Читать книгу Celebrating the Seasons - Robert Atwell - Страница 21

The Fifth Sunday before Lent

A Reading from a homily of John Chrysostom

‘You are the salt of the earth.’ It is not for your own sake, Christ says to his disciples, but for the world’s sake that the word is entrusted to you. I am not sending you to a couple of cities, to ten or twenty cities, not even to a single nation, as I sent the prophets of old, but across land and sea, to the whole world. And that world is in a pitiful state. For when Jesus says: ‘You are the salt of the earth,’ he is indicating that all humanity had lost its savour and been corrupted by sin.

What else do his words imply? For example, were the disciples to restore what had already turned rotten? Not at all. Salt cannot help what has already become corrupted. That is not what they did. Rather what had first been renewed and freed from corruption by Christ, and then turned over to them, they salted and preserved in the newness the Lord had bestowed. It took the power of Christ to free humanity from the corruption caused by sin; it was the task of the apostles through hard work to prevent that corruption from returning.

Have you noticed how, little by little, Christ demonstrates the apostles to be superior to the prophets of old? He says they are to be teachers not simply for Palestine but for the whole world. Do not be surprised, then, he says, that I address you apart from the others and involve you in such a dangerous enterprise. Consider the numerous and extensive cities, peoples and nations I will be sending you to. This is why I would have you make others prudent, as well as being prudent yourselves. For unless you can do that, you will not be able to sustain your own lives.

If others lose their savour, then your ministry will help them regain it. But if you yourselves suffer that loss, you will drag others down with you. Therefore, the greater the undertaking put into your hands, the more zealous you must be. This is why Jesus says: ‘But if salt becomes tasteless, how can its flavour be restored? It is good for nothing now, but to be thrown out and trampled under foot.’

Then Jesus passes on to a yet more exalted comparison: ‘You are the light of the world.’ Once again, note that he says ‘of the world’: not of one nation or twenty cities, but of the whole world. The light of which he speaks is an interior light, something far superior to the rays of the sun we see, just as the salt of which he speaks is a spiritual salt. First salt, then light, so that you may learn how profitable sharp words may be and how important clear doctrine is. Such teaching brings coherence and prevents dissipation; it leads a person to the practice of virtue and sharpens the mind’s eye. ‘A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do you light a lamp and put it under a basket.’ Once again Jesus urges his disciples to a careful manner of life and teaches them to be watchful, for they live under the scrutiny of others and have the whole world for the arena of their struggles.

Monday after 5 before Lent

A Reading from Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Sin is the sharpest scourge that any elect soul can be flogged with. It is the scourge which so reduces a man or woman and makes him loathsome in his own sight that it is not long before he thinks himself fit only to sink down to hell until the touch of the Holy Spirit forces him to contrition, and turns his bitterness to the hope of God’s mercy. Then he begins to heal his wounds, and to rouse his soul as it turns to the life of Holy Church. The Holy Spirit leads him on to confession, so that he deliberately reveals his sins in all their nakedness and reality, and admits with great sorrow and shame that he has befouled the fair image of God. Then for all his sins he performs penance imposed by his confession according to the doctrine of Holy Church, and by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. This is one of the humble things that greatly pleases God. Physical illness that is sent by him is another. Others are those humiliations and griefs caused by outside influences, or by the rejection and contempt of the world, by the various kinds of difficulty and temptation a person may find himself in, whether they be physical or spiritual.

Dearly, indeed, does our Lord hold on to us when it seems to us that we are nearly forsaken and cast away because of our sin – and deservedly so. Because of the humility we acquire this way we are exalted in the sight of God by his grace, and know a very deep contrition and compassion and a genuine longing for God. Then suddenly we are delivered from sin and pain, and raised to blessedness and even made great saints!

Our courteous Lord does not want his servants to despair even if they fall frequently and grievously. Our falling does not stop his loving us. Peace and love are always at work in us, but we are not always in peace and love. But he wants us in this way to realise that he is the foundation of the whole of our life in love, and furthermore that he is our eternal protector, and mighty defender against our enemies who are so very fierce and wicked. And, alas, our need is all the greater since we give them every opportunity by our failures.

Tuesday after 5 before Lent

A Reading from a homily of Basil the Great

‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ This is why the commandments of our Lord trouble the rich, demanding of them a life that is impossible to live unless they dispense with useless goods.

