Abstract
These resources are a miscellany of quotations, reflections, and prayers.
1st November: All Saints Day
. . ..like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
The lives of the saints can be seen in Pauline terms as the fruit of the spirit in the lives of human beings or, in the words of John Henry Newman, as the proper and true evidence of the God of Christianity.”
Reflection
Saints are those who by means of love and courage show us that the ideals of Jesus can be turned into reality. In their lives, and sometimes by their deaths, saints keep before the world authentic images of Christ. Or, to put it another way, they are living icons of the Divine.
The intercession of saints (lit. holy ones) is denied in many Protestant pulpits. May we not, however, imagine that people of empathy and prayer continue to be so in eternity? I can imagine saints praying alongside the ascended Christ as his friends and helpers.
Prayer
Lord, we thank you for those recognised in history as saints, because of their indefatigable faith, hope and love.
We thank you for the saints we have known, people whose lives were both ordinary and extraordinary.
Grant us courage and love to follow the saints as they followed Christ. May they and we together be eternal friends, mutual helpers, a royal priesthood. Amen.
3rd November: Love God first and above all else!
Mark 12.28–34
Jesus establishes a close connection between love of God and love of neighbour. They are inseparable. It is impossible to love God and forget about the neighbour. . .. . . Jesus does not confuse the love of God with love of neighbour, as if they were the same thing. The love of God cannot be reduced to love of neighbour; the love of neighbour is not in itself the love of God.
Jesus states that love of God is the first and greatest commandment. Was this an accommodation to the sacred traditions of his time, or was Jesus affirming a non-negotiable principle, an absolute?
Reflection
Maybe it is our capacity to love that is at stake. Possibly, we are only as good as that which we adore: only as good as who or what receives our highest loyalty and deepest devotion.
In Jesus’ life, there was what Bonhoeffer called a ‘secret discipline’. Jesus gives his heart’s devotion to the Father only. He submitted to the will of God alone. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus’ reiteration of the Judaic commandment—love God first and foremost—came from personal insight and experience. He spoke of what he knew.
I give thee back the life I owe that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer fuller be.
10th November: A new asceticism?
Mark 12.38–44
There is no evidence that all the theologians in Jesus’ time were frauds [. . .] but the most influential seem to have conceived a bitter hatred of Jesus . . . and detested the exposure of their real motives.
Mark added an exquisite little story of a widow [. . .] who gave away her whole savings as a way of expressing gratitude to God.
Reflection
There is renewed Christian interest in both pilgrimage and monasticism. Is there a possibility of a new asceticism? Old asceticism—characterised by excessive fasting, disdain for the body and fear of sex—was damaging. It was self-denial in extremis, and paradoxically a preoccupation with self.
Is the widow’s offering a pointer to what a new asceticism might look like? We can surmise in the widow’s giving a life that is humble, sacrificial, devotional. The widow reminds us of the asceticism of the poor everywhere. Theirs is an acceptance of the exigencies of life, with gratitude! From the perspective of our affluence, this asceticism is indeed rare and novel.
Prayer of St Loyola
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will. Amen.
17th November: a life of Jesus revisited
Daniel 12.1–3; Mark 13.1–8
To await the Kingdom of God is synonymous with being a disciple of Jesus. The phrase “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven” was already long familiar to the Jews. But Jesus gave it a moral sense and a social application which even the author of the Book of Daniel, in his apocalyptic enthusiasm had scarcely dared to imagine.
Reflection
The ‘moral sense and the social application’ of the Kingdom of God has been a renewing power at the heart of Christianity.
And yet, after some 2,000 years, many Christians, and sometimes we ourselves, inhabit more the world of Daniel than that of Jesus. Even in our time, forebodings of historical devastation and cosmic destruction have gained traction.
Apocalyptic images are deeply rooted in the gospels: though how Jesus understood them is far from certain. It may be, as Renan suggested, Jesus spoke in an apocalyptic idiom in order to affirm Divine authority for his teaching. Whatever the reason for their inclusion, dire warnings and calls to love and forgiveness sit uncomfortably together. Thankfully, in the broad scope of the gospels, the final pitch is towards love. When chaos is rife, love is the best hope the world has.
The words of Renan again:
The favourite phrase of Jesus, the Kingdom of God, continues full of an eternal beauty.
24th November: Christ the King
John 18.33–37; Rev 1.4(b)–8
Historical Background
The liturgical celebration of Christ the King was instituted by Pius XI in 1925 to remind the faithful of their primary loyalty to Christ. Ironically, the image of King had by that time lost some of its potency. The devastation of the Great War swept away Empires and their Kings—the Hapsburgs, the Ottomans, the Czars. Today, in Europe Kings are largely ceremonial figures.
Reflection
Standing before Pilate, Jesus acknowledges the title of King whilst discounting its associations with worldly power. His is a different sort of Kingdom, governed by no power save the power of love. Pilate, a brutal power broker, wondered what sort of character was standing in front of him?
A sermon today might reflect on the sheer otherworldliness of Jesus. Often, we get the impression from pulpits that we and Jesus are on the same page, morally, intellectually, and spiritually. Are we really? Jesus is different, so different that he scares as well as attracts. That was the experience of his disciples and the experience of many upon hearing the gospel. Pilate wasn’t the only one puzzled by Jesus and even afraid of him.
28th November: Thanksgiving Day (USA)
Matthew 6.25–33; 1Timothy 2.1–7
Reflection
Although Thanksgiving is outside my range of experience, I understand the mixed responses it brings forth. White Americans commemorate the survival of the first European settlers. Those immigrants saw their survival as evidence of Divine providence, many still do. On the other hand, descendants of First Nations can hardly be expected to give thanks for conquest, exploitation and eventual liquidation of native cultures and ways of life.
In the Sermon on the Mount, notwithstanding ubiquitous pain and suffering, Jesus speaks of a general and generous providence seen in the beauty of nature and in God’s provision for our wants, needs and anxieties. Whatever else Thanksgiving may mean, a thankfulness for God’s wide, benevolent providence is important; and, perhaps, close to the puritan mind and the native heart.