God. It should make him delight in calamities and distresses for God’s sake. By giving me all things else, he hath made even afflictions themselves my treasures. The sharpest trials are the finest furbishing. The most tempestuous weather is the best seedtime. A Christian is an oak flourishing in winter. God hath so magnified and glorified his servant, and exalted him so highly in his eternal bosom, that no other joy should be able to move us but that alone. All sorrows should appear but shadows, beside that of his absence, and all the greatness of riches and estates swallowed up in the light of his favour. Incredible goodness lies in his love. And it should be joy enough to us to contemplate and possess it. He is poor whom God hates: ‘tis a true proverb. And besides that, we should so love him that the joy alone of approving ourselves to him, and making ourselves amiable and beautiful before him should be a continual feast, were we starving. A beloved cannot feel hunger in the presence of his beloved. Where martyrdom is pleasant, what can be distasteful. To fight, to famish, to die for one’s beloved, especially with one’s beloved, and in his excellent company, unless it be for his trouble, is truly delightful. God is always present, and always seeth us.

Friday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from a treatise On Contemplating God by William of St Thierry

I who long for you, O Lord adorable and loveable, am at once confronted with the qualities that make you loveable; for from heaven and earth alike and by means of all your creatures these present themselves to me and urge me to attend to them. And the more clearly and truly these things declare you and affirm that you are worthy to be loved, the more ardently desirable do they make you appear to me.

But alas! This experience is not one to be enjoyed with unmitigated pleasure and delight; rather, it is one of yearnings, strivings, and frustration, though not a torment without some sweetness. For just as the offerings I make to you do not suffice to please you perfectly unless I offer you myself along with them, so the contemplation of your manifold perfections, though it does give us a measure of refreshment, does not satisfy us unless we have yourself along with it. Into this contemplation my soul puts all its energies; in the course of it I push my spirit around like a rasping broom. And, using those qualities of yours that make you loveable like hands and feet on which to lift my weight, with all my powers I reach up to you, to you who are Love supreme and sovereign Good. But the more I reach up, the more relentlessly am I thrust back, and down into myself, below myself.

So I look at myself, and size myself up, and pass judgement on myself. And there I am, facing myself, a very troublesome and trying business.

And yet, O Lord, when all is said and done, I am quite positive that, by your grace, I do have in me the desire to desire you and the love of loving you with all my heart and soul.

So, when my inward eyes grow blurred like this, and become dim and blind, I pray you with all speed to open them, not as Adam’s fleshly eyes were opened to the beholding of his shame, but that I, Lord, may so see your glory that, forgetting all about my poverty and littleness, my whole self may stand erect and run into your love’s embrace, seeing you whom I have loved and loving you whom I have yet to see. In this way, dying to myself, I shall begin to live in you.

Saturday after Epiphany 2

A Reading from a homily of Gregory of Nyssa

We shall be blessed with clear vision if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, for he, as Paul teaches, is our head, and there is in him no shadow of evil. St Paul himself and all who have reached the same heights of sanctity had their eyes fixed on Christ, and so have all who live and move and have their being in him.

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has eyes on Christ. The one who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection; on truth, on justice, on immortality, and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.

‘The wise then, turn their eyes toward the One who is their head, but fools grope in darkness.’ No one who puts a lamp under a bed instead of on a lampstand will receive any light from it. People are often considered blind and useless when they make the supreme Good their aim and give themselves up to the contemplation of God, but Paul made a boast of this and proclaimed himself a fool for Christ’s sake. The reason he said, ‘We are fools for Christ’s sake,’ was that his mind was free from all earthly preoccupations. It was as though he said, ‘We are blind to the life here below because our eyes are raised toward the One who is our head.’

And so, without board or lodging, he travelled from place to place, destitute, naked, exhausted by hunger and thirst. When people saw him in captivity, flogged, shipwrecked, led about in chains, they could scarcely help thinking him a pitiable sight. Nevertheless, even while he suffered all this at the hands of others, he always looked toward the One who is his head and he asked: ‘What can separate us from the love of Christ which is in Jesus? Can affliction or distress? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or death?’ In other words: What can force me to take my eyes from him who is my head and to turn them toward things that are contemptible?

