Saturday, November 30, 2024

Our Church Speaks | Moses the Black in Ethiopia, "Holiness"


Fr. Paul of Abernathy of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church in Pittsburgh


 "You fast,
but Satan does not eat.
You labor fervently,
but Satan never sleeps.
The only dimension
with which you can 
outperform Satan is by
for Satan has no humility."

+ Moses the Ethiopian,
330-405 A.D.


As the season of Advent begins this weekend, Emmaus City Church is seeking to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, using Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as our resource. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we in the upcoming year ahead:

"Pursue peace with everyone,
and holiness —
without it no one will see the Lord."
+ Hebrews 12:14

Here are some recent highlights:


When we handed these books out to our congregation, this is part of the note we included inside each one:

This might seem at first
to be a peculiar Advent devotional. 
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place. 
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.

Advent begins in the dark. 
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people 
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it. 
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light.
That hope is what saints have embodied
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.

As we step into this next year,
our prayer is that we will shine 
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us. 
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
He has rescued us from 
the domain of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”

This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.



Moses the Ethiopian
Monastic & Martyr

Moses the Ethiopian (also known as "Moses the Black") is among the most prominent ancient desert fathers, cherished for his dedication to humility and peace. He was born in Ethiopia and joined a band of seventy-five violent outlaws in the Nile valley of Egypt. This band of thieves terrorized the local populace, and Moses, distinguished by his towering figure and violent nature, soon became the robbers' leader. While being pursued by the authorities, Moses hid in a monastery with Egyptian monks. There, he observed the peace of Christ through the witness and discipline of the monks. Moses repented of his violence and lawlessness, was baptized, and became a member of the monastery.

In his early years as a monk, Moses found it difficult to completely leave the habits of his hold life behind. One day, Moses found several robbers stealing from the monastery. He overpowered them and dragged them to the chapel by force, where they too repented and became members of the monastic community.

Moses became frustrated with himself 
and with his lack of progress in
invited Moses to join him on
Together they watched the sun
creep to the horizon.
"Only slowly do the rays of the sun
drive away the night
and usher in a new day,"
said Isidore to Moses.
God was at work in Moses,
slowly refining the once-violent outlaw
into a powerful figure of peace and

In time, Moses became a respected monastic leader, known as Abba Moses (Father Moses), and many of his teachings were recorded and preserved. "If we took the trouble to see our sins we would not see the sins of a neighbor," Abba Moses taught. Abba Moses also said, "Do not be at enmity with anybody and do not foster enmity in your heart; do not hate one who is at enmity with his neighbor — and this is peace."

When Abba Moses was an old man, violent raiders laid siege to his monastery. Moses forbade the monks from defending themselves but told them to flee for safety rather than take up weapons to fight. Abba Moses remained behind and was murdered by the bandits as he stood with his monastery in peace.

Scripture

"We ask you, brothers and sisters, 
to respect those who labor among you
and are over you in the Lord
and admonish you,
and to esteem them very highly in love
because of their work.
Be at peace among yourselves.
And we urge you, brothers,
admonish the idle, 
encourage the fainthearted,
help the weak,
be patient with them all.
See that no one repays anyone
evil for evil,
but always seeks to do good
one to another and to everyone.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you."
+ 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18

Meditation: 
Rise of a New, Urban Monasticism

emerged in the third century
in response to the cultural decline
of the Roman Empire and 
the need that many Christians
were sensing for a new kind of 

This new movement would
invite the participant into a
life of submission, peace, discipline,
community, virtue, love, labor, and prayer.
The monastic movement saw itself as

While it is not possible to know whether contemporary Western society is truly in decline or merely experiencing a dip before another rise, it is true that many followers of Jesus today are sensing a renewed need to dedicate their whole selves to holiness in Jesus. For this reason, counterintuitive as it may seem to many, there is a renewed interest in monasticism among the younger generations. But the monastic impulse of today differs from its historic form in several key ways. First, it is noncloistered. Monastics do not withdraw from their cities; they are embedded within society. Second, its commitment is limited, not permanent. In our highly mobile society, monastics are free to come and go. Third, it is bivocational. Monastics usually hold some sort of part-time or full-time job in the marketplace.

