St. Augustine on Matthew 22

Let charity be advanced, so be it nourished, that being nourished it may be perfected; so be “the wedding garment” put on; so be the image of God, after which we were created, by this our advancing, engraven anew in us. For by sin was it bruised, and worn away. How is it bruised? how worn away? When it is rubbed against the earth? And what is, “When it is rubbed against the earth”? When it is worn by earthly lusts. For “though man walketh in this image, yet is he disquieted in vain.” Truth is looked for in God’s image, not vanity. By the love of the truth then be that image, after which we were created, engraven anew, and His Own tribute rendered to our Caesar. For so ye have heard from the Lord’s answer, when the Jews tempted Him, as He said, “Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites; show Me the tribute money,” that is, the impress and superscription of the image. Show me what ye pay, what ye get ready, what is exacted of you. And “they showed Him a denarius;” and “He asked whose image and superscription it had.” They answered, “Caesar’s.” So Caesar looks for his own image. It is not Caesar’s will that what he ordered to be made should be lost to him, and it is not surely God’s will that what He hath made should be lost to Him. Caesar, my Brethren, did not make the money; the masters of the mint make it; the workmen have their orders, he issues his commands to his ministers. His image was stamped upon the money; on the money was Caesar’s image. And yet he requires what others have stamped; he puts it in his treasures; he will not have it refused him. Christ’s coin is man. In him is Christ’s image, in him Christ’s Name, Christ’s gifts, Christ’s rules of duty.

St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon XL on the New Testament

Not at home, but in a passageway

Just as someone who goes to meet somebody stands in the road and awaits him until he comes, so he who believes in Christ ought to live in this age as a pilgrim and be situated not at home but in a passageway. For this reason, when the Jews were also about to leave Egypt, they were ordered to eat the lamb ready and with their loins girded and prepared to leave, thus showing us how whoever eats the Eucharist of our lamb ought also to be ready in this way as if they were daily departing from the world.

Incomplete Commentary on Matthew, c. 400 A.D.

Passing Away by Christina Rossetti

Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Changes, beauty, and youth, sapped day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:
With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play,
Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day
Lo the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay;
Watch thou and pray.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away:
Winter passeth after the long delay:
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven’s May.
Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:
Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.
Then I answered: Yea.

Christina Rossetti, “Passing Away”

A Collect for Advent I

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, First Sunday of Advent

Sleep in the Natural and Spiritual Sense

Someone who sleeps in a natural sense does not see or perceive any of the things that are here on earth. He lies prostrate like a dead man, pays no attention to anything, all the while involved with utterly useless images and forms, dreams and visions, instead of real things. And when he wakes, these dreams and images vanish entirely.

So too, in the spiritual sense, when a man lives in ungodliness, he is sleeping and dead in the sight of God, and does not see or perceive the spiritual goods offered him by the Gospel. Meanwhile, he is involved in the temporal, perishable goods of this world, and occupied with utterly worldly desires and delights, which are no more like eternal joy than dreamed images are like natural, living creatures. But when the man wakes up, either by receiving faith or by dying, he will finally see and recognize that what he loved here on earth was utter fantasy.

Johann Spangenberg, “Epistle on the First Sunday in Advent,” in The Christian Year of Grace: The Chief Parts of Scripture Explained in Questions and Answers

The Donkey by G. K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

G. K. Chesterton, “The Donkey”

Madeleine L’Engle on Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday in the Cathedral the congregation participates in acting out the Gospel, and we are the mob, and I choke as I shout out, “His blood be on us, and on our children. Crucify him! Crucify him!” I choke not because it is something I would never under any circumstances say, but because just as I do not know what I would have done had I been an ordinary German under Hitler’s regime, neither do I know what I would have done had I been caught up in that mob. I might well have cried, “Crucify him!” and been convinced that this was the right thing to do.

Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season, Chapter VI

R. S. Thomas – The Coming

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

R. S. Thomas, “The Coming”

Feasting on the brightness of the divine presence

In the future world there is no eating nor drinking nor propagation nor business nor jealousy nor hatred nor competition, but the righteous sit with crowns on their heads, feasting on the brightness of the divine presence, as it says, “And they beheld God, and did eat and drink.”

Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 17a