15 February 2008
Patristic Quote of the Day
Of faults thus grievous, Christ proved them guilty who professed to be skilled in the law; the scribes, I mean, and lawyers; and for this reason he said unto them, Also to you lawyers, woe! who have taken away the key of knowledge. By the key of knowledge we consider that the law itself is meant, and justification in Christ, by faith I mean in Him. For though the law was in shadow and type, yet those types shape out to us the truth and those shadows depict to us in manifold ways the mystery of Christ. -- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 86 on St. Luke
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
Nothing is more necessary than that we should turn towards God's ear, call upon Him, and pray to Him. We must pray that He would give, preserve and increase faith in us and the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments. We pray that He would remove everything that is in our way and that opposes us in these matters. -- Blessed Martin Luther, the Larger Catechism III:2,3
14 February 2008
Julana Aufdemberge +
Our beloved Jo Aufdemberge, asleep in Jesus, sometime yesterday evening. How can we list her contributions to our parish family? Faithful worshipper and attender at Bible Class. Bell ringer. LWML regular. Helped with VBS a number of years. Served on Board of Evangelism and later Board of Christian life. Sang in choir. Did the cross-stitch for the Baptismal Crosses we give to the newly baptized (what she was apparently doing when she died!). I know I'm leaving a thousand things out.
Grant rest, O Christ, to Your servant, with Your saints! Please keep Jo's family in your prayers. Arrangements pending.
Grant rest, O Christ, to Your servant, with Your saints! Please keep Jo's family in your prayers. Arrangements pending.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
The fallen Adam would not have returned to God if God had not come before him in grace, sought him out, and led him back. -- C.F.W. Walther, *God Grant It!* p. 256
Patristic Quote of the Day
For it was by reason of Adam's transgression of the commandment that we, having our faces turned away from God, returned to our dust; for the sentence of God upon human nature was, Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return; but at the time of the consummation of this world, the face of the earth shall be renewed; for God the Father by the Son in the Spirit will give life to all those who are laid within it.--St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 36 on St. Luke
13 February 2008
First Lenten Midweek
Today was, in my estimation, the perfect day. Not only did we start with Matins for Trinity-St. Paul Lutheran School at which our beloved District President spoke on our access to the Father through the perfect sacrifice of His Son, but we then had pericopal study and lunch. I got to do yet another house blessing and have a visit with Eunice. Then home to get things ready for tonight.
At 6:15 some of us gathered to celebrate a spoken Divine Service and meditate together on Christ not making propitiation, but BEING the propitiation, and then receiving the Holy Eucharist.
Finally at 7:15, what joy to gather for the first Lenten Evening Prayer commemorating our Lord's Passion. It continues rather cold and bitter here, so our numbers were down a bit - our older folk are not comfortable venturing out in this. But it was joy to sing together Phos Hilaron and Psalm 141 and pray Psalms 27 and 51 and then hear the first part of the Passion, meditate on our Lord's "intentionality" in offering Himself, sing the Magnificat and the Litany. It's so RIGHT to gather as a family in Christ in the evening "as lamps are lit and children nod" and return thanks to Him who is "our loving Lord and source of all that is good" and to give an ear to the Words and then to beg God's mercy for all sorts and conditions. A true oasis in the middle of the week. Glory to God for all things!
At 6:15 some of us gathered to celebrate a spoken Divine Service and meditate together on Christ not making propitiation, but BEING the propitiation, and then receiving the Holy Eucharist.
Finally at 7:15, what joy to gather for the first Lenten Evening Prayer commemorating our Lord's Passion. It continues rather cold and bitter here, so our numbers were down a bit - our older folk are not comfortable venturing out in this. But it was joy to sing together Phos Hilaron and Psalm 141 and pray Psalms 27 and 51 and then hear the first part of the Passion, meditate on our Lord's "intentionality" in offering Himself, sing the Magnificat and the Litany. It's so RIGHT to gather as a family in Christ in the evening "as lamps are lit and children nod" and return thanks to Him who is "our loving Lord and source of all that is good" and to give an ear to the Words and then to beg God's mercy for all sorts and conditions. A true oasis in the middle of the week. Glory to God for all things!
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
A Christian who will not continually fight against sin, earnestly strive after the virtues that please God, faithfully watch over his heart and life, and always pray for new power and grace soon ceases to be a Christian. -- C. F. W. Walther, *God Grant It!* p. 259
Patristic Quote of the Day
Be not troubled when thou meditatest upon the greatness of thy former sins; but rather know, that still greater is the grace that justifieth the sinner and absolveth the wicked. Faith then in Christ is found to be the pledge to us of these great blessings; for it is the way that leadeth unto life, that bids us go to the mansions that are above, that raises us to the inheritance of the saints, that makes us members of the kingdom of Christ. -- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 40 on St. Luke.
12 February 2008
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
There is no power in man, in his reason or in his will, none in education, none in the whole store of the visible, or the intellectual, or moral world, which can repair this fatal defect [having no true love, faith, or fear of God], and render him God's reverent, loving, and trusting child. -- Krauth, *The Conservative Reformation*, p. 390
Patristic Quote of the Day
For the whole nature of man became guilty in the person of him who was first formed; but now it is wholly justified again in Christ. -- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 42 on St. Luke
11 February 2008
Patristic Quote of the Day - 2
[Boy is St. Cyril GREAT!]
"We then say, that in many things we all of us offend, and that no man is pure from uncleanness, even though his life upon earth be but one day. Let us ask then of God mercy; which if we do, Christ will justify us; by Whom and with Whom, to God the Father, be praise and dominion, with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen."
Homily 120 on Luke 18 - St. Cyril of Alexandria
"We then say, that in many things we all of us offend, and that no man is pure from uncleanness, even though his life upon earth be but one day. Let us ask then of God mercy; which if we do, Christ will justify us; by Whom and with Whom, to God the Father, be praise and dominion, with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen."
Homily 120 on Luke 18 - St. Cyril of Alexandria
Luther Gems on Reminscere Gospel (Matthew 15:21-28)
Christ is nowhere pictured as pitiless as in this Gospel.
It's a lesson, indeed, recorded for our learning and comfort, teaching us that Christ is pleased at heart when we persist in prayer and do not give up.
[On calling her a dog] If he had spoken in this manner to me, I would have been scared off... I would have been frightened to death.
Faith takes Christ captive in his word, when he's angriest, and makes out of his cruel words a comforting inversion, as we see here. You say, the woman responds, that I am a dog. Let it be, I will be gladly be a dog; now give me the consideration you give a dog. Thus she catches Christ with his own words, and he is happy to be caught.
He let himself be made captive, and must comply. Be sure of this: that's what he most deeply desires.
You, however, cling firmly to the hope that I will help you and you don't let go of me.
We see here why the Lord presented himself so unyielding and refused to hear her, not because he wanted to present an unfriendly image