Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. (St. Luke xvi. 9) In last week’s Gospel we prayed that God’s never failing providence that ruleth all things both in heaven and in earth [might] put away from us all hurtful things and [might] give to us those things which are profitable (Collect: Trin. VIII) for our salvation. And this week Jesus illustrates how we might apply what we know of God’s providence to … [Read more...]
Trinity V
…The people pressed upon him to hear the word of God… (St. Luke v. 1) It must always be the case that good Christians should be pressing upon [Jesus] to hear the Word of God. (Idem) But hearing the Word of God is one thing, and doing it is quite another. St. James tells us to be…doers of the Word, and not hearers only. (St. James i. 22) This is where most well-intentioned Christians find trouble. After all, we can read God’s Word and hear it, but how can we do it? The problem seems to be … [Read more...]
Trinity III
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 St. Peter v. 6,7) Trinitytide is all about participating in the life of God the Holy Trinity. In the season of Trinity, we are exhorted to return to God the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son, and by the effectual sanctification of the Holy Ghost. What we are invited to participate in is nothing short of the eternal dynamism of the Triune … [Read more...]
Thomas Aquinas on Lent II
My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matt. xv. 22) MORALLY by this demoniac is understood a sinful soul and here are noted two evils which a man acquires through deadly sin. The first is, that he is possessed by a devil; the second is, that he is grievously vexed. Every literal historical fact of Scripture can be understood on a higher plane, as allegorical or spiritual in meaning. The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent is no exception. A Syrophoenician woman … [Read more...]
Thomas Aquinas on Lent I
When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. (Matt. iv. 2.) I. AUGUSTINE says that it is the highest religion to imitate what we worship, so that, when Our Lord fasted, we ought to imitate Him in fasting. We worship God Almighty. We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We worship the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ. Worship unites us to the object of worshiping. Our object is Jesus Christ because He is the Way to the Father. Through Him, we … [Read more...]
Sexagesima Sunday
And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? (St. Luke viii. 9) The New Testament is full of examples of parables; there are actually thirty in total. We encountered one of them last week in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. A parable is an external and visible story or illustration that carries the mind into an interior and invisible truth. Archbishop Trench tells us that a parable always involves the story of human beings; never places their moral education … [Read more...]
God’s Will
God’s will is always being done. Are we aligning our wills with His will? God’s will is His unfolding desire in created time and space. His will is always being done because the laws of His logic and wisdom rule and govern the universe. We cannot escape the law of his logic and wisdom. It is the only formative, ruling, and governing principle that gives meaning to all things. That men choose to ignore and/or reject His rule and governance does not undermine God’s law in any way. He rules and … [Read more...]
St. Bonaventure
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. (St. Luke xiv 10) Today we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Bonaventure. He was born as Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnoregio in 1217. He was the Seventh Minister General of the Orders of Friars Minor or the Franciscans. Later he was made Cardinal Bishop of … [Read more...]
St. James the Apostle
But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (St. Matthew 20. 26,27) Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James the Apostle. Tradition has it that St. James is the kinsmen or relative of our Lord Jesus Christ, often called St. James the Great or St. James … [Read more...]
Trinity VIII
O God whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth, we humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things that be profitable for us… (Collect: Trinity VIII) We concluded last week’s mediations with an exhortation to zeal. Having learned that the Divine desire for all men is that they faint not, but rather feed continually on the living Word of God, we opened our souls to the ongoing nutriment that overcomes sloth. … [Read more...]
Trinity VII
Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same. (Collect: Trinity VII) If you spend time reading the Epistles of St. Paul carefully, you cannot help but come away with a sense of the Apostle’s uncanny ability to unite spiritual contraries to make his point. Perhaps this is a natural consequence of his momentous conversion, when, in a fit of zealous and rabid hot pursuit of Damascan … [Read more...]
Whether the Soul is a Body?
Whether the soul is a body? Objection 1: It would seem that the soul is a body. For the soul is the moving principle of the body. Nor does it move unless moved. First, because seemingly nothing can move unless it is itself moved, since nothing gives what it has not; for instance, what is not hot does not give heat. Secondly, because if there be anything that moves and is not moved, it must be the cause of eternal, unchanging movement, as we find proved Phys. viii, 6; and … [Read more...]
Whether the Soul is Man
Whether the soul is man? Objection 1: It would seem that the soul is man. For it is written, "Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." (2 Cor. iv. 16) But that which is within man is the soul. Therefore the soul is the inward man. It would seem that soul is to be identified with man. It seems to be man’s inner self and the inner self is the true self. The true man is therefore his interior and inward self or being. Therefore, the soul is the whole of … [Read more...]
