ourselves and our gifts to scrutiny and possible contradiction, we render those same gifts unattractive and contemptible. Honour is beautiful when it is freely bestowed: it becomes ugly when it is exacted or sought after.
The pursuit and love of virtue begins a process by which we become virtuous; but the pursuit and love of honour will make us contemptible and open to ridicule. Generous minds do not need the amusement of such petty toys as rank, honour and obsequious greetings; they have better things to do. Such baubles are only important to degenerate spirits.
It is said that the surest way of attaining to the love of God is to dwell on his mercies; the more we value them, the more we shall love God. Certainly, nothing can so humble us before the compassion of God as the contemplation of the abundance of his mercies; and nothing so humble us before his justice as the abundance of our misdeeds. Let us, then, reflect upon all that God has done for us, and all that we have done against him. And as we enumerate our sins, let us also count his mercies.
Thursday after 5 before Lent
A Reading from The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity by Richard Hooker
God is himself the teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them to live in that shall be saved.
This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us God hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St John doth note, terming it by an excellency, the work of God: ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent.’ Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude) but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it is the ground of those other divine virtues.
Concerning faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God. Concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that faith, hope, and charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God.
Friday after 5 before Lent
A Reading from a treatise entitled The Teacher by Clement of Alexandria
Our Teacher is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity: God himself, who loves us, is our Teacher.
In a song in Scripture the Holy Spirit says of him: ‘He provided for the people in the wilderness. He led them through the desert in the thirst of the summer heat, and instructed them. He guarded them as the apple of his eye. As an eagle hovers over her nest, and protects her young, spreading out her wings, rising up, and bearing them on her back, so the Lord alone was their leader. No strange god was with them.’ In my opinion, Scripture is offering us here a picture of Christ the Teacher of children, and is describing the sort of guidance he imparts. Indeed, when he speaks in his own person, he confesses himself to be the Teacher: ‘I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ Who has the power to lead us if not our Teacher?
He is the one who appeared to Abraham and said to him: ‘I am your God; be pleasing before me.’ He formed him by a gradual process into a faithful child, as any good teacher would, saying: ‘Be blameless; and I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants.’ What is being offered is a share in the Teacher’s friendship. Who, then, could train us more lovingly than Christ? Formerly, God’s ancient people had an old covenant; the law disciplined the people with fear, and the word was an angel. But the new and young people of God have received a new and young covenant: the Word has become flesh, fear has been turned into love, and the mystic angel has been born – Jesus.
Formerly, this same Teacher said: ‘Fear the Lord your God.’ But now he says to us: ‘Love the Lord your God.’ That is why he tells us: ‘Cease from your own works, from your old sins’; ‘Learn to do good; love justice and hate iniquity.’ This is my new covenant written in the old letter. Thus, the newness of the word must not be made ground for reproach. For the Lord says through Jeremiah: ‘Say not, “I am too young.” Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.’ Perhaps this prophetic word refers to us: before the foundation of the world we were known by God as those destined for the faith, but we are still only infants. The will of God has only recently been fulfilled; we are only newly born in the scheme of our calling and salvation.
Saturday after 5 before Lent
A Reading from Holy Living by Jeremy Taylor
God is especially present in the consciences of all persons, good and bad, by way of testimony and judgement: He is a remembrancer to call our actions to mind, a witness to bring them to judgement, and judge to acquit or to condemn. And although this manner of presence is, in this life, after the manner of this life, that is, imperfect, and we forget many actions of our lives; yet the greatest changes of our state of grace or sin, our most considerable actions, are always present like capital letters to an aged and dim eye. Because we covered them with dust and negligence, they were not then discerned. But when we are risen from our dust and imperfection, they all appear plain and legible.
Now the consideration of this great truth is of a very universal use in the whole course of the life of a Christian. He that remembers that God stands a witness and a judge, beholding every secrecy, besides his impiety, must have put on impudence, if he be not much restrained in his temptation to sin. He is to be feared in public, he is to be feared in private. Be sure, that while you are in his sight, you behave yourself as becomes so holy a presence. But if you will sin, retire yourself wisely, and go where God cannot see for nowhere else can you be safe. And certainly, if men would always actually consider and really esteem this truth, that God is the great eye of the world, alway watching over our actions, and an ever-open ear to hear all our words, it would be the readiest way in the world to make sin to cease from amongst the children of men, and for men to approach to the blessed estate of the saints in heaven, who cannot sin, for they always walk in the presence, and behold the face of God.
The Fourth Sunday before Lent
A Reading from the Confessions of Augustine
Where in my consciousness, Lord, do you dwell? Where in it do you make your home? What resting-place have you made for yourself? You are the Lord God of the mind. All things are liable to change. But you remain unchangeable over all things; and yet you have deigned to dwell in my memory since the time that I learnt about you. Why do I ask in which area of my memory you dwell, as if there really are places there? Surely my memory is where you dwell, because I remember you since first I learnt of you, and I find you there when I think about you.
Where then did I find you to be able to learn of you? For you were not in my memory before I learnt of you. Where then did I find you so that I could learn of you if not in the fact that you transcend me? There is no place, whether we go
