April, 2008

Manifest Faith

Since faith is hidden from human eyes and is invisible, it must be manifested by its fruits, inasmuch as faith creates from Christ all that is good, righteous, and holy.

Now, if faith waits the promised blessings, hope arises out of faith. What else is hope but a constant and persevering expectation, in faith, of promised blessings? But if faith shares with a neighbor the blessings that it has itself received, love arises out of faith, and imparts to the neighbor that which it has itself received from God. If faith endures the test of the cross, and submits itself to the will of God, patience grows out of faith. If it sighs under the cross, or offers thanks to God for mercies it has received, prayer is born. If it compares the power of God with the misery of man, and submits and bends to God, humility is born. If faith is concerned that it not lose the grace of God, or, as St Paul says, worketh out its salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 3:12), the fear of God is born.

Johann Arndt, True Christianity (Paulist Press, 1979), p. 23

Use of the Word

Thought should be given to a more extensive use of the Word of God among us. We know that by nature we have no good in us. If there is to be any good in us, it must be brought about by God. To this end the Word of God is the powerful means, since faith must be enkindled through the gospel, and the law provides the rules for good works and many wonderful impulses to attain them. The more at home the Word of God is among us, the more we shall bring about faith and its fruits.

Philip Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria, edited by Theodore Tappert (Fortress Press, 1964), p. 87.

Prayer

The invisible God acts upon my soul as if he were visible, as if he were present here before me, knowing all my thoughts and feelings; every inward slothfulness, stubbornness, or other passion is always accompanied by a corresponding punishment. In general, if my inward disposition is unworthy of God, of his holiness, then I suffer punishment for it in my heart, a devouring fire; and if it is a worthy one, then I am joyful and at peace.

John Sergieff, in A Treasury of Russian Spirituality, (Harper, Torchbooks, 1965), p. 351

Reason

Luther was asked whether the light of reason was useful to the theologian He replied: “I make this distinction: Reason corrupted by the devil is harmful, and the cleverer and more richly endowed it is, the more harm it does, as we see in wise men who are led by their reason to reject the Word; but reason informed by the Spirit is a help in interpreting the Holy Scriptures. …It takes all its thoughts from the Word; then substance remains, while vanity disappears.”

From Table Talk: Conversations with Martin Luther (Keats, 1979), pp. 115,116

Longevity

Tuesday, 28 June, 1774 – This being the first day of my seventy-second year, I was considering, How is this, that I find just the same strength as I did thirty years ago? The grand cause is the good pleasure of God, who doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. The chief means are (1) my constantly rising at four for about fifty years; (2) my generally preaching at five in the morning—one of the most healthy exercises in the world; (3) my never traveling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles in a year.

Christopher Idle, The Journal of John Wesley (A Lion Paperback, 1986) p. 203.

Thinking and Community

There is a simple reason why some students resist thinking: they live in a world where relationships are often quite fragile. They are desperate for more community, not less, so when thinking is presented to them as a way of disconnecting themselves from each other and from the world, they want nothing of it. If we could represent knowing for what it is—a way of creating community, not destroying it—we would draw more young people into the great adventure of learning.

Parker J. Palmer. To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (Harper, 1993), p. xvi

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual direction is receiving special attention in the face of our reawakening to the neglect of a careful oral tradition of spiritual guidance in the Church. Today we are almost totally dependent on books and scholarship for reminding us of the depths and nuances of human interior development…. We have been largely missing the careful, chastened, long-term, faith-grounded, tested, and intuitive person-to-person conveyance of the heart of Christian awareness…. Little of this faith nurture seems left in the frenzied, confused, everybody-working, emotionally and materially distracted and often broken family settings that increasingly dominate our culture.

Tilden Edwards, Spiritual Friend :Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction (Paulist Press,, 1980), p. 101.

Ongoing Process

To be alive in Christ is constant and continuous. We are not finished, but are “under construction,” maturing into the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Conversion is an ongoing process which we must keep alive. What e.e. cummings said was true for everyone has particular meaning for Christians: “We can never be born enough. We are human beings for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of becoming.” That is the purpose of spiritual disciplines—to keep alive the conversion process, to fertilize the seeds of potential within so that new birth and growth will happen.

Maxie Dunham, Alive in Christ: The Dynamic Process of Spiritual Formation (Abingdon Press, 1982), pp. 109-110

Simplicity of Life

There was a time when I urged simplicity of life upon people indiscriminately. I would cajole, shove, push, and often they would indeed change their lifestyle, but I found that it was all quite destructive. I discovered that simplicity is just another anxiety-laden burden until people have experienced God’s gracious power to provide them with daily bread. Only as Kingdom power breaks in are we free to live in trust.

Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity (Harper & Row, 1981, p. 46

Our Need for Community

St. Paul contrasts the fruit of the Spirit and the woks of the flesh in Galatians 5. Neither the fruit of the Spirit nor the works of the flesh can be visible except in some kind of relational, social, or corporate contexts. Neither the fruit nor the works is a private matter. Both presuppose a person-in- relation. An ecumenical context commends itself as intrinsic to the teaching of spirituality, not only because it is ecclesial and deeply rooted in history and the traditions but also because it affords contact with “the other,” in whom we meet Christ and thus see the other in Christ. The ecumenical context provides a hedge against individualism, on the one hand, and ecclesiastical triumpalism on the other.

Sister Agnes Cunningham and John Weborg, Prayer and Life in the Spirit (North Park Theological Seminary, 1993), p. 55

Spiritual Companionship

The prayer of abandonment which I recite each evening with my brothers in faith, says at this point: “I need to give myself.” It isn’t easy to say this truthfully and spiritually. All our weakness comes between. And just because we do feel week, we gather in groups, we become the Church. And to help each other, we become a congregation. I become a Little Brother, so as not to be alone. And I assure you that I have not felt alone in my attitude of wanting to give myself to the poorest and the lowliest.

Carlo Carretto, Summoned by Love (Orbis Boooks, 1984), p. 110

Communion (1 Peter 2:4-10)

Can I give a friend absolution?
Can I be the priest?
You said it, Lord.
I did.
Can a friend give me absolution?
Can she be my priest?
You said it, Lord.
She did,.
Great day in the morning.
Cared for,
Forgiven.

Adaline Bjorkman, While It Was Still Dark: One Person’s Pilgrimage Through Grief (Covenant Press, 1978), p. 116