Paul bids us follow his example: ‘Seek the things that are above,’ he says, which is really only another way of saying: ‘Keep your eyes on Christ.’

The Third Sunday of Epiphany

A Reading from The Vision of God by Kenneth Kirk

Our Lord has promised the vision of God as a guerdon to the pure in heart. It is extraordinary – especially in view of the prominence which the thought had attained in contemporary religion, and the high relief into which New Testament theology was about to throw it – that the sentence ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’ seems to stand without even an echo in the Synoptic tradition. But this judgement is at best superficial. In actual fact the idea of the vision dominates our Lord’s teaching. Ideas are not conveyed by words alone: emphasis often serves to express them even better than direct enunciation. And the moment we seek to discover the emphasis of the Lord’s teaching, as the Synoptists record it, the truth becomes evident. It was specifically and above all a teaching about God.

Jesus ‘came preaching the good news of God’. That he spoke also of the kingdom of God makes no difference to this fact: for if anything is certain as the result of modern research, it is that the kingdom, in Jesus’ thought, whether it means ‘realm’ or ‘kingship’, is wholly bound up with the character of God. It is something in which he is to come – not a state of things prepared for his coming by human effort. It is true, of course, that Jesus also spoke, and that constantly, of the character and behaviour necessary for those who would ‘inherit’, ‘enter into’, or ‘possess’ the kingdom; and that in so doing he purified, simplified, and breathed new life into the ethical code of Judaism. This is no more than to say that, like all great teachers, he spoke both of God and of man, or preached both doctrine and ethics. But whereas contemporary Judaism laid all the stress on man – that is to say on ethics, on what man has to do to fulfil the will of God – it is surely true to say that by contrast the emphasis of Jesus’ teaching is upon God, rather than upon man – upon what God has done, is doing, and shall do for his people.

So he tells of the divine Fatherhood which watches over the lilies, the ravens, and the sparrows; which sends rain upon the just and the unjust alike; which understands our needs and gives to us liberally; which is patient and long-suffering. He tells of a God always ready to welcome the prodigal, to search for the lost sheep, or to give in his pleasure the kingdom to his flock; and of a heaven where there is infinite joy over the sinner that repents. God sees in secret and shall reward openly; God sows his seed far and wide with a lavish hand, and reveals his innermost truths to babes and sucklings. There is another side to the picture; but it is still a picture of God, though it represents him – whenever the time shall come that there is no more space for repentance – as a judge before whom there is no excuse.

For all the ethical teaching in the gospel, it seems impossible to deny that Jesus’ primary thought and message was about God, and that human conduct in his mind came in a second and derivative place.

Note: If a reading about Cana of Galilee is required, see either alternative reading for Epiphany 2 or Tuesday after Trinity 9.

Monday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from a commentary on the psalms

by Ambrose of Milan

Let your door stand open to receive Christ, unlock your soul to him, offer him a welcome in your mind, and then you will see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, and the joy of grace. Throw wide the gate of your heart, stand before the sun of the everlasting light that shines on every one. This true light shines on all, but if any close their windows they will deprive themselves of eternal light. If you shut the door of your mind, you shut out Christ. Though he can enter, he does not want to force his way in rudely, or compel us to admit him against our will.

Born of a virgin, he came forth from the womb as the light of the whole world in order to shine on all. His light is received by those who long for the splendour of perpetual light that night can never destroy. The sun of our daily experience is succeeded by the darkness of night, but the sun of holiness never sets, because wisdom cannot give place to evil.

Blessed then is the person at whose door Christ stands and knocks. Our door is faith; if it is strong enough, the whole house is safe. This is the door by which Christ enters. So the Church says in the Song of Songs: ‘The voice of my brother is at the door.’ Hear his knock, listen to him asking to enter: ‘Open to me, my sister, my betrothed, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is covered with dew, and my hair with the moisture of the night.’