If the new monasticism is embedded within cities, limited in commitment, and bivocational, then what makes it monastic? The answer is that the new, urban monasticism is a community of Christians who share a rule of life and who are seeking to help one another grow in Christlikeness. What makes this different from a "normal" congregation? The honest answer would be, not much — except that most congregations do not invite their congregants into this depth of spiritual formation. 

Moses the Ethiopian, before his conversion, was about as unmonastic as a man can be. It is a testament to the power of sharing a rule of life within a community of believers that he was transformed from a violent outlaw into a man who peacefully gave his life away to violent outlaws. This kind of deep transformation is only possible through the Holy Spirit, and it requires community and personal discipline. These are the tools by which we partner with the Holy Spirit in our own transformation.

This new, urban monastic movement of our time is simply the latest form of seeking this partnership with the Spirit of Christ.

Prayer

O God, Your blessed Son became poor for our sake and chose the cross over the kingdoms of this world. Deliver us from an inordinate love of worldly things, that we, inspired by the devotion of Your servant Moses, may seek You with singleness of heart, behold Your glory by faith, and attain to the riches of Your everlasting Kingdom, where we shall be united with our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

pgs. 114-116

The Celebrity & The Saint

The celebrity demands,
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."

The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"

The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."

The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.

The celebrity is a Ferrari
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.

+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks


Bonus Eastern Orthodox Story:

+ Rev. Milad Selim Journeyed 

Bonus Advent 1st Collect:

Almighty God, give us grace
to cast away the works of darkness,
and put on the armor of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which Your 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 living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through Him who lives and reigns
with You and the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and forever.
Amen.

pg. 60

Additional Advent Resources:

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Location: Worcester, MA, USA

Friday, November 29, 2024

Our Church Speaks | Sadhu Sundar Singh in India, "No Quit"

 

Sadhu Sundar Singh by Ned Gannon, 2022 A.D.

"If we do not bear the cross
of the Master,
of the world ...

+ Sundar Singh,
1889-1929 A.D.


As the season of Advent begins this weekend, Emmaus City Church is seeking to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, using Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as our resource. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we in the upcoming year ahead:

"Pursue peace with everyone,
and holiness —
without it no one will see the Lord."
+ Hebrews 12:14

Here are some recent highlights:


When we handed these books out to our congregation, this is part of the note we included inside each one:

This might seem at first
to be a peculiar Advent devotional. 
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place. 
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.

Advent begins in the dark. 
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people 
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it. 
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light.
That hope is what saints have embodied
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.

As we step into this next year,
our prayer is that we will shine 
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us. 
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
He has rescued us from 
the domain of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”

This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.



Sundar Singh
Evangelist and Teacher
of the Faith

Sundar Singh was a dedicated missionary who evangelized the East, living in simplicity as he shared the hope of the Gospel. He was born to a Sikh family in northern India. As a child, he studied with a Hindu sadhu (an Indian holy man) and was taught from the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism's religious texts. At the same time, Singh learned English at a local Christian school.

When Singh was fourteen, his mother died. In grief and anger, the young boy took a Bible and burned it page by page. He searched for meaning in religious devotion and theological questioning but was left in complete despair. On the brink of suicide, he offered up one final plea that the true God would reveal Himself. In a dream, Jesus appeared to Singh. This singular event transformed the young man.

When Singh announced that he would become a Christian, he suffered abuse from his family and community. He was poisoned many times and had dangerous snakes thrown through his window. Nevertheless, he survived and was baptized at age sixteen.

Singh studied in Western seminaries but rejected the insistence that Western culture was necessary to spread the Gospel. Much of Western thinking, he concluded, conflicted with the Way of Jesus. He compared the hearts of Westerners to a stone in a river, that had:

" ... been lying a long time in the water,
but the water had not 
penetrated the stone.
It is just like that with the "Christian"
people of the West.
They have for centuries
been surrounded by Christianity,
entirely steeped in its blessings,
but the Master's truth has
not penetrated them.
Christianity is not at fault;
the reason lies rather
in the hardness of their hearts.

