Christian Quotations of the Day
for May, 2002
Feast of Philip & James, Apostles
If we do not at least try to manifest something of Creative Charity in our dealings with life, whether by action, thought, or prayer, and do it at our own cost -- if we roll up the talent of love in the nice white napkin of piety and put it safely out of the way, sorry that the world is so hungry and thirsty, so sick and so fettered, and leave it at that: then, even that little talent may be taken from us. We may discover at the crucial moment that we are spiritually bankrupt.
... Evelyn Underhill, The School of Charity
Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373
A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened.
... St. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God
Dear Jesus! 'tis Thy Holy Face
Is here the star that guides my way;
Thy countenance, so full of grace,
Is heaven on earth, for me, to-day.
And love finds holy charms for me
In Thy sweet eyes with tear-drops wet;
Through mine own tears I smile at Thee,
And in Thy griefs my pains forget.
... Thérèse of Lisieux
Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation
It was not a marriage only, but a marriage feast to which Christ conducted His disciples. Now, we cannot get over this plain fact by saying that it was a religious ceremony: that would be mere sophistry. It was an indulgence in the festivity of life; as plainly as words can describe, here was a banquet of human enjoyment. The very language of the master of the feast about men who had well drunk, tells us that there had been, not excess, of course, but happiness there, and merry-making. Neither can we explain away the lesson by saying that it is no example to us, for Christ was there to do good, and that what was safe for Him might be unsafe for us. For if His life is no pattern for us here in this case of accepting an invitation, in what can we be sure it is a pattern? Besides, He took His disciples there, and His mother was there: they were not shielded, as He was, by immaculate purity. He was there as a guest first, as Messiah only afterwards: thereby He declared the sacredness of natural enjoyments.... For Christianity does not destroy what is natural, but ennobles it. To turn water into wine, and what is common into what is holy, is indeed the glory of Christianity.
... F. W. Robertson
There never was a pain that befell a man, no frustration or discouragement, however insignificant, that, transferred to God, did not affect God endlessly more than man and was not infinitely more contrary to Him. So, if God puts up with it for the sake of some good He foresees for you, and if you are willing to suffer what God suffers, and to take what comes to you through Him, then whatever it is, it becomes divine in itself; shame becomes honor, bitterness becomes sweet, and gross darkness, clear light. Everything takes its savor from God and becomes divine; everything that happens betrays God when a man's mind works that way. Things have all this one taste; and therefore God is the same to this man alike in life's bitterest moments and sweetest pleasures
... Meister Eckhart, Spiritual Instructions
I cannot imagine a much greater misfortune for a man (not to say a clergyman) than not to know, or knowing, not to minister to, any of the poor.
... George Macdonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood
A century or so since, they spoke of sharing our Lord with the heathen, and the world rocked with laughter at so crazy a scheme, with the Church joining loudly in the merriment. Yet today, who laughs now? We ought to be the gladdest and the most exultant people in the world; for we have found the key to our difficulties, and it turns; have come on a solution of life's problems, and it works.
... A. J. Gossip, From the Edge of the Crowd
He said not Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed; but He said, Thou shalt not be overcome.
... Juliana of Norwich
Ascension
He has gone away, the Well-Beloved,
For our sake!
He is risen, the Well-Beloved,
For our sake!
He has prayed, the Well-Beloved,
For our sake!
He has spoken, He has sung,
The Word was with God.
Praises of the Father,
Substance of the Father,
The stamp and issue forever,
In Love!
Word of Love!
... Olivier Messiaen, Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence [1944]
Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is leading, with the thoughts he is thinking, with the deeds he is doing; when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God.
... Phillips Brooks
If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?
... Thomas à Kempis
If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its power and joy and courage, men must recapture the basic conviction that this is a Visited planet. It is not enough to express formal belief in the "Incarnation" or in the "Divinity of. Christ"; the staggering truth must be accepted afresh -- that in this vast, mysterious universe, of which we are an almost infinitesimal part, the great Mystery, Whom we call God, has visited our planet in Person. It is from this conviction that there springs unconquerable certainty and unquenchable faith and hope. It is not enough to believe theoretically that Jesus was both God and Man; not enough to admire, respect, and even worship Him; it is not even enough to try to follow Him. The reason for the insufficiency of these things is that the modern intelligent mind, which has had its horizons widened in dozens of different ways, has got to be shocked afresh by the audacious central Fact -- that, as a sober matter of history, God became one of us.
... J. B. Phillips, New Testament Christianity
We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.
... Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
Feast of Matthias the Apostle
I shall not value his prayers at all, be he never so earnest and frequent in them, who gives not alms according to his ability.
... John Owen
Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945
And by 'knowledge' here [II Peter 1:2,5,8;2:20;3:18] is not to be understood a mere theoretical knowledge of the truths of Christianity, or the gnosis of the Gnostics; but a realization of these truths influencing the practice and leading to holiness of life.
... Paton J. Gloag
Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877
Make sure that you let God's grace work in your souls by accepting whatever He gives you, and giving Him whatever He takes from you. True holiness consists in doing God's work with a smile.
