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