Singh undertook missionary journeys across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, dressed up in simple robe and turban of an Indian sadhu and wandering without possessions. Barefoot wherever he went, he was called the Apostle with Bloody Feet. His message was the simple Gospel of Jesus.

"There is a deep and natural craving
in the human heart that
can be satisfied nowhere
except in God.

Most of us,
suppressing our deepest longings
and disdaining God,
seek satisfaction from this world.
Such a path can only lead to despair.
... Surely we shall find peace
not be eliminating desire,
but by finding its fulfillment
and satisfaction in 
the One who created it."

Singh was beaten up and punished often for his teaching. His teaching and conduct remained peaceful, no matter how much abuse he received. 

"The true Christian's life 
is like sandalwood, 
which imparts its fragrance 
to the ax which cuts it 
without doing it any harm." 

During a final missionary visit to Tibet, Singh disappeared while ascending a mountain in the Himalayas. His body was never recovered, and his disappearance and death remain a mystery.

Scripture

"Having persuaded the crowds,
they stoned Paul and dragged him
out of the city,
supposing that he was dead.
But when the disciples gathered
about him, he rose up
and entered the city,
and on the next day he went on
with Barnabas to Derbe."
+ Acts 14:19b-20

Meditation: 
All Grit, No Quit

What is your pain point when it comes to faith? How difficult would life have to be for you to walk away from Jesus?

When Sadhu Sundar Singh encountered Jesus, the transcendent beauty of Christ was something he could never quit. 

Both Singh and St. Paul (and others like Sts. Perpetua and Felicity) had the experience of being beaten for their faith and left for dead. Both got up and went right back to work. 

We practice this kind of gritty resilience in small moments of testing, where the path of least resistance leads away from Jesus. What small moments of testing are coming your way this week? How might you practice "no quit"?


Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, You called Your servant Sundar Singh to preach the Gospel to the people of India and the world: Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of Your Kingdom, that Your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

pgs. 110-112

The Celebrity & The Saint

The celebrity demands,
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."

The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"

The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."

The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.

The celebrity is a Ferrari
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.

+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks

Additional Advent Resources:

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Dayenu | Learning from Yeshua a Life Full of Thanksgiving


Everything is a gift.
The degree to which we are awake
to this truth is a measure of gratefulness,
and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness. 
+ Diana Butler Bass

During this year's Thanksgiving, as I continue to revel in gratitude for what God has done among Emmaus City Church in the past decade, I keep returning again to the word, dayenu.

Dayenu

There is a word used in song
when Yahweh, the LORD, brings His people
through yet another trial.
The word is dayenu,
meaning something along the lines of
"and if nothing else,
it would have been enough."

If the Lord God had merely fed us
during the famine but not given
us a home in Egypt,
it would have been enough.
If the Lord God had given us a home
in Egypt but not kept us
from being enslaved,
it would have been enough.
If the Lord God had brought us out Egypt
but not parted the Red Sea,
it would have been enough.
If the Lord God had parted the Red Sea
but not brought every last one
of us through it,
it would have been enough.

This was their way of saying,
"No matter what the future is,
what You've done for us
is enough."

+ The Understory
pg. 152

Meditating on dayenu has also helped me return to a reflection a fellow minister wrote. Corey Widmer and his family were among the co-founding families of East End Fellowship, one of the congregations that has helped shape Emmaus City Church over the years. A previous post that attests to this is "Skylines & Silhouettes | Worcester, MA + Richmond, VA," which features some of the East End community's story.