Your heart will be weighed in the balance and found to be inclined either toward true life or toward present pleasures. It is in stewardship and not in pleasure that one ought to use riches: such ought to be the conviction of those who reason wisely. In giving up wealth they ought to rejoice, convinced that this will be beneficial for others, instead of being tormented by the loss of their own fortune. Why this chagrin? Why this mourning at the injunction to ‘Sell what you have’? It is these same goods which will follow you into eternity. Overshadowed by the glory of heaven, they are not worth eagerly retaining in this life. Since you must leave them here, why not sell them and bring the profits with you to heaven? After all, when you spend gold to buy a horse, you experience no suffering. But at the idea of exchanging corruptible goods for the kingdom of heaven, you cry and repel the offer, refuse to proceed, inventing the pretext of a thousand expenses.

What are you going to tell the judge, you who cover your walls but do not cover the human being? You who adorn your horses and then loudly mock your brother in rags? You who are able to leave alone both your wheat and those who are starving? You who bury your gold and scorn those who are strangled?

Wednesday after 5 before Lent

A Reading from an Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis de Sales

Before we can receive the grace of God into our hearts they must be thoroughly emptied of self-glory. Humility repulses Satan and preserves in us the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit.

If you would know whether a person is truly wise, learned and generous, observe whether his gifts make him humble, modest and open. If so, the gifts are genuine. If they swim on the surface, however, always seeking attention, then they are less than true.

If we stand upon our dignity about places, or precedence, or how we should be addressed, besides exposing ourselves and our gifts to scrutiny and possible contradiction, we render those same gifts unattractive and contemptible. Honour is beautiful when it is freely bestowed: it becomes ugly when it is exacted or sought after.

The pursuit and love of virtue begins a process by which we become virtuous; but the pursuit and love of honour will make us contemptible and open to ridicule. Generous minds do not need the amusement of such petty toys as rank, honour and obsequious greetings; they have better things to do. Such baubles are only important to degenerate spirits.

It is said that the surest way of attaining to the love of God is to dwell on his mercies; the more we value them, the more we shall love God. Certainly, nothing can so humble us before the compassion of God as the contemplation of the abundance of his mercies; and nothing so humble us before his justice as the abundance of our misdeeds. Let us, then, reflect upon all that God has done for us, and all that we have done against him. And as we enumerate our sins, let us also count his mercies.

Thursday after 5 before Lent

A Reading from The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity by Richard Hooker

God is himself the teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them to live in that shall be saved.

This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us God hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St John doth note, terming it by an excellency, the work of God: ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent.’ Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude) but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it is the ground of those other divine virtues.

Concerning faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God. Concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that faith, hope, and charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God.

Friday after 5 before Lent

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

Our Teacher is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity: God himself, who loves us, is our Teacher.

In a song in Scripture the Holy Spirit says of him: ‘He provided for the people in the wilderness. He led them through the desert in the thirst of the summer heat, and instructed them. He guarded them as the apple of his eye. As an eagle hovers over her nest, and protects her young, spreading out her wings, rising up, and bearing them on her back, so the Lord alone was their leader. No strange god was with them.’ In my opinion, Scripture is offering us here a picture of Christ the Teacher of children, and is describing the sort of guidance he imparts. Indeed, when he speaks in his own person, he confesses himself to be the Teacher: ‘I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ Who has the power to lead us if not our Teacher?

He is the one who appeared to Abraham and said to him: ‘I am your God; be pleasing before me.’ He formed him by a gradual process into a faithful child, as any good teacher would, saying: ‘Be blameless; and I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants.’ What is being offered is a share in the Teacher’s friendship. Who, then, could train us more lovingly than Christ? Formerly, God’s ancient people had an old covenant; the law disciplined the people with fear, and the word was an angel. But the new and young people of God have received a new and young covenant: the Word has become flesh, fear has been turned into love, and the mystic angel has been born – Jesus.

Formerly, this same Teacher said: ‘Fear the Lord your God.’ But now he says to us: ‘Love the Lord your God.’ That is why he tells us: ‘Cease from your own works, from your old sins’; ‘Learn to do good; love justice and hate iniquity.’ This is my new covenant written in the old letter. Thus, the newness of the word must not be made ground for reproach. For the Lord says through Jeremiah: ‘Say not, “I am too young.” Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.’ Perhaps this prophetic word refers to us: before the foundation of the world we were known by God as those destined for the faith, but we are still only infants. The will of God has only recently been fulfilled; we are only newly born in the scheme of our calling and salvation.

