24 June 2018

Collect for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

O Lord God, heavenly Father, who through Your servant Saint John the
Baptist did bear witness that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world, and that all who believe in Him shall inherit
eternal life, we humbly implore You to enlighten us by Your Holy Spirit
that we may at all times find comfort and joy in this witness, continue
steadfast in the true faith, and at last with all believers attain unto eternal
life; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and
reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

24 June 2018

On Prayer

When we are praying, don't rack your brain to find words. On many
occasions, the simple, monotonous stammering of children has satisfied
their father who is in heaven.


                                  ST. JOHN CLIMACUS, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

10 June 2018
 

On Beauty and Love

To reveal someone’s beauty is to reveal their value by giving them time,

attention, and tenderness. To love is not just to do something for them

but to reveal to them their own uniqueness, to tell them that they are

special and worthy of attention.

          JEAN VANIER, Becoming Human, P 22.

27 May 2018
 

On the Sacraments

He that is wounded requires medicine; we are wounded,

because we are under sin; and the medicine is the sacred

and heavenly sacrament.

                                ST. AMBROSE, On the Sacraments, PAR 25

24 November 2017
 

Rid us, O Lord

Rid us, O Lord, of the arrogant delusion that our age is harder to live in,

harder to live through and be decent in than any age that ever was, that

we are being tried as our fathers never were, that we have more excuse

for our neurotic screaming, our pitiful muddling, our eroded standards,

our sentimental slobbering, our pinching terror at the shadows of the

future cast upon our way than any men who ever walked beneath Your

heaven and on Your earth.

Teach us, O Lord, by Your sane and steadying Word that we stand before

You as we always stood, living of Your grace and moving toward Your

judgment, that the Bomb and the terrible technological trifles of our time

have not altered the great plain, steady fact that You are Lord and have not

changed the blessed time of Your coming as a thief in the night.

                                MARTIN H. FRANZMANN, Prayer for Joy, P 51.

3 October 2017
 

On the Psalms

If any oppressive sorrow has come upon you […] pray with

psalms to the Lord lest the sadness of the world which is

death swallow you up; drive destructive sickness of grief from
your heart by the frequent sweetness of the psalms.

                                                   THE VENERABLE BEDE

2 July 2017
 

Guide My Tongue

Guide my tongue, O Blessed Wisdom, so that it may not

Deviate from truth for the rest of my life. Remind me of 

Your presence, so that I may be afraid to utter falsehood.

Encourage me with Your presence, so that I may freely

speak the truth. 

                                                   Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

                                                   Prayers by the Lake, p. 138