Holiness

Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria; it is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons. It is for everyone; it is the Lord who brings us to holiness, when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament.

Pope John Paul II, at the beatification of Father Damien of Molokai

On the Seven Spiritual Weapons

Jesus Christ gave up his life that we might live," she said. "Therefore, whoever wishes to carry the cross for his sake must take up the proper weapons for the contest, especially those mentioned here. First, diligence; second, distrust of self; third, confidence in God; fourth, remembrance of the Passion; fifth, mindfulness of one’s own death; sixth, remembrance of God’s glory; seventh, the injunctions of Sacred Scripture following the example of Jesus Christ in the desert".

St. Catharine of Bologna (1413-1463)

No "Simple" Faith

It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things aren't simple. They look simple, but they're not. The table I'm sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it's really made of—all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain—and, of course, you will find what we call "seeing a table" lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. …
Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we'd always expected, I'd feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it's not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let's leave behind all these boys' philosophies—these over-simple answers.

- C.S. Lewis in The Case for Christianity. Christianity Today, Vol. 34, no. 4.

Yooster Evangelism

Have you heard of Yooster? It is a brilliant marketing initiative. "You get free stuff", my daughter told me. Here's how it works, as explained to me by the expert in my home (and corroborated by the official website). "The people who run Yooster are this advertising company sort of thing, and they send you these products and you tell your friends and they go out and buy it. It's a word of mouth thing." You have to register online and set up your profile. If you match a certain demographic you can get certain products and participate in their opinion polls ostensibly influencing the direction of the products development. Not bad!
"It's a word of mouth thing." Now that's interesting. "Why?" I asked my resident expert. "Why do they go to all that trouble?" "Because, people will do what their friends do Dad!" She's right.
It's evangelism - that's what it is. Good-news telling! This is the Jesus' plan for world wide mission. Evangelism is simply a group of people who have experienced life in Jesus and found that it is very good; then they go and tell others. It's a word of mouth thing.
But it's not really the same, is it? Yooster is cool. Evangelism feels stale and awkward. Evangelism is such a big "TELL" or is that "yell". It doesn't feel like the sort of thing you should do to your friend - evangelise her. Sounds like a medical procedure. Why do the marketers think this is going to work for them? Is Yooster really that cool? I continued my informal research.
"So", I asked my daughter, "How would you ask your friend to buy the product?" "I wouldn't" she said. "If it was say, perfume, I'd just wear it and they'd say, you smell nice and I'd say yeah - Yooster!"
What if evangelism were about SMELLING first and telling second? What if Paul's doxology were right: "But thanks be to God, who ... through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ.' (2 Cor 2:14). Then the most important thing for me would be that I put on Christ every day, and be ready to give an answer (Gal 3:7; 1 Peter 3:15).
And, think about it. We have something so much better to say than Yooster!

- Allan Demond, Chair Crossover Australia, March 2007

An Early Education

From Anthony Bloom's Beginning to Pray: "I remember a certain number of (my father's) phrases. In fact there are two things he said which impressed me and have stayed with me all my life. One is about life. I remember he said to me after a holiday, 'I worried about you' and I said, 'Did you think I'd had an accident?' He said, 'That would have meant nothing, even if you had been killed. I thought you had lost your integrity.' Then on another occasion he said to me, 'Always remember that whether you are alive or dead matters nothing. What matters is what you live for and what you are prepared to die for.' These things (says Bloom) were the background of my early education and show the sense of life that I got from him."