Saturday after 5 before Lent

A Reading from Holy Living by Jeremy Taylor

God is especially present in the consciences of all persons, good and bad, by way of testimony and judgement: He is a remembrancer to call our actions to mind, a witness to bring them to judgement, and judge to acquit or to condemn. And although this manner of presence is, in this life, after the manner of this life, that is, imperfect, and we forget many actions of our lives; yet the greatest changes of our state of grace or sin, our most considerable actions, are always present like capital letters to an aged and dim eye. Because we covered them with dust and negligence, they were not then discerned. But when we are risen from our dust and imperfection, they all appear plain and legible.

Now the consideration of this great truth is of a very universal use in the whole course of the life of a Christian. He that remembers that God stands a witness and a judge, beholding every secrecy, besides his impiety, must have put on impudence, if he be not much restrained in his temptation to sin. He is to be feared in public, he is to be feared in private. Be sure, that while you are in his sight, you behave yourself as becomes so holy a presence. But if you will sin, retire yourself wisely, and go where God cannot see for nowhere else can you be safe. And certainly, if men would always actually consider and really esteem this truth, that God is the great eye of the world, alway watching over our actions, and an ever-open ear to hear all our words, it would be the readiest way in the world to make sin to cease from amongst the children of men, and for men to approach to the blessed estate of the saints in heaven, who cannot sin, for they always walk in the presence, and behold the face of God.

The Fourth Sunday before Lent

A Reading from the Confessions of Augustine

Where in my consciousness, Lord, do you dwell? Where in it do you make your home? What resting-place have you made for yourself? You are the Lord God of the mind. All things are liable to change. But you remain unchangeable over all things; and yet you have deigned to dwell in my memory since the time that I learnt about you. Why do I ask in which area of my memory you dwell, as if there really are places there? Surely my memory is where you dwell, because I remember you since first I learnt of you, and I find you there when I think about you.

Where then did I find you to be able to learn of you? For you were not in my memory before I learnt of you. Where then did I find you so that I could learn of you if not in the fact that you transcend me? There is no place, whether we go this way or that; the concept of place has no meaning. O truth, everywhere you preside over all who ask counsel of you. You respond at one and the same time to all, even though they are consulting you on different subjects. You reply clearly, but not all hear you clearly. All ask your counsel on what they desire, but do not always hear what they would wish. Your best servant is the person who does not attend so much to hearing what he himself wants, as to willing what he hears from you.

Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! For you were within me and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they would have had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud to me and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now I pant after you. I tasted you and now I feel nothing but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and now I burn for your peace.

When I shall be united to you with my whole being, I shall never experience pain and toil again, and my entire life will be full of you. You lift up the person whom you fill. But for the present, because I am not full of you, I am a burden to myself. There is a struggle between my regrets at my evil past and my memories of good joys, and I do not know which side has secured the victory. Alas, Lord, have mercy upon me, wretch that I am. See, I do not hide my wounds. You are the physician, I am the patient. You are merciful, and I need your mercy.

Monday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from An Exposition of the Church Catechism by Thomas Ken

O my God, when in any of thy commands a duty is enjoined, love tells me the contrary evil is forbidden; when any evil is forbidden, love tells me the contrary duty is enjoined; O do thou daily increase my love to good, and my antipathy to evil.

Though thy commands and prohibitions, O Lord, are in general terms, yet let thy love direct my particular practice, and teach me, that in one general are implied all the kinds and degrees and occasions and incitements and approaches and allowances, relating to that good or evil which are also commanded or forbidden, and give me grace to pursue or to fly them.

O my God, keep my love always watchful and on its guard that in thy negative precepts I may continually resist evil; keep my love warm with an habitual zeal that in all thy affirmative precepts I may lay hold on all seasons and opportunities of doing good.

Let thy love, O thou that only art worthy to be beloved, make me careful to persuade and engage others to love thee, and to keep thy commandments as well as myself.

None can love thee, and endeavour to keep thy holy commands, but his daily failings in his duty, his frequent involuntary and unavoidable slips, and surreptitions and wanderings, afflict and humble him; the infirmities of lapsed nature create in him a kind of perpetual martyrdom because he can love thee no more, because he can so little serve thee.