But for today, I am reading Corey's words below in consideration of gratitude and how Yeshua (Jesus' name in Hebrew, which means "The LORD saves") invites us with open, wounded hands to have our life sing the song of dayenu.
On Gratitude 
“Gratitude is the basis of all holiness.
The most holy person you know
is the most grateful person you know.
To be a saint is to
be fueled by gratitude,
nothing more and nothing less."
Ronald Rolheiser,
During a sabbatical a few years ago, I decided to study the subject of gratitude. Over the last few years as I have moved into the solidly “middle age” category, I noticed that I was growing in negativity and cynicism. My life was lacking in joy, an attribute that the Bible overwhelmingly describes as a mark of the mature Christian life. I didn’t see much of it in mine. When I talked to a friend about it, he suggested I work on cultivating gratitude. So during my three months away, I read several books about gratitude, informally “interviewed” some grateful people, and prayed for and sought a grateful heart in my own personal life. 
At the heart of gratitude, I’ve learned, is awareness that all of life is grace. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). Everything is a gift. Air, light, soil, water. Friendship, community, family. Food, wine, coffee (!). We live on a graced planet. Nothing is earned, nothing is deserved. All of life is grace. 
And the grace of our Lord is wastefully generous. God could have made one kind of bird  instead he made 10,000 species of winged color. He could have made food taste all the same, supplying our need for daily nourishment – instead he created an environment that can produce the likes of curry, jambalaya, and apple pie. He made a world where ants build hills, water falls from the sky, and leaves change colors and regenerate in a matter of months. There is enough wonder and delicious diversity in our world to keep a person in awe for a lifetime. 
The degree to which we are aware of this truth is a measure of our gratitude. Plenty of people notice our world, but gratitude goes beyond observation to receiving reality as a gift. It was the original lie of the serpent that God is distant and uncaring, and that we humans should go it alone. This is still the lie that humans believe; in fact, in our culture we are taught that independence and self-sufficiency make for the good life. But the truth is the opposite – dependence on the all-sufficient Father makes for the good life. The grateful person lives in total awareness and reliance on the Father’s good gifts every moment. 
A breakthrough came for me
when I realized that gratitude
is not a passive disposition
but a learned habit.
It is a discipline of awareness
to the Father’s grace
and our own response to it.
Paul commands, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thess. 5:18). Or just simply, “Be thankful” (Col. 4:2). I think I always considered gratefulness as something that happened to you when a happy, positive circumstance occurred. But Paul suggests exactly the opposite: the discipline of gratitude in the midst of any circumstance leads to joy. It is not the happy person who is grateful – it is the grateful person who is happy, whose eyes are open to the abundance of all things. 
So how has this changed my life? 
 | 1 |
On waking, I let my first words
be words of thanksgiving.
“Thank you Father,
thank you Son,
thank you Spirit ... ”
Waking from sleep and
having a new day to live
in the mercy of the gospel
is an amazing gift in itself.

 | 2 |
Then, throughout the day,
I look for cues that prompt thanksgiving.
My friend Bob Stamps taught me 
a simple prayer
to utter every time you experience
even the smallest good:
a text from a friend,
a sip of coffee,
light filtering through the trees.
“Hear the praise of this grateful heart”
is a prayer that I now use
innumerable times throughout the day.

 | 3 |
Before bedtime, I try to conduct
a brief review of the day —
the practice of “Examen.”
Doing so helps me remember
the gifts of the day and to
close my hours with thanks.

I don’t always keep these habits,
but even the sporadic discipline of gratitude
has awakened me to the Father’s love
and the gift of ordinary life.

+ Facebook. Widmer, Corey.
"On Gratitude."
Saturday, November 26, 2022,
11:48 a.m.

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,
Location: Worcester, MA, USA

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Our Church Speaks | Joan of Arc in France, "I Am Not Afraid"

 

Joan of Arc in Our Church Speaks

"Go forward bravely.
Fear nothing.
Trust in God."

+ Joan of Arc,
1412-1431 A.D.

As the season of Advent begins this weekend, Emmaus City Church is seeking to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, using Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as our resource. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we in the upcoming year ahead:

"Pursue peace with everyone,
and holiness —
without it no one will see the Lord."
+ Hebrews 12:14

Here are some recent highlights:


When we handed these books out to our congregation, this is part of the note we included inside each one:

This might seem at first
to be a peculiar Advent devotional. 
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place. 
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.

Advent begins in the dark. 
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people 
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it. 
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light.
That hope is what saints have embodied
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.

As we step into this next year,
our prayer is that we will shine 
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us. 
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
He has rescued us from 
the domain of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”

This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.