When does God the Word most often knock at your door? When his ‘head is covered with the dew of night’. He visits in love those in trouble and temptation, to save them from being overwhelmed by their trials. His head is covered with dew or moisture when those who are his body are in distress. That is the time when you must keep watch so that when the bridegroom comes he may not find himself shut out, and make his departure. If you were to sleep, if your heart were not wide awake, he would not knock and go away; but if your heart is watchful, he knocks and asks you to open the door to him.

Our soul has a door; it has gates. ‘Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory will enter.’ If you open the gates of your faith, the King of glory will enter your house in the triumphal procession in honour of his passion. Holiness too has its gates. We read in Scripture what the Lord Jesus said through his prophet: ‘Open for me the gates of holiness.’

It is the soul that has its door, its gates. Christ comes to this door and knocks; he knocks at the gates. Open to him; he wants to enter, to find his bride waiting and watching.

Tuesday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from The Scale of Perfection by Walter Hilton

You can grow in knowledge if you take pains to set your heart most upon one thing. That thing is nothing other than a spiritual desire toward God – to please him, love him, know him, see him and have him, here by grace in a little feeling, and in the glory of heaven with a full being. If you nourish this desire, it will teach you well which is sin and which is not, and which is good, and which is the better good. And if you are willing to fasten your thought to it, it will teach you all you need and get you all that you lack. And therefore, when you arise against the ground of sin in general, or else against any special sin, hang fast on to this desire and set the point of your thought more upon God whom you desire than on the sin which you reject, for if you do so, then God fights for you and he shall destroy sin in you. You shall much sooner come to your purpose if you do this than if you leave the humble desire that looks principally to God and resolve to set your heart only against the stirring of sin, as if you wanted to destroy it by your own strength: in that way you shall never bring it about.

Do as I have said, and better if you can, and by the grace of Jesus I think you will make the devil ashamed, and so break away these wicked stirrings that they shall not do you much harm; and in this manner that image of sin can be broken down in you and destroyed, by which you are deformed from the natural shape of the image of Christ. You shall be formed again to the image of the man Jesus by humility and charity, and then you shall be fully shaped to the image of Jesus God, living here in a shadow by contemplation, and in the glory of heaven by the fullness of truth. St Paul speaks thus of this shaping to the likeness of Christ: ‘My little children, whom I bear as a woman bears a child until Christ is again shaped in you.’ You have conceived Christ through faith, and he has life in you in as much as you have a good will and a desire to serve and please him; but he is not yet fully formed in you, nor you in him, by the fullness of charity. And therefore St Paul bore you and me and others in the same way with travail, as a woman bears a child, until the time that Christ has his full shape in us, and we in him.

For Christ is the door, and he is the porter; and without his leave and his livery, no one can come to God. As he says: ‘No one comes to the Father but by me.’ That is to say, Nobody can come to the contemplation of the Deity unless by the fullness of humility and charity he is first reformed to the likeness of Jesus in his humanity.

Wednesday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from a treatise entitled The Teacher by Clement of Alexandria

When a dispute arose among the apostles as to which of them was the greatest, we are told that Jesus stood a little child in their midst and said: ‘Whoever would be humble, becoming like this little child, is of the greatest importance in the kingdom of heaven.’

By ‘child’ Jesus did not mean someone who has not yet reached the use of reason because of immaturity, as some like to suggest. Similarly, when Jesus says: ‘Unless you become like little children you shall not enter the kingdom of God,’ his words should not be taken literally to mean without learning. We are not ‘little children’ in the sense that we roll on the ground or crawl on the earth like snakes as we did in our infancy. On the contrary, we are ‘little children’ only in the sense that we stretch our minds to contemplate the things of heaven, and in so doing are set loose from the world and our sins. We touch the earth only with the tips of our toes and so appear to be in the world, but inwardly we are pursuing holy wisdom, even though such a quest is deemed folly to those whose souls delight in wrong-doing.

