Wise Words on Wednesday: The Christian Ideal
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
– G.K. Chesterton
Category: Quotation
Wise Words on Wednesday: Getting enough
“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
– G.K Chesterton
Wise Words on Wednesday: Like the only one
It was immensely disarming and engaging to be treated as if you were the only one in his life; but then, for the time you were with [Fr. Joe], you were. He loved the one he was with; spiritually promiscuous, utterly discreet
– Father Joe, Page 252
Wise Words on Wednesday: The Inexhaustible Well
I was working in Seattle this last week and while wandering around on Sunday I realized I was close to burial place of Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee. I was a huge fan growing up and so I decided to go and pay my respects.
It was a rather odd experience. While I was at their graves praying for about fifteen minutes there was a steady stream of people coming to have their pictures taken with the headstones! Bizarre.
Anyway, there was a quotation on Brandon Lee’s tombstone which I found rather challenging and a good candidate for Wise Words on Wednesday this week…
Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really… How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless…
– The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
Wise Words on Wednesday: Fed or entertained?
Many say that they weren’t being fed. In all honesty, however, many of them would have to admit they weren’t being entertained, or made to feel special, or welcomed warmly enough after Mass. They grumble and they complain.
I know what I’m talking about. I know the pressure of having to bring in a better singing group next month than the one that visited last month. I know what would happen if my preaching ever weakened or if my smile wasn’t natural enough: People would leave and go find a better preacher, a more exciting worship experience, more comfortable pews, or more programs for the kids. I know this for a fact.
– Jeff Cavins, “I’m not being fed!”
Snatching others from sin
I thought we’d conclude this series of sayings from the Desert Fathers with a bit of a bang…
Hyperichuius said, “Snatch your neighbour from his sins, so far as you can, and refrain from condemning him, for God does not reject those who turn to him. Let no evil word about your brother stay in your mind, so that you can say, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors’ (Matthew 7:12).”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
I’ll be back with regular blogging tomorrow. See you soon 🙂
I desire cleansing, not destruction
Now therefore, Christians, since we know from the holy Scriptures and from divine revelation how great is the grace God gives to those who truly run to Him for refuge and blot out their former sins by repentance, and also how according to His promise He rewards them with good things and neither takes vengeance according to justice nor punishes them for their former sins, let us not despair.
For as He promised by the prophet Isaiah, He will cleanse those who have lived in sin and will make them bright and white like clean wool and snow, and glad with the blessings of heaven. Moreover, God asserts by the prophet Ezekiel that he does not desire their destruction when He says, “I do not desire the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his evil ways and live (Ezekiel 33:11)”
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V