Trinity V
…The people pressed upon him to hear the word of God… (St. Luke v. 1) Are you spending your life pressing upon [Jesus] to hear the Word of God? (Idem) And if you are, what good has it done you? Do your neighbors recognize the Word of God alive in your souls? Or does your Christianity involve rather more of an institutional identification that has made others think no further than this address or location? Jane is a quaint gal. I believe that she goes to that Anglican Church near the … [Read more...]
Trinity IV 2016
God is the Judge; He putteth down one, and He setteth up another. (Ps. lxxv. 8) Trinity-tide is all about spiritual fertility and progress. In this season, we are called into a state of sanctification and redemption that ensures our safe and eventual passing through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal. (Collect) Today we shall learn that one of the chief obstacles that frustrates our spiritual advancement is judgment or judging. Jesus tells us this morning, Judge not … [Read more...]
St. Barnabas Day
For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. (Acts xi 24) This morning we celebrate the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, traditionally observed on the 11th of June. The name Barnabas comes to us from the Hebrew bar-naba, and it translates roughly into the son of encouragement or the son of prophesy. St. Barnabas had come to Jerusalem from his native Cyprus of a Levite family. His birth name was Joseph. The Apostles welcomed … [Read more...]
Trinity I: Dives and Lazarus
Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. (St. Luke xvi. 25) Trinitytide is all about belief that grows into love. If Eastertide might be called the season of vision and knowledge, Trinitytide is about habituation to the good or the generation of love for God’s goodness. In Eastertide we were called to see and behold God the Father’s goodness in the historical life of … [Read more...]
Summer Issue: Anglican Way
Click Here: AW-vol39no1_Web … [Read more...]
Whitsunday 2016
He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. (St. John xiv. 17) Today we celebrate the feast of the Pentecost. In the Church of England it is called Whitsunday - White Sunday, because of the white garments worn by those who were traditionally baptized on this day. Pentecost derives from the Latin and means the fiftieth day. For the ancient Jews it marked the day on which God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, fifty days after Exodus from Egypt. It was also a day of thanksgiving for … [Read more...]
Come Holy Ghost
Come Lord, Holy Ghost. Come alive in me. Teach me to overcome sin by discovering its root causes in the center of my soul. Teach me to see that I have indulged a disease and not sought out a cure. Help me now to seek out the cure. Assist me in applying the cure. Within the cure let me see the seeds of a health that I must will and desire. Help me to desire the health and then to perfect the cure. Lord Holy Ghost help thou me to see and embrace this thy Loving Grace. Lord Holy Ghost, rather than … [Read more...]
Ascension I
Ascension-tide is the briefest liturgical season in the Church Year. It lasts only ten days. We believe that on the fortieth day after Easter Christ ascended to the Father. Ten days later the Holy Spirit was sent into the womb of the nascent Church on the feast of the Pentecost or Whitsunday. So we have but a few days to examine the significance and meaning of the Ascension for us. The Ascension is Jesus Christ’s return to the eternal state that He shares, as Son, with the Father and the Holy … [Read more...]
Man’s End: Thomas Aquinas
Whether it belongs to man to act for an end? Objection 1: It would seem that it does not belong to man to act for an end. For a cause is naturally first. But an end, in its very name, implies something that is last. Therefore, an end is not a cause. But that for which a man acts is the cause of his action; since this preposition "for" indicates a relation of causality. Therefore, it does not belong to man to act for an end. How can a man be moved by an end and not by a beginning? An end is … [Read more...]
Easter II
This is thankworthy, that if a man for conscience endure grief, Suffering wrongfully. (1 St. Peter ii. 19) You might think it strange that our Epistle reading for The Second Sunday after Easter taken from St. Peter’s First Letter should speak of suffering. After all we are in Eastertide. We meditated upon suffering at length on Good Friday. Surely now we are meant to focus more on the positive joy, the surging and rising happiness that comes to us when we meditate upon … [Read more...]
Thomas Aquinas on Virtue
Easter Tide Thomas Aquinas on Virtue Article 1. Whether human virtue is a habit? Objection 1. It would seem that human virtue is not a habit: For virtue is the limit of power" (De Coelo i, text. 116). But the limit of anything is reducible to the genus of that of which it is the limit; as a point is reducible to the genus of line. Therefore virtue is reducible to the genus of power, and not to the genus of habit. The limit of virtue would seem to be power. What is meant here is that virtue … [Read more...]
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday March 20, 2016 I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see you to it. (St. Matthew 27. 24) We in the Christian church are called to silence and contemplation during Holy Week. The silence is our response to the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Holy Week has been set aside from the time of early Church ponder our Lord’s suffering in silence. If we approach this time with a diligent and determined concentration, we will, no doubt, find … [Read more...]
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