A Lenten Reflection

Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff's office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar.
This is a story that can happen anywhere at anytime, and we are as likely to be the perpetrators as the victims. I doubt that many of us will end up playing Annas, Caiaphas or Pilate, however. They may have been the ones who gave Jesus the death sentence, but a large part of him had already died before they ever got to him - the part Judas killed off, then Peter, then all those who fled. Those are the roles with our names on them - not the enemies but the friends.
Whenever someone famous gets in trouble, that is one of the first things the press focuses on. What do his friends do? Do they support him or do they tell reporters that, unfortunately, they had seen trouble coming for some time? One of the worst things a friend can say is what Peter said. We weren't friends, exactly. Acquaintances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together. For the same company, I mean. Not together, just near each other. My desk was near his. I really don't know him at all.
No one knows what Judas said. In John's Gospel he does not say a word, but where he stands says it all. After he has led some 200 Roman soldiers and the temple police to the secret garden where Jesus is praying, Judas stands with the militia. Even when Jesus comes forward to identify himself, Judas does not budge. He is on the side with the weapons and the handcuffs, and he intends to stay there.
Or maybe it was not his own safety that motivated him. Maybe he just fell out of love with Jesus. That happens sometimes. One day you think someone is wonderful and the next day he says or does something that makes you think twice. He reminds you of the difference between the two of you and you start hating him for that - for the difference - enough to begin thinking of some way to hurt him back.
I remember being at a retreat once where the leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. When it came time to share our answers, one woman stood up and said, "I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, Who is it that told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?" According to John, Jesus died because he told the truth to everyone he met. He was the truth, a perfect mirror in which people saw themselves in God's own light.
What happened then goes on happening now. In the presence of his integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light.

- Barbara Brown Taylor, "Truth to Tell," from "The Perfect Mirror," copyright 1998 Christian Century Foundation., 89-92.

Ego in Charge

Ashleigh Brilliant, that odd vestige of the '70s who scribbled his offbeat humor on hippie postcards, once penned: "All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance."

Who Do We Imitate?

A man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs, and he wondered how it lived. Then he saw a tiger come up with game in its mouth. The tiger ate its fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox.
The next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger. The man began to wonder at God's greatness and said to himself, "I took shall rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all that I need."
He did this for many days but nothing happened, and he was almost at death's door when he heard a voice say, "O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the truth. Stop imitating the disabled fox and follow the example of the tiger."

source unknown

God Uses Broken Things

God uses broken things. Broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.

Vance Havner

St Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be..
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you....
May you be content knowing you are a child of God....
Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of you...

Jesus Is Persecuted

Jesus, the favourite Child of God, is persecuted. He who is poor, gentle, mourning; he who hungers and thirsts for uprightness; is merciful, pure of heart and a peacemaker is not welcome in this world. The Blessed One of God is a threat to the established order and a source of constant irritation to those who consider themselves the rulers of this world. Without his accusing anyone he is considered an accuser, without his condemning anyone he makes people feel guilty and ashamed, without his judging anyone those who see him feel judged. In their eyes, he cannot be tolerated and needs to be destroyed, because letting him be seems like a confession of guilt.
When we want to become like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be liked and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected.

- Henri Nouwen

Just for This Morning

Just for this morning, I am going to smile when I see your face and laugh when I feel like crying.
Just for this morning, I will let you choose what you want to wear, and smile and say how perfect it is.
Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.
Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.
Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.
Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck, and I will buy you one if he comes by.
Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.
Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.
Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.
Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.
Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.
Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.
Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.
Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatest gift ever given. I will think about the mothers and fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can't handle it anymore. And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer. It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask him for nothing, except one more day...

People Come Into Your Life For A Reason

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.!
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant .
Thank you for being a part of my life, whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.

from an email circulating

The Burden-Bearer

I asked the Lord, "Please help me to be a Burden-Bearer - to help others bear their loads". Then I realised what a poor job I was doing bearing my own burdens. If I could not bear my own burdens alone, how could I ever hope to bear the burdens of others?
Then, I changed my prayer to, "Lord, help me to point others to the Great Burden-Bearer". [Jesus] said "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden" (bearing burdens) "and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light". (Mat 11:28-30)
Isaiah had prophesied of Him, "Surely, He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." (Isa 53:4) In other words, in spite of the fact that He had borne the griefs and sorrows (burdens) of the whole world, His work would be ignored by most. They would go on trying to bear their own burdens, in total disregard of the fact that He had borne them for them. How needless!...
While I can give assistance in bearing physical burdens, give moral support, and speak words of comfort and encouragement to those who are carrying them, I can never actually bear their real burdens for them. I can only point them to the One who has, and can.
The words of the chorus I had heard so many years ago ring true, "The world's Burden-Bearer is Jesus. Your Jesus. My Jesus." But we must personally cast our own burdens upon Him. He is as close as the mention of His name. I point you to Him today.

