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from 
THE NEW CHURCH YEAR
Chosen by
Charles Williams
Oxford University Press, London 1941.
Second Sunday after Trinity

 

Our relation to others, even when we name it a relationship of love, is governed by the law that we should render evil for evil.  We do not perceive in the other the One--that is, the good which he is not.  Rather, we hold him liable for being what he is...This making men liable for what they are is to render to them evil for evil...It is this failure of apprehension which makes of our whole behaviour an inert mass of evil.  Along this line of evil we all, without exception, move.

Bart: Epistle to the Romans.

 

MONDAY

 

What proportion of relief is due to him that is thy brother in nature, thy brother in nation, thy brother in religion, if meat and drink, and in that, whatsoever is necessary to his sustentation, be due to thine enemy?

Donne: Sermons

 

Certainly it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

Bacon: Essays of Truth

 

 

TUESDAY

 

There is nothing which the Lord hates: for He does not hate anything, and yet wish what He hates to exist; nor does He wish anything not to exist, and yet cause the existence of that which He wishes not to exist; nor does that exist which he wishes not to exist.  If the Word hates anything, He wishes it not to exist; but nothing exists of which God does not cause the existence; nothing, therefore, is hated by God, or by the Word, for both are one, viz. God.

St Clement: The Paedagogue

 

 

WEDNESDAY

 

While Pilate now fainteth in the righteousness that he knoweth and is sure of, and holdeth not on stoutly, as he should, to deliver Christ, God suffereth him still to fall till he come to this point, that he condemneth the innocent to death against his own conscience.  Thus goeth it with all those that for the grace of God lent unto them are unthankful and unfaithful in the little.

Coverdale: Fruitful Lessons on the Passion

 

 

THURSDAY

 

It is not always grave suffering that is most likely to help one to die to the world.  No, that can also give joie de vivre, spiritual joie de vivre.  No, the most deadening things of all are worldly hardships, mere trifles.

Kierkegaard: Journals

Childhood in Christ is perfection with reference to the law.

St. Clement: The Paedagogue

 

 

FRIDAY

 

God knew every good work that thou shouldest do, every good thought that thou shouldest think to thy end, before thy beginning, for he of his own goodness imprinted this degree of goodness in thee; but yet assure thyself, that he loves thee in another manner, and another measure, then, when thou comest really to do those good works, than before, or when thou didst only conceive a purpose of doing them: he calls them good when he sees them.

Donne: Sermons

 

 

SATURDAY

 

What is God's forgiving sinful man?  It is nothing else in its whole nature but God's making him righteous again.  There is no other forgiveness of sin but being made free from it.  Therefore the compassionate love of God that forgives sin, is no other than God's love of His own righteousness, for the sake of which and through the love of which He makes man righteous again.

William Law: Letters

God and the worshipper are adapted to one another, happily, blissfully, as never were lovers adapted to one another.  It is now the only wish of the worshipper to become weaker and weaker, for with that the more worship' the only need worship feels is that God may become stronger and stronger.

Kierkegaard: Christian Discourses