Joan of Arc
Mystic & Soldier

When the French cried out to God for deliverance from English oppressors, God raised up a humble peasant girl named Joan as His messenger. Joan lived in a farming region of northeast France during the Hundred Years' War. In this war, English nobility with ancient Norman / French ancestry fought with native French over land and property. The French peasants suffered many evils while the nobility fought over ancient claims. By the time Joan was thirteen, England had gained the upper hand in the war. God began speaking to Joan at this time through the voices of angels and saints. God was grieved by the injustice suffered by the French people and had heard their prayers. He gave Joan a daunting mission: she was to install an embattled Prince Charles as the next king of France and lead France to victory over their oppressors.

At age sixteen, Joan put on armor and journeyed eleven days to Charles's court. She told Charles that he was destined by God to be king and asked for an army that she would lead to liberate the city of Orléans. This bold, unprecedented act was bizarre to all at Charles's court. Charles's advisers said Joan was a delusional teenager. Charles ignored them and gave Joan an army. Riding a white horse, Joan led the French to victory over the English at Orléans, and Charles was crowned king. The tide of the war was turned.

Joan continued to receive visions and fight against English oppression. At age nineteen, she was captured by the English and condemned to death for witchcraft and heresy. As the flames consumed Joan's body, she issued her final words, calling on the name of Jesus. An English soldier said to those nearby, "God forgive us: we have burned a saint." Twenty-five years after her death, a Church investigation exonerated Joan of heresy. In 1920, the Roman Catholic Church officially recognized Joan of Arc as a saint.

Scripture

"Let no one despise you
for your youth,
but set the believers an example
in speech, in conduct, in love,
in faith, in purity."
+ 1 Timothy 4:12

Meditation: 
Too Young to Be Used by God?

Jospeh, Samuel, Ruth, David, Esther, Daniel, Mary, John, Timothy — what do they have in common? They were all "too young" for the work God called them to. The Lord calls and uses all types, young and old, men and women, rich and poor; but the too-young seem to have a special place of affection in His heart. The too-young person is obviously inadequate; they don't have enough life experience to be wise, and they rarely have enough resources to be effective. The too-young are, therefore, often the perfect kind of person for God to manifest His strength in weakness.

It is common sense for local churches and denominations to have rules about how old someone must be in order to take certain steps: make a public profession of faith, be ordained for ministry, teach, lead, etc. But Jesus' Church must also remember that she serves a Lord who loves to use the too-young and therefore must always be ready to make an exception to the general rules and regulations. You never know when you might have another Timothy or Joan of Arc on your hands!

What if Charles had listened to his advisers and dismissed Joan as the inexperienced teenager she was? What if Pharaoh had not listened to Joseph? What if Eli had not listened to Samuel? What if Samuel had not anointed David? What if Joseph (and Mary's parents!) had rejected her? What if the other disciples had rejected John (who was likely somewhere around fourteen years old when he became a disciple)? What if Paul had rejected Timothy?

What if you do not listen to the too-young people who are called by God in your life? What opportunity might you or your congregation miss if you are not open to God calling the too-young?

Prayer

O almighty Lord, You were a strong tower to Joan of Arc and to all those who put their trust in You: Be now and evermore our defense. Look in pity upon all impacted by war, including the wounded and the prisoners, cheers the anxious, comfort the bereaved, succor the dying, and hasten the time when war shall cease in all the world, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

pgs. 103-104

The Celebrity & The Saint

The celebrity demands,
"Look at me!"
The saint whispers,
"Look at God."

The celebrity says,
"Try to be like me,
but you'll never be like me."
The saint says,
"Why would anyone want to be like me?
Who has God made you?"

The celebrity is ever ascending,
climbing the tower of Babel
to the double-platinum throne.
The saint is ever descending,
saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."

The celebrity offers you everything
you want but can never have.
The saint offers you the thing you fear
but will redeem your soul.

The celebrity is a Ferrari
screaming down the highway
with music blaring.
The saint is the freshwater creek
beside the highway
that almost nobody ever notices
and is nearly impossible to hear
over the roar of traffic.
Yet the water murmurs
as it wanders over stones
and around oak roots.
It is not silent.

+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks

Additional Advent Resources:

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Location: Worcester, MA, USA
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)