Wisdom of the Fathers

[MarieT]

Day 5

Whether you are a flower or a blade of grass, says St Basil, remember how transitory their beauty is --- and remember that your earthly life isn't much different.

it will pass one day, live it well.

[MarieT]

Day 6
The world is a work of art displayed for our admiration, says St Basil. Genesis....tells us who the Artist is.

[MarieT]

Every season has its spiritual reward

day 7

St cyprian tells a group of Christian prisoners that their sufferings are earning them greater honours than the proud officials who confined them there, will ever have.

... their suffering brings them for better rewards in heaven

Forget the judges and governors! Let them puff themselves up with the symbols of their dignity which lasts for only a year.

The heavenly dignity in you is already sealed by the brightness of the years on and it's Victorious Glory continues into another year.

in God's presence consider
Do I grumble about my sufferings....or learn to see them as roses and flowers from the gardens of paradise

[Denise]

Instead of offering things up at the foot of the cross I catch myself grumbling at times.

[MarieT]

you've been through so much
we thank God for His blessings on you to shoulder all

[MarieT]

The harmony of the Universe
Day 8

when the church in Corinth was disturbed by factions, St Clement, one of the earliest Popes wrote the Corinthians a gentle but firm letter reminding them that Christians should live together in peace and submission to the will of God.

"All of creation," he says "peacefully obeys God's laws and we should learn peace and obedience from nature"
St Clement 1 Corinthians 20

Do I move in harmony with God's laws or am I standing in the way of what God wants?

Am I listening to what God wants to teach me through the natural world?

[MarieT]

Day 9
Nature shows us the Resurrection

St. Clement of Rome tells us that belief in the resurrection should come naturally. God has given us signs everywhere in the day and night, in the way seeds disappear and grow into fruitful plants. We should contemplate the constant resurrection of the natural world.

Contemplate the resurrection that is always going on.

Day and night declare the resurrection to us.

The night sinks to sleep and the day rises. The day departs and the night comes on.

The grain is sown, the sower goes out and throws it on the ground, and the scattered seed, dry and bare when it fell on the ground, is gradually dissolved.

Then out of its disintegration, the mighty power of the Lord's Providence raises it up again and from one seed come many baring fruit. St. Clement, 1 Corinthians 24.

Consider:
If we are like seeds destined to grow into plants, what does that tell us about our life with God after we die?

[MarieT]

Day 10
Don't underestimate God

Because human reason is so weak, there are some who judging Divine Power by the limits of our own, insist that what is beyond our capacity is impossible even for God

They point to the fact that the Dead of past ages have disappeared and to the ashes of those who have cremated

They bring up the idea of carnivorous animals and the fish that consumes the body of the Shipwrecked sailor - the fish then becoming food for people and passing by digestion into the mass of the one who eats it

They bring up many similarly trivial things to overthrow the doctrine of the resurrection as if God could not restore man the way he made him in the first place

They make quick work of the convoluted logical foolishness by acknowledging that the body does indeed dissolve into the parts it was made of - not only does Earth return to Earth as God's word says but air and water also revert to the like element each of our parts returns to the elements it was made from

But although the human body may be scattered among vultures or the most Savage Beast by becoming their food and although it may pass through the teeth of fish and although it may be changed by fire into smoke and dust, wherever you may suppose for the sake of argument' the man has been removed he certainly remains in the world

And the world as the voice of inspiration tells us is held by the hand of God

if you then know what is in your hand do you suppose that God's knowledge is weaker than your own power?

Do you suppose that it would fail to discover the smallest things that are in the palm of God's hand?

St Gregory of Nisa on the making of man 26

in God's presence consider

Do I really trust in God's perfect knowledge of every circumstance?

[MarieT]

St Augustine

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”