Hence, in the gospel by ‘children’ is really meant those who know God alone as their Father, who are simple, little ones, without guile. To these, surely, who have made progress Jesus proclaimed this utterance, bidding them to dismiss anxiety about the things of this world and exhorting them to devote themselves to the Father alone in imitation of children. That is why he goes on to tell them: ‘Do not worry about tomorrow. Today has troubles enough of its own.’

He enjoins them to lay aside the cares of this life and depend on the Father alone. Whoever fulfils this command is in reality a child and an heir both to God and to the world – to the world, in the sense of one who appears to have lost his wits; to God, in the sense of one dearly beloved.

Indeed, if the detractors of spiritual childhood ridicule us, you should understand that they are really speaking evil of the Lord. They are implying that those who seek the protection of God are somehow lacking in intelligence. But if they were to understand the designation ‘children’ in its true and spiritual sense of innocent ones, we glory in that name. Such children are indeed new spirits who were infants in the folly of old misguided ways, but have newly become wise and have sprung into being according to the new covenant. Only recently, in fact, has God become known by the coming of Christ: ‘No one knows the Father but the Son – and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.’

Therefore, in contrast to the older people, the newer people are called young, for they have learned the new blessings. We possess the exuberance of life’s morning, the prime of a spiritual youth which knows no age; indeed, we are ever growing to maturity in wisdom, ever young, ever responsive, ever new. For those who have become partakers of the Word will necessarily be renewed in themselves. And whoever partakes of eternity assumes the qualities of the incorruptible. Thus, the name childhood designates for us a life-long springtime of the heart, since the truth which is in us, as well as our way of life, being saturated with the truth, cannot be touched by old age. Surely, wisdom is ever-blooming, ever fixed on the same truth, and never changing.

Thursday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law

There is no principle of the heart that is more acceptable to God than a universal fervent love to all mankind, wishing and praying for their happiness, because there is no principle of the heart that makes us more like God, who is love and goodness itself and created all beings for their enjoyment of happiness.

The greatest idea that we can frame of God is when we conceive him to be a Being of infinite love and goodness, using an infinite wisdom and power for the common good and happiness of all his creatures. The highest notion, therefore, that we can form of man is when we conceive him as like to God in this respect as he can be, using all his finite faculties, whether of wisdom, power, or prayers, for the common good of all his fellow creatures, heartily desiring they may have all the happiness they are capable of and as many benefits and assistances from him as his state and condition in the world will permit him to give them.

And on the other hand, what a baseness and iniquity is there in all instances of hatred, envy, spite, and ill will, if we consider that every instance of them is so far acting in opposition to God and intending mischief and harm to those creatures which God favours, and protects, and preserves, in order to their happiness. An ill-natured man amongst God’s creatures is the most perverse creature in the world, acting contrary to that love by which himself subsists and which alone gives subsistence to all that variety of beings that enjoy life in any part of the creation.

‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them.’

Now though this is a doctrine of strict justice, yet it is only a universal love that can comply with it. For as love is the measure of our acting toward ourselves, so we can never act in the same manner toward other people till we look upon them with that love with which we look upon ourselves.

Friday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from The Go-Between God by John V. Taylor

What was Jesus Christ’s role and relationship to the world? He came to be true Man, the last Adam, living the life of the new age in the midst of the world’s life. His deliverance of men and women from various kinds of bondage, his existence for others, the laying down of his life, were not a task which he undertook but a function of the life of the new Man, just as breathing or eating is a function of physical life. What made his preaching of the kingdom of God distinct from that of John the Baptist was that he not only promised but lived the kingdom life. That is why he said that the least of those in the kingdom was greater than John. And kingdom life is not primarily religious but human.