- Handy F. Nevers

Empowered to Pray

Prayer is the gift of the Spirit. Often we wonder how to pray, when to pray, and what to pray. We can become very concerned about methods and techniques of prayer. But finally it is not we who pray but the Spirit who prays in us.
Paul says: "The Spirit ... comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God's holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God" (Romans 8:26-27). These words explain why the Spirit is called "the Consoler."

- Henri Nouwen

Empowered to Speak

The Spirit that Jesus gives us empowers us to speak. Often when we are expected to speak in front of people who intimidate us, we are nervous and self-conscious. But if we live in the Spirit, we don't have to worry about what to say. We will find ourselves ready to speak when the need is there. "When they take you before ... authorities, do not worry about how to defend yourselves or what to say, because when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will teach you what you should say" (Luke 12:11-12).
We waste much of our time in anxious preparation. Let's claim the truth that the Spirit that Jesus gave us will speak in us and speak convincingly.

- Henri Nouwen

On the Journey Towards Accepting my Anger

Anger is the one emotion that children are not encouraged to have or express. When children laugh or cry, they receive sympathy and encouragement from their parents. Not so with anger. Children are disciplined for expressing anger, manipulated out of feeling it, or sent to their rooms because of it. They learn that there is a place for all their other emotions but that anger is dangerous. Of course, children who are not encouraged to show anger appropriately become adults who don't trust their anger. I have spent much of my life learning to befriend my anger.
Some time ago, I was giving a retreat for women on prayer, and after talking for a couple of sessions, I told a story meant as an aside. When I am angry with my kids, I will often pray, silently, "Go before me, Lord!" while thinking, "Lord, you had better get there before I do". This story led to many conversations and prayer times about retreatants' fear of their anger and the power that unresolved anger has in our lives, so much so that the theme of our next retreat was "learning to come to terms with our anger".
My little story had tapped into a desire to increase our understanding of our anger. Sharing our need to acknowledge and befriend our anger in the context of prayer and spiritual friendship can help us heal our distrust of this uncomfortable emotion. Then we can be healthy ourselves and create healthy homes.

- Sheilagh Ashworth

Joint Heirs with Christ

In and through Jesus we come to know God as a powerless God, who becomes dependent on us. But it is precisely in this powerlessness that God's power reveals itself. This is not the power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. It is the power of the Spirit. When Jesus appeared people wanted to be close to him and touch him because "power came out of him" (Luke 6:19).
It is this power of the divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit indeed empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers.

- Henri Nouwen

God's Holy Ordinance

Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God's holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom.
In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.
As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in "A Wedding Sermon from Prison"

Joint Heirs with Christ

We continue to put ourselves down as less than Christ. Thus, we avoid the full honour as well as the full pain of the Christian life. But the Spirit that guided Jesus guides us. Paul says: "The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17).
When we start living according to this truth, our lives will be radically transformed. We will not only come to know the full freedom of the children of God but also the full rejection of the world. It is understandable that we hesitate to claim the honor so as to avoid the pain. But, provided we are willing to share in Christ's suffering, we also will share in his glory (see Romans 8:17).