But thou, O most compassionate Father, in thy covenant of grace dost require sincerity, not perfection; and therefore I praise and love thee.

O my God, though I cannot love and obey thee as much as I desire, I will do it as much as I am able: I will to the utmost of my power, keep all thy commandments with my whole heart and to the end. O accept of my imperfect duty, and supply all the defects of it by the merits and love and obedience of Jesus, thy beloved.

Tuesday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from The Cloud of Unknowing

We must pray in the height, depth, length, and breadth of our spirits. Not in many words, but in a little word of one syllable. What shall this word be? Surely such a word as is suited to the nature of prayer itself. And what word is that? First let us see what prayer is in itself, and then we shall know more clearly what word will best suit its nature.

In itself prayer is nothing else than a devout setting of our will in the direction of God in order to get good, and remove evil. Since all evil is summed up in sin, considered casually or essentially, when we pray with intention for the removing of evil, we should neither say, think, nor mean any more than this little word ‘sin’. And if we pray with intention for the acquiring of goodness, let us pray, in word or thought or desire, no other word than ‘God’. For in God is all good, for he is its beginning and its being. Do not be surprised then that I set these words before all others. If I could find any shorter words which would sum up fully the thought of good or evil as these words do, or if I had been led by God to take some other words, then I would have used those and left these. And that is my advice for you too.

But don’t study these words, for you will never achieve your object so, or come to contemplation; it is never attained by study, but only by grace. Take no other words for your prayer than those that God leads you to use. Yet if God does lead you to these, my advice is not to let them go, that is, if you are using words at all in your prayer: not otherwise. They are very short words. But though shortness of prayer is greatly to be recommended here, it does not mean that the frequency of prayer is to be lessened. For as I have said, it is prayed in the length of one’s spirit, so that it never stops until such time as it has fully attained what it longs for. We can turn to a terrified man or woman, suddenly frightened by fire, or death, for an example. They never stop crying their little words, ‘Help!’ or ‘Fire!’ till such time as they have got all the help they need in their trouble.

Wednesday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa

The divine law leads us along a royal highway, and the person who has been purified of all desires and passions, will deviate neither to the left nor to the right. And yet how easy it is for a traveller to turn aside from the way. Imagine two precipices forming a high narrow pass; from its centre the person crossing it is in great danger if he veers in either direction because of the chasm on either side that waits to engulf those that stray. In the same way, the divine law requires those who follow its paths not to stray either to left or right from the way which, as the Lord says, is ‘narrow and hard’.

This teaching declares that virtue is to be discerned in the mean: evil operates in either a deficiency or in an excess. For example, in the case of courage, cowardice is the product of a lack of virtue, and impetuosity the product of its excess. What is pure and to be identified as virtue is to be discovered in the mean between two contrasting evils. Similarly, those things in life which reach after the good also in some strange way follow this middle course between neighbouring evils.

Wisdom clings to the mean between shrewdness and innocence. Neither the wisdom of the serpent nor the innocence of the dove is to be praised if a person opts for one to the neglect of the other. Rather it is the frame of mind that seeks to unite these two attitudes by their mean that constitutes virtue. One person, for example, who lacks moderation becomes self-indulgent; another person whose demands exceed what moderation dictates has his ‘conscience seared’, as the apostle Paul says. For one has abandoned all restraint in the pursuit of pleasure, and the other ridicules marriage as if it were adultery; whereas the frame of mind formed by the mean of these two attitudes is moderation.

Since, as our Lord says, ‘this world is ensnared in wickedness’, and everything that is wicked (and therefore opposed to virtue) is alien to those who obey the divine law, it follows that those in this life who pick their way through this world will only reach the destination of their journey in safety if they faithfully keep to that highway which is hardened and smoothed by virtue, and who under no circumstances, veer aside to explore the byways of evil.

Thursday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

‘Confess your faults one to another.’ He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal their sin from themselves and from each other. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are: he does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work: he wants you alone. As Scripture says: ‘My child, give me your heart.’ God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before others will do you no good before him. He wants to see you as you are, he wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers and sisters, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that: he loves the sinner but he hates sin.

In confession the breakthrough to community takes place. Sin demands to have a person by himself. It withdraws us from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. In confession the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.

Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian sister or brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders: he gives up all his evil. He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his sister and brother. The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power. The sin confessed has helped the person find true fellowship with his brothers and sisters in Christ. If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with a sister or brother, he will never be alone again, anywhere.

Friday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from The Enchiridion by Augustine

Every lie constitutes a sin. It is a sin, not only when we know the truth and blatantly lie, but also when we are mistaken and deceived in what we say. It remains our duty to speak what we think in our heart, whether it be true, or we just think that it’s true. A liar says the opposite of what he thinks in his heart, because his purpose is to deceive.

We have been given the gift of speech not to deceive one another, but to communicate truly with each other. To use speech for the purpose of deception is to pervert its purpose and is sinful. Nor should we kid ourselves that there are lies that are not sinful, because (we suppose) in telling a lie we are doing someone a service. One could say the same thing about stealing: it is alright to steal from a rich person because they will never feel the loss if it is in order to help the poor. Or you could make an argument for committing adultery: if I don’t sleep with this woman she will die of love for me. Your action is no less sinful. We value marital fidelity, refusing to countenance anything that will violate a marriage; but are quite happy to violate a relationship by lying. It cannot be denied that they have attained a very high standard of goodness who never lie, except perhaps to protect a person from injury; but even in such cases, it is not the deceit that is praiseworthy, but the good intention. Such deception is pardonable, but not laudable, particularly among Christians.

So let us be true heirs of the new covenant, to whom our Lord said: ‘Let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No; for whatever else comes from the evil One.’ And it is on account of our many failures in this regard, failures which never cease to creep into our living, that we co-heirs of Christ cry out: ‘Lord, forgive us our sins.’

Saturday after 4 before Lent

A Reading from the treatise Pastoral Care by Gregory the Great

Let every Christian leader be both alongside each person under their pastoral care in compassion, and lifted above all in contemplation, so that he may both transfer to himself the weaknesses of others through the inner depths of his mercy, and at the same time, transcend himself seeking the unseen through the heights of contemplation. This balance is important lest in seeking to scale the heights a leader despise the weakness of his neighbour, or in attending to the weakness of his neighbour, he lose his desire for the sublime.

Thus it was that Paul was led into paradise and searched the secrets of the third heaven, and yet, though raised aloft in the contemplation of the unseen, was still able to give his mind to the needs of ordinary people, and even lay out norms governing the conduct of Christian marriage.

Note that Paul had already been introduced into the secrets of heaven, yet by a graciousness of love was still able to give advice to ordinary men and women. He can raise his heart to the contemplation of the unseen, and being so lifted up, can turn in compassion to the secrets of those who are weak. He reaches the heavens in contemplation, yet in his care for others does not ignore the marriage-bed. United by a bond of charity to the highest and lowest alike, a leader is readily caught up in the contemplation of heaven, but equally content to be ‘weak with those who are weak’.

In a similar vein, we find Paul declaring that: ‘To the Jews, I became a Jew.’ Paul did this, not by abandoning his faith, but by expanding his loving-kindness. Thus, by transfiguring the person of the unbeliever into his own person, he learnt at first hand how he ought to be compassionate to others.

The Third Sunday before Lent

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

When we pray ‘Your will be done on earth as in heaven’ we are not praying that God may accomplish what he wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills. For who can prevent God from doing what he wills? The reality is that it is we who are prevented from completely obeying God in our thoughts and deeds because of the activity of the devil. That is why we pray that we may will what God wills. If this is to happen we need God’s goodwill, by which is meant his help and protection. Nobody is sufficiently strong, whatever their inner resources: it is only by the grace and mercy of God that we are saved.

Indeed, our Lord himself revealed the fragility of his own humanity when he prayed: ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by.’ And then he gave his disciples an example that they should do God’s will and not their own when he went on to say: ‘Nevertheless, not what I will but what you will.’ If the Son was obedient to the Father’s will, how much more should we servants be concerned to do the will of our Master!