Jesus’s parables make it clear that life in the kingdom is the normal life that is open to humanity where men and women are found in his true relation to God as son – the Abba-relationship. So the thirty years of hidden toil at Nazareth were to him not a mere passing of the time but were the very life of Man he had come to live. There he learned to say ‘My Father has never yet ceased his work and I am working too,’ and by virtue of his absolute, glad obedience-in-co-operation, Jesus as Man was able to be the vehicle of God’s existence for others, as all people were potentially made to be. ‘If it is by the finger of God that I drive out the devils, then be sure that the kingdom of God has already come upon you.’

But the ‘you’ upon whom the kingdom has come are not people in the Church but people in the world. To say ‘Jesus is Lord’ pledges us to find the effects of his cross and resurrection in the world, not just in our inner lives, nor in the Church.

The way in which Jesus both declared the kingdom and lived in the freedom of the kingdom provides the model of what the Church is created to be. The Church is not the kingdom but, through the Spirit indwelling their fellowship, Christians live the kingdom life as men and women of the world.

The mission of the Church, therefore, is to live the ordinary life of human beings in that extraordinary awareness of the other and self-sacrifice for the other which the Spirit gives. Christian activity will be very largely the same as the world’s activity – earning a living, bringing up a family, making friends, having fun, celebrating occasions, farming, manufacturing, trading, building cities, healing sickness, alleviating distress, mourning, studying, exploring, making music, and so on. Christians will try to do these things to the glory of God, which is to say that they will try to perceive what God is up to in each of these manifold activities and will seek to do it with him by bearing responsibility for the selves of others.

Saturday after Epiphany 3

A Reading from a sermon of Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna

God, seeing the world falling into ruin through fear, never stops working to bring it back into being through love, inviting it back by grace, holding it firm by charity, and embracing it with affection.

God washes the earth, steeped in evil, with the avenging flood. He calls Noah the father of a new world, speaks gently to him and encourages him. He gives him fatherly instruction about the present and consoles him with good hope about the future. He did not give orders, but instead shared in the work of enclosing together in the ark all living creatures on the earth. In this way the love of being together would drive out the fear born of slavery. What had been saved by a shared enterprise was now to be preserved by a community of love.

This is the reason, too, why God calls Abraham from among the nations and makes his name great. He makes him the father of those who believe, accompanies him on his journeys, and takes care of him amid foreigners. He enriches him with possessions, honours him with triumphs, and binds himself to Abraham with promises. He snatches him from harm, is hospitable to him, and astonishes him with the gift of a son he had given up hope of ever having. All this God does so that, filled with many good things, and drawn by the sweetness of divine love, Abraham might learn to love God and not to be afraid of him, to worship him in love rather than in trembling fear.

This is the reason, too, why God comforts the fugitive Jacob as he sleeps. On his way back he calls him to the contest and wrestles with him in his arms. Again, this was to teach him to love and not to fear the father of the contest.

This is why God invites Moses to be the liberator of his people, calling him with a fatherly voice and speaking to him with a fatherly voice.

All the events we are recalling reveal the human heart fired with the flame of the love of God, senses flooded to the point of intoxication with that love, leading people on, until wounded by love they begin to want to look upon the face of God with their bodily eyes.

How could the narrowness of human vision ever enclose God whom the entire world cannot contain? The law of love has no thought about what might be, what ought to be or what can be. Love knows nothing of judgement, reaches beyond reason, and laughs at moderation. Love takes no relief from the fact that the object of its desire is beyond possibility, nor is it dissuaded by difficulties. If love does not attain what it desires it kills the lover, with the result that it will go where it is led, not where it ought to go. Love breeds a desire so strong as to make its way into forbidden territory. Love cannot bear not to catch sight of what it longs for. That is why the saints thought that they merited nothing if they could not see the Lord. It is why love that longs to see God has a spirit of devotion, even if it lacks judgement. It is why Moses dares to say to God: ‘If I have found favour in your sight, show me your face.’

It is also why God, aware that people were suffering pain and weariness from their longing to see him, chose as a means to make himself visible, something which was to be great to the dwellers on earth, and by no means insignificant to the dwellers in heaven. He chose to come to humankind as a human being, assuming our nature, in order to be seen by us.

