Holy Thursday

I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord (Ps. 116)

I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father. (Matt. 26:29)

Tuesday of Holy Week

God is a strange lover...He stalks the soul with sorrows...

He blots the sun that could make her vision dim...

He robs and breaks and destroys.

Then he comes and there is nothing left...

But him and her love of him.

Not till the great rebellions die and her will is safe in his hands forever

Does he open the door of light.

(Jessica Powers, "God is a Strange Lover")

Lent, from the Office of Readings

"...acknowledge your God....discover how far you have fallen."

--St. Gregory Nazianzen

Lent II

It will no longer do to hide,

To cover, to conceal,

To pretend to be building anything

Except a house of sin

Over a cellar of disordered love.

Only the bare bones can stay now

In mercy's clearing...

While still there is a recognizable heart,

Boneclean barrenness alone

Can look to spring.

--"Winterset" by Gervase Toelle, O. Carm. (1921-1967)

Lent

"Love ... commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication." -- Simone Weil

"When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you not appear to be fasting, except to your Father, who is hidden." (Matthew 6:18)

Ordinary (Winter) Time

"Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same--perhaps even more so--with our love for God. It does not come by another's teaching. As soon as the living creature [that is, man] comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing within it the ability and the need to love." -- St. Basil the Great

Who Said It?

"I cannot be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect." -- Charles Darwin