It was the will of God, then, that Christ exemplified both in his deeds and in his teaching. It requires humility in behaviour, constancy in faith, modesty in conversation, justice in deeds, mercy in judgements, discipline in morals. We should be incapable of doing wrong to anyone but, at the same time, able to bear patiently wrongs done to us. It requires that we live at peace with our neighbours, loving God with our whole heart: loving him as our Father, fearing him as our God. It means preferring nothing whatever to Christ who preferred nothing to us. It means holding fast to his love and never letting go; standing by his cross bravely and fearlessly when his name and honour are challenged; exhibiting in our speech a conviction that will confess our faith. It also means that even under torture we sustain a confidence that will not surrender; and that in the face of death we allow our patience to be our crown. This is what is entailed in being a co-heir with Christ. This is what it means to accomplish the commandment of God, to fulfil the will of the Father.

Monday after 3 before Lent

A Reading from the discourses of Dorotheus of Gaza

In the Book of Proverbs it says: ‘Those who have no guidance fall like leaves, but there is safety in much counsel.’ Take a good look at this saying, brothers. Look at what Scripture is teaching us. It assures us that we should not set ourselves up as guide-posts, that we should not consider ourselves sagacious, that we should not believe we can direct ourselves. We need assistance, we need guidance in addition to God’s grace. No one is more wretched, no one is more easily caught unawares, than someone who has no one to guide them along the road to God. Scripture says: ‘Those who have no guidance fall like leaves.’ Leaves are always green in the beginning, they grow vigorously and are pleasing to look at. Then after a short time they dry up and fall off the tree, and in the end they are blown about by the wind and trodden under foot. So is the person who refuses guidance. At first he has great fervour about fasting, keeping vigil, keeping silence, and obedience and other good customs. Then, after a short time, the fire is extinguished and, not having anyone to guide him and strengthen him and kindle his fire again, he shrivels up and so, becoming disobedient, he falls and finally becomes a tool in the hand of his enemies, who do what they like with him.

Concerning those who make a report about what concerns their interior life and do everything with counsel, Scripture says: ‘There is safety in much counsel.’ When it says ‘much counsel’ it does not mean taking counsel from all and sundry, but clearly from someone in whom one has full confidence. And we should not be silent about some things and speak about others, but we should report everything and take counsel about everything. To those doing this consistently there is indeed safety in much counsel. But if someone does not bring to light everything about himself, especially if he has turned away from evil habits and a bad upbringing, and if the devil finds in him one bit of self-will or self-righteousness, he will cast him down through that. For when the devil looks at a person who sincerely desires not to sin, he is not so unintelligent as to suggest to him (as he would to a hardened sinner) that he go and commit fornication or go and steal. He knows we do not want that, and he does not set out to tell us something we do not want to hear; instead he finds out that little bit of self-will or self-righteousness and through that, with the appearance of well doing, he will do us harm. For when we are masters of our own affairs and we stand in our own righteousness as if we were doing great things, we are giving ourselves counsel – and we do not know how it is we are destroyed. For how can we know the will of God or seek it completely if we believe only in ourselves and hold on to our own will?

May God shelter us from this danger of being our own guides that we may be worthy to take the road our fathers took and pleased God.

Tuesday after 3 before Lent

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

Lord, my sin because of which I have lost you,

Stands before my eyes like a huge mountain,

Creating between us

Darkness and distance.

O Love, above all love

Draw me to yourself again.

But Lord, the prospect of future falls

Plague my mind:

They beckon to me like the mouth of a fiery dragon

Eager to swallow me whole.

O my only Good, help me now

That I may flow sinless towards you.

Lord, my earthly being lies before me

As an acre of dust

On which little good has grown.

O sweet Jesus Christ,

Send me now the fruitful rain of your humanity,

And the gentle dew of the Holy Spirit

That I may plead my heart’s sorrow.

Your everlasting kingdom

Lies open before my eyes

Like a wedding feast,

Inviting me to your everlasting banquet.

O true lover

Never cease to draw to your side this lovesick bride.

All the gifts I have ever received from you

Stand before me as a heavy reproach

For this your highest gift humbles me to the dust.

Then God who gives us everything answered thus:

‘Your mountain of darkness shall be melted away by my love,

Your enemies shall win no victory over you,

Your acre has been scorched by the rays of the hot sun

Yet its fruit has not been destroyed.

In my kingdom you will live as a new bride,

There I will greet you with the kiss of love

And all my Godhead shall sweep through your soul;

My three-fold being shall play ceaselessly

In your two-fold heart.

What place then has mourning?

If you were to pray for a thousand years

I would never give you cause

For a single sigh.’

Wednesday after 3 before Lent

A Reading from The Scale of Perfection by Walter Hilton