The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany

A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great

Our Lord Jesus Christ, born truly human without ever ceasing to be true God, was in his own person the prelude of a new creation, and by the manner of his birth he gave humanity a spiritual origin. What mind can grasp this? What tongue can do justice to this gift of love? Guilt becomes innocence, what was old becomes new, strangers are adopted into the family and outsiders are made heirs.

Rouse yourself, therefore, and recognise the dignity of your nature. Remember that you were made in God’s image; and though defaced in Adam, that image has now been restored in Christ. Use this visible creation as it should be used: the earth, the sea, the sky, the air, the springs and rivers. Give praise and glory to their Creator for all that you find beautiful and wonderful in them. See with your bodily eyes the sunlight shining upon the earth, but embrace with your whole soul and all your affections ‘the true light which enlightens everyone who comes into this world’. Speaking of this light the prophet David in the psalms says: ‘Look on him and be radiant; and your face shall never be ashamed.’ If we are indeed the temple of God and if the Spirit of God lives in us, then what every believer has within is of greater worth than what we can admire in the skies.

My friends, in saying this it is not my intention to make you undervalue God’s works or think there is anything contrary to your faith in creation, for the good God has himself made all things good. What I do mean is that you use reasonably and in a balanced way the rich variety of creation which makes this world beautiful; for as the Apostle says: ‘the things that are seen are transient but the things that are unseen are eternal.’

For we are born in the present only to be reborn in the future. Our attachment, therefore, should not be to the transitory; instead, we must be intent upon the eternal. Let us constantly reflect on how divine grace has transformed our earthly natures so that we may contemplate more closely our heavenly hope. And let us attend to the words of the apostle Paul: ‘You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’

Note: If a reading about Cana of Galilee is required, see either alternative reading for Epiphany 2 or Tuesday after Trinity 9.

Monday after Epiphany 4

A Reading from The Revelations of Mechtild of Magdeburg also known as The Flowing Light of the Godhead

GOD

You are hunting desperately for your love.

What do you bring me, O my Queen?

SOUL

Lord, I bring you my treasure;

It is greater than the mountains,

Wider than the world,

Deeper than the ocean,

Higher than the clouds,

More glorious than the sun,

More numerous than the stars,

And it outweighs the entire earth!

GOD

O image of my Godhead,

Ennobled by my own humanity,

Adorned by my Holy Spirit,

What is your treasure called?

SOUL

Lord, it is called my heart’s desire.

I have withdrawn it from the world,

Denied it to myself or any creature.

Now I can bear it no longer,

Where, O Lord, shall I lay it?

GOD

Your heart’s desire shall you lay nowhere

But in my own Sacred Heart

And on my human breast.

There alone will you find comfort

And be embraced by my Spirit.

Tuesday after Epiphany 4

A Reading from Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

‘Jesus Christ,’ says the Apostle, ‘is the same yesterday, today and for ever.’ From the origins of the world he was, as God, the principle of the life of the righteous; from the first instant of his incarnation his humanity participated in this prerogative of his divinity. He works in us all through our life; the time which will elapse before the end of the world is but a day, and this day is filled with him. Jesus Christ has lived in the past and still lives in the present; he began in himself and continues in his saints a life that will never finish.

If the world is so incapable of understanding all that could be written of the individual life of Jesus, of his words and actions when he was on earth, if the gospel gives us only the rough sketch of a few little details of it, if that first hour of his life is so unknown and so fertile, how many gospels would have to be written to recount the history of all the moments of this mystical life of Jesus Christ which multiplies wonder infinitely and eternally, since all the aeons of time are, properly speaking, but the history of the divine action?

The Holy Spirit has set out for us in infallible and incontestable characters certain moments of this vast space of time. He has collected in the Scriptures certain drops, as it were, of this ocean. We see there the secret and unknown ways by which he caused Jesus Christ to appear in the world. We can follow the channels and veins of communication which in the midst of our confusion distinguishes the origin, the race, the genealogy of this first-born child. Of all this ocean of divine action he reveals to us but a tiny stream of water which, having reached Jesus, loses itself in the apostles and disappears in the Apocalypse, so that the history of the divine operations, in which consists the life of Jesus in holy souls until the consummation of the ages, can only be divined by our faith.

