BEREAVEMENT

'It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live. The intellect is stunned by the shock and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their full import is mercifully wanting. The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss - that is all. It will take the mind and memory months, and possibly years, to gather together the details and this learn the whole extent of the loss. A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts around for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential - there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. He did not realize that it was an essential when he had it; he only discovers it now when he finds himself half balked, hampered by its absence. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of the disaster.' 

Mark Twain in Frederick Buechner, Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say): Four Who Wrote in Blood,  p.78. 

MEN & WOMEN ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE

'...the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful fiction, but in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolise to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and seminal figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.'  

CS Lewis, 'Priestesses in the Church?' in Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church (Edited by Lesley Walmsley), p.401.  

AN UNDECIDED HEART

The Contrite Heart

Isaiah, lvii, 15

The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow:
Then tell me, gracious GOD, is mine
A contrite heart, or no?

I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain,
To find I cannot feel.

I sometimes think myself inclin'd
To love thee, if I could;
But often feel another mind,
Averse to all that's good.

My best desires are faint and few,
I fain would strive for more;
But when I cry "My strength renew,"
Seem weaker than before.

They saints are comforted I know,
And love thy house of pray'r;
I therefore go where others go,
But find no comfort there.

O make this heart rejoice, or ache;
Decide this doubt for me;
And if it be not broken, break,
And heal it, if it be.

William Cowper, Verse and Letters, p.147. 

IT'S GOOD TO TALK

'...often those who are overtly silent, when they suffer some injustice, develop a greater pain because they do not speak about what they endure. For if their tongues spoke calmly about what they suffered, the pain would fade from consciousness. For wounds that are enclosed are more painful. But where the pain that burns internally is released, the wound is opened for healing. They should know, therefore, that they aggravate the seriousness of their pain by withholding all speech when they become annoyed. They are to be advised, therefore, that if they love their neighbors as themselves, they should not keep silent about the things that justly deserve censure. For by the medicine of the voice, both parties can receive healing: for the one who inflicted the harm, his evil actions are checked, and the one who sustained the pain is relieved by releasing his wound.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.122. 

THE WISE & THE DULL

'The wise of the world and the dull should be advised differently. For the wise should ignore what they know, and the dull should be encouraged to learn what they do not know. For the former, the first thing to eradicate is the notion that they are intelligent. For the latter, whatever is already known of heavenly wisdom is to be encouraged because, as they do not suffer from pride, their hearts are able to sustain some building.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.98. 

POVERTY & RICHES

'...consolation is to be offered to those who are tried by the "furnace of poverty," while fear is to be instilled in those who exalt in the consolation of temporal glory. The first are to learn that they possess riches that they do not see, and the latter are to know that they cannot truly possess the riches that they behold.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.91. 

PEOPLE PLEASING & CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

'It should also be known that good spiritual directors desire to please others, but this is to lead their neighbors by the sweetness of their own character to an affection for the Truth. It is not because they desire to be loved, but instead because they use affection for themselves as a sort of road to introduce the hearts of their audience to the love of the Creator. For it is certainly difficult for a preacher who is not loved, regardless of how well he speaks, to be heard. The one, then, who is set over others should study how to be endearing so that he may be heard, but not so that he can be loved for its own sake.'

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.76.  

PEOPLE PLEASING & CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

'...it is important that the spiritual director be vigilant that he is not assailed by a desire to please others, or else even though he might carefully penetrate the things of the internal life and provide what is necessary of external concerns, he seeks the love of the laity more than he seeks the Truth; or supported by his good works and appearing to be otherworldly, his love of self separates him from his Creator. For he is the enemy of the Redeemer, who through the good works that he performs desires to be loved by members of the Church rather than by him. For indeed, a servant is guilty of adulterous thoughts if he desires to please the eyes of the bride when he is sent by the groom to offer gifts.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.74. 

SOCIAL ACTION & PREACHING

'Doctrine does not penetrate the mind of the needy if the hand of compassion does not commend it to the soul. But the seed of the Word grows well, when the kindness of the preacher waters it in the heart of  his audience.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.72. 

KING SAUL

'...when he was small to himself, he was great to the Lord; but when he thought of himself as great, he became small to the Lord.' 

Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.63.