T. S. Eliot on Peace

Now think for a moment about the meaning of this word ‘peace.’ Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the fear of War? Does it seem to you that the angelic voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?

    Reflect now how Our Lord Himself spoke of Peace. He said to His disciples, ‘My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.’ Did He mean peace as we think of it: the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbours, the barons at peace with the King the householder counting over his peaceful gains, the swept hearth, his best wine for a friend at the table, his wife singing to the children? Those men his disciples knew no such things: they went forth to journey afar, to suffer by land and sea, to know torture, imprisonment, disappointment, to suffer death by martyrdom. What then did He mean? If you ask that, remember then that He said also, ‘Not as the world gives, give I unto you.’ So then, He gave to His disciples peace, but not peace as the world gives.

T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

Let us give our attention to that which is beautiful, comely, and good

As far as we are able, let us give our attention to that which is beautiful, comely, and good; let us be occupied with it, let us hold it in mind, so that by its glow and light our souls may become lovely and our minds transparent. For, if our eyes are refreshed with green fields and beautiful groves, after being clouded by mist, or if grassy hills take away the blur of the sick man’s gaze, while his pupils and eye-balls seem to take on color, how much more does the eye of the mind, when it gazes upon the Highest Good, turning to It and feeding on It, become bright and shining, and so fulfill the words of Scripture: ‘My soul shall be filled as with marrow and richness.’ One who wisely understands the souls of his flock cares for the grass of the field so that he will have large pastures, for the sweet grasses make the lambs fatter, and their milk is more healthful. The rich use these pastures, they who ‘have eaten and adored,’ for it is the saint of God who is placed in these good pastures of faith.

St. Ambrose of Milan, Letter to Irenaeus (Summer, 393)

The sheep’s only security is the shepherd

Sheep have a special problem. They have no defenses. Cats have teeth, claws and speed. Dogs have their teeth and their speed. Horses can kick, bite and run. Bears can claw, bite and crush. Deer can run. But the sheep have no bite or claws and cannot outrun any serious predator. They can butt other sheep, but that ability will not protect them from a wolf or a bear. The sheep’s only security is the shepherd.


Kenneth Bailey, The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament, chapter one

A Prayer for Advent II

Lord Jesus, who once came into the world to save sinners, and who will come again to judge the quick and the dead, let us in repentance and faith find Thee in Thy manger and on the cross, so that we may see Thee with joy upon the clouds and on Thy throne.

C.F.W Walther, Gospel Sermons, Advent II

St. John Chrysostom on the Ascension

And now, we who before were deemed unfit to dwell upon the earth are raised up to heaven; we who were unworthy of earthly dignity now ascend to a heavenly kingdom, and enter into heaven, and take our place upon a royal throne; and this nature of ours, because of which the Cherubim guarded the gates of Paradise, this day sits high above the Cherubim.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily on the Ascension

Ascension – John Donne

Salute the last, and everlasting day,
Joy at the uprising of this Sun, and Son,
Ye whose true tears, or tribulation
Have purely wash’d, or burnt your drossy clay.
Behold, the Highest, parting hence away,
Lightens the dark clouds, which He treads upon;
Nor doth he by ascending show alone,
But first He, and He first enters the way.
O strong Ram, which hast batter’d heaven for me!
Mild lamb, which with Thy Blood hast mark’d the path!
Bright Torch, which shinest, that I the way may see!
O, with Thy own Blood quench Thy own just wrath;
And if Thy Holy Spirit my Muse did raise,
Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

John Donne, “Ascension”

A sacrifice, yet a high priest; a supplicant, yet God.

He prayed; but who was it who heard the prayer of the supplicant? He was a sacrifice, yet a high priest; a supplicant, yet God. He dedicated His blood to God and cleansed the whole world. A cross raised Him aloft, yet it was sin that was fixed by the nails.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, Personal Poems, 2.74-77

Leontius of Byzantium on the Trinity

These three persons differ from one another in nothing except their “properties.”…The Son and the Spirit differ only in that the Son is generated from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from Him. How the one is generated and the other proceeds we are not concerned to know.

Leontius of Byzantium, De Sectis I

He speaks to God, His Father, in a human voice…

Jesus takes our human nature—yours and mine—to the heart of God and he speaks to God his father in a human voice. In heaven the language they speak is human (not just angelic). Our words (human words) are heard at the very centre of the burning heart of reality.

The Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams, sermon for Ascension Day 2009