To the manifestation of the truth of God by word has succeeded the manifestation of his charity by action. The Holy Spirit carries on the work of the Saviour. While he assists the Church in the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he writes his own gospel, and he writes it in the hearts of the faithful. All the actions, all the moments of the saints make up the gospel of the Holy Spirit. Their holy souls are the paper, their sufferings and their actions are the ink. The Holy Spirit, with his own action for pen, writes a living gospel, but it will not be readable until the day of glory when it will be taken out of the printing press of this life and published.

Wednesday after Epiphany 4

A Reading from The Mirror of Charity by Aelred of Rievaulx

It was pride that distorted the image of God in us and led us away from God, not by means of our feet but by the desires of our hearts. Thus we return to God by following the same path, but in the opposite direction, by the exercise of these same desires; and humility renews us in the same image in which God created us. This is why St Paul calls on us to be mentally and spiritually remade, and to be clothed in the new self made in God’s image. This renewal can only come about by fulfilling the new commandment of charity given us by our Saviour, and if the mind clothes itself in charity, our distorted memory and knowledge will be given new life and new form.

How simple it is to state the new commandment, but how much it implies – the stopping of our old habits, the renewal of our inner life, the reshaping of the divine image within us. Our power to love was poisoned by the selfishness of our desires, and stifled by lust, so that it has tended always to seek the very depths of deviousness. But when charity floods the soul and warms away the numbness, love strives towards higher and more worthy objects. It puts aside the old ways and takes up a new life, and on flashing wings it dies to the highest and purest Goodness which is the source of its being.

This is what St Paul was trying to show the Athenians when he established from the books of their philosophers the existence of one God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Paul then quoted one of their own poets who said that we are God’s offspring, and in the next sentence went on to enlarge on this saying. The Apostle was not using this quotation to prove that we are of the same nature or substance as God, and therefore unchangeable, incorruptible and eternally blessed like God the Son who was born of the Father from all eternity and is equal to the Father in all things. No, St Paul uses this passage from the poet Aratus to assert that we are the offspring of God because the human soul, created in the image of God, can share in his wisdom and blessedness. It is charity which raises our soul towards its destiny, but it is self-centred desire which drags it down to the things towards which, without God’s help, it would not certainly be drawn.

Thursday after Epiphany 4

A reading from The Power and Meaning of Love by Thomas Merton

Those of us today who seek to be Christians, and who have not yet risen to the level of full maturity in Christ, tend unfortunately to take one or other of the debased forms of love for the action of the Spirit of God and the love of Christ. It is this failure to attain to full maturity in love which keeps divisions alive in the world.

There is a ‘romantic’ tendency in some Christians – a tendency which seeks Christ not in love of those flesh-and-blood brothers and sisters with whom we live and work, but in some as yet unrealised ideal of ‘brotherhood’. It is always a romantic evasion to turn from the love of people to the love of love itself: to love people in general more than individual persons, to love ‘brotherhood’ and ‘unity’ more than one’s brothers, sisters, neighbours, and associates.

This corruption of love can be romantic also in its love of God. It is no longer Christ himself that is loved and sought, but perhaps an objectivised ‘experience’ of Christ, a degree of prayer, a mystical state. What is loved then ceases to be Christ, but the subjective reactions which are aroused in me by the supposed presence of Christ in thought or love or prayer.

The romantic tendency leads to a substitution of aestheticism, or false mysticism, or quietism, for genuine faith and love, and what it seeks in the Church is not so much reality as a protection against responsibility. Failing to establish a true dialogue with our brother or sister in Christ, this fallacy thwarts all efforts at real unity and cooperation among Christians.