... Mother Teresa of Calcutta
God is ever seeking to get down to us -- to be the divine man in us. And we are ever saying, "That be far from Thee, Lord!" We are careful, in our unbelief, over the divine dignity, of which He is too grand to think. Better pleasing to God ... is the audacity of Job, who, rushing into His presence, and flinging the door of His presence-chamber to the wall, like a troubled -- it may be angry -- but yet faithful child, calls aloud in the ear of Him whose perfect Fatherhood he has yet to learn, "Am I a sea or a whale, that Thou settest a watch over me?"... The devotion of God to His creatures is perfect; He does not think about Himself, but about them; He wants nothing for Himself, but finds His blessedness in the outgoing of blessedness. Ah! it is a terrible -- shall it be a lonely glory, this? We will draw near with our human response, our abandonment of self in the faith of Jesus. He Lives Himself to us -- shall we not give ourselves to Him? Shall we not give ourselves to each other whom He loves?
... George Macdonald, "The Child in the Midst"
The Word of God is the informing power of the revelation of God in the finite world. It is not, by any figure, to be identified with a book, or a temple, or a minister, or a shrine.
... Elisha Mulford, The Republic of God
Pentecost
Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988
INSCRIPTION FOR A PULPIT
"The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed."
The hungry sheep, that crave the living Bread.
Grow few, and lean, and feeble as can be,
When fed not Gospel, but philosophy;
Not Love's eternal story, no, not this,
But apt allusion, keen analysis.
Discourse well framed -- forgot as soon as heard --
Man's thin dilution of the living Word.
O Preacher, leave the rhetorician's arts;
Preach Christ, the Food of hungry human hearts;
Hold fast to science, history, or creed,
But preach the Answer to our human need,
That in this place, at least, it may be said
No hungry sheep looks up and is not fed.
... Robert Hammond Adams (my grandfather)
One way to recall the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the Presence of God; and , being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.
... Brother Lawrence, Letters
Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330
Wherever we turn in the church of God, there is Jesus. He is the beginning, middle, and end of everything to us... There is nothing good, nothing holy, nothing beautiful, nothing joyous, which He is not to His servants. No one need be poor, because, if he chooses, he can have Jesus for his own property and possession. No one need be downcast, for Jesus is the joy of heaven, and it is His joy to enter into sorrowful hearts. We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus., or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that night be said of Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done -- but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more.
... Frederick W. Faber
Evildoers delight in hiding themselves; shun appearing; are bewildered when discovered; being accused, deny; not even when tortured, readily or always confess; certainly mourn when condemned; sum up against themselves, impute either to fate or to the stars the impulses of a wicked mind; for they will not have that to be their own, which they acknowledge to be evil. But what doth the Christian like this? None is ashamed, none repenteth, save that he was not such long ago. If he be marked down, he glorieth; if accused, maketh no defense; being questioned, confesseth even of his own accord; being condemned, giveth thanks. What manner of evil is this, which hath not the natural marks of evil, fear, shame, shrinking, penitence, sorrow? What manner of evil is this, whereof he that is accused rejoiceth?
... Tertullian
Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century
You have no questions to ask of any body, no new way that you need inquire after; no oracle that you need to consult; for whilst you shut yourself up in patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God, you are in the very arms of Christ, your heart is His dwelling-place, and He lives and works in you as certainly as He lived in and governed that body and soul which He took from the Virgin Mary.
... William Law, The Spirit of Love
Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788
The cause of their decline was not, as has been supposed, because there is no more need for [the charismatic gifts], "because all the world had become Christian". ... The real cause was: the love of many, of almost all Christians so called, was waxed cold; ... The real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were no longer to be found in the Christian Church [was that] the Christians were turned heathen again, and had only a dead form left.
... John Wesley (quoted by Michael Harper in As At the Beginning)
Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian, 735
Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709
When we inculcate that faith ought to be certain and secure, we conceive not of a certainty attended with no doubt, or of a security interrupted by no anxiety; but we rather affirm, that believers have a perpetual conflict with their own diffidence, and are far from placing their consciences in a placid calm never disturbed by any storms. Yet, on the other hand, we deny, however they may be afflicted, that they ever fall and depart from that certain confidence which they have conceived in the divine mercy.
... Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
Trinity Sunday
Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
I am verily persuaded that the Lord has more Truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the Condition of the Reformed Churches, who are come to a Period in Religion and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their Reformation. The Lutheran can't be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things... I beseech you, remember, 'tis an Article of your Church Covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever Truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God.
... John Robinson (1620)
Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564
It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results.
... John Calvin
Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
I should be very sorry that any man living should outgo me in desires that all who fear God throughout the world, especially in these nations, were of one way as well as of one heart. I know I desire it sincerely; but I do verily believe that when God shall accomplish it, it will be the effect of love, and not the cause of love. It will proceed from love, before it brings forth love.
... John Owen
A good preacher should have these qualities and virtues: first, to teach systematically; second, he should have a ready wit; third, he should be eloquent; fourth, he should have a good voice; fifth, a good memory; sixth, he should know when to make an end; seventh, he should be sure of his doctrine; eighth, he should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honor, in the world; ninth, he should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of everyone.
... Martin Luther, Table-Talk
Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense -- first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur.
... Charles Simeon
With what presumption have we dared to voice
"Thank You for home (although we hold the deed),
Our acre, trees, and flowers (ours by choice),
Our faithful dog and cat (though it's agreed
No one can own the latter), each good book
(A gift, or purchased), all else we foresaw
That we should cherish, and have made to look
Ours by possession (nine points of the law)."
With what presumption have we called them ours,
And even felt unselfish when we shared them--
When, if the truth be known, they have been Yours
From the beginning, Lord! You have prepared them
For us to borrow, using as our own:
So thank You, Father, for this generous loan.
... Elaine V. Emans
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2008, by Robert McAnally Adams,
Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day.
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, "Simple
GIFs", by kind permission.
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