- Henri Nouwen

Called To Witness And Serve

There was a woman in one of the churches I pastored who, it seemed to me, was always picking on me. She seemed sure that her young pastor was unable to do anything just the way it should be done. One day she lectured me about the way I did funerals. She let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had better make the gospel exceedingly clear in my funeral sermons, because she had friends and relatives who would be at her funeral who might never hear the gospel if they did not hear it at her funeral. I didn't mean to be offensive as I blurted out, "Mrs. Jones, don't blame me for that."
We all have responsibilities to carry out God's call to witness and to serve. And we had better get on with responding to that call right away. Whether it be death or the sound of the trumpet that heralds His coming, there will be an end to the time that we have available to address those urgent concerns.

- Tony Campolo in "Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God"

God's Breath Given to Us

Being the living Christ today means being filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus. Jesus and his Father are breathing the same breath, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the intimate communion that makes Jesus and his Father one. Jesus says: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:10) and "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30). It is this unity that Jesus wants to give us. That is the gift of his Holy Spirit.
Living a spiritual life, therefore, means living in the same communion with the Father as Jesus did, and thus making God present in the world.

- Henri Nouwen

Being Clothed in Christ

Being a believer means being clothed in Christ. Paul says: "Every one of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ" (Galatians 3:26) and "Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14). This being "clothed in Christ" is much more than wearing a cloak that covers our misery. It refers to a total transformation that allows us to say with Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me" (Galatians 2:20).
Thus, we are the living Christ in the world. Jesus, who is God-made-flesh, continues to reveal himself in our own flesh. Indeed, true salvation is becoming Christ.

- Henri Nouwen

Claiming the Identity of Jesus

When we think about Jesus as that exceptional, unusual person who lived long ago and whose life and words continue to inspire us, we might avoid the realisation that Jesus wants us to be like him. Jesus himself keeps saying in many ways that he, the Beloved Child of God, came to reveal to us that we too are God's beloved children, loved with the same unconditional divine love.
John writes to his people: "You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children - which is what we are." (1 John 3:1). This is the great challenge of the spiritual life: to claim the identity of Jesus for ourselves and to say: "We are the living Christ today!"

- Henri Nouwen

Patient Living

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us... Patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there... nurturing the moment.

- Henri J.M. Nouwen in an article titled "A Spirituality of Waiting"

On the Journey Towards Accepting my Anger

The journey toward accepting my anger is a long one. Accepting a part of myself that often does not get used well confronts and challenges me. Accepting the anger that rises up within me takes a step of maturity. For when I accept my anger, I realise it has a place. It is not something to deny or disregard. It is not something to fear or from which to run. When I accept my anger, I welcome it into the many rooms within me. Denying anger a place could give it greater power to wend its way into rooms where it should not be. Someone once told me, "Anger turned inward leads to depression."
Accepting my anger gives it a place at the table as a welcome guest. Anger holds no greater power than the other guests at the table but is nonetheless welcome. When all are offered hospitality at the table of our spiritual life, we may be surprised to "taste and see that God is good."

- Keith Reynolds

Being Like Jesus

Very often we distance ourselves from Jesus. We say, "What Jesus knew we cannot know, and what Jesus did we cannot do." But Jesus never puts any distance between himself and us. He says: "I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" (John 15:15) and "In all truth I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works" (John 14:12).
Indeed, we are called to know what Jesus knew and do what Jesus did. Do we really want that, or do we prefer to keep Jesus at arms' length?

- Henri Nouwen

Jesus Is in the World Not of It

The Beatitudes offer us a self-portrait of Jesus. At first it might seem to be a most unappealing portrait - who wants to be poor, mourning and persecuted? Who can be truly gentle, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, and always concerned about justice? Where is the realism here? Don't we have to survive in this world and use the ways of the world to do so?
Jesus shows us the way to be in the world without being of it. When we model our lives on his, a new world will open up for us. The Kingdom of Heaven will be ours, and the earth will be our inheritance. We will be comforted and have our fill; mercy will be shown to us. Yes, we will be recognised as God's children and truly see God, not just in an afterlife, but here and now (see Matthew 5:3-10). That is the reward of modelling our lives on the life of Jesus!

- Henri Nouwen