Friday after Epiphany 4

A Reading from a homily of Gregory the Great

Let us attend to what our Lord requires of his preachers in the gospel, when he sends them out: ‘Go and preach,’ he says, ‘and say that the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Even if the gospel were silent, the world itself would proclaim it. Its chaotic state has become a statement. On all sides we are seeing the disintegration of our society: glory has come to an end. The state of the world is revealing to us the proximity of another kingdom, another kingdom which will overtake it; and the very people who once loved the world are now revolted by it.

The world’s chaos proclaims that we should not love it. If someone’s house became unstable and threatened to collapse, would they not flee? Surely, those who cherished it when it stood would be the first to run away if it began to collapse. If the world is collapsing, and yet we persist in loving it, then we are effectively preferring to be overwhelmed by it than to live in it. When love blinds us to our bondage, the ruin of the world will become inseparable from our own self-destruction.

It is easier for us to distance ourselves from the world around us when we see everything in such chaos. But in our Lord’s day, the situation was very different. The disciples were sent to preach the reality of an unseen kingdom at a time when everybody could see the kingdoms of this world flourishing. It was for this reason that the preachers of his word were given the gift of performing miracles. The power they displayed lent credence to their words. Those who preached something new were performing something new, as the gospel records, when the disciples were told to ‘cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons.’

With the world flourishing and progressing, people living longer and longer, wealth multiplying, who was going to believe in another reality? Who would ever prefer an unseen world to the tangible things in front of them? But as soon as the sick recovered their health, the dead were raised, lepers cleansed, the demoniacs cured of their demonic possession, then who would not believe in the reality of the unseen world? Such amazing miracles were performed in order to draw the human heart to believe in what it cannot see, and to explore that far greater world within us.

Saturday after Epiphany 4

A Reading from The Longer Rules for Monks by Basil the Great

What words can adequately describe the gifts of God? They are so many as to be innumerable, and so wonderful that any one of them demands our total gratitude of praise. I have no time to speak of the richness and diversity of God’s gifts. We will have to pass over in silence the rising of the sun, the circuits of the moon, the variation in air temperature, the patterns of the seasons, the descent of the rain, the gushing of springs, the sea itself, the whole earth and its flora, the life of the oceans, the creatures of the air, the animals in their various species – in fact everything that exists for the service of our life. But there is one gift which no thoughtful person can pass over in silence; and yet to speak of it worthily is impossible.

God made us in his image and likeness; he deemed us worthy of knowledge of himself, equipped us with reason beyond the capacity of other creatures, allowed us to revel in the unimaginable beauty of paradise, and gave us dominion over creation. When we were deceived by the serpent and fell into sin, and through sin into death and all that followed in its wake, God did not abandon us. In the first place, God gave us a law to help us; he ordained angels to guard and care for us. He sent prophets to rebuke vice and to teach us virtue. He frustrated the impact of vice by dire warnings. He stirred up in us a zeal for goodness by his promises, and confronted us with examples of the end result of both virtue and vice in the lives of various individuals. To crown these and his other mercies, God was not estranged from the human race by our continuing disobedience. Indeed, in the goodness of our Master, we have never been neglected: our callous indifference towards our Benefactor for his gifts has never diminished his love for us. On the contrary, our Lord Jesus Christ recalled us from death and restored us to life.

In Christ the generosity of God is resplendent; for as Scripture says: ‘being in the form of God, he did not cling to equality with God, but emptied himself, assuming the form of a servant.’ What is more, he assumed our frailty and bore our infirmities; he was wounded on our behalf that ‘by his wounds we might be healed’. He set us free from the curse, having become a curse on our behalf himself, and underwent the most ignominious death that he might lead us to the life of glory. Not content with restoring us to life when we were dead, he has graced us with the dignity of divinity and prepared for us eternal mansions, the delight of which exceeds all that we can conceive.

‘What then shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits to us?’ God is so good that he asks of us nothing, he is content merely with being loved in return for his gifts. When I consider this I am overcome with awe and fear lest through carelessness or preoccupation with trivia, I should fall away from the love of God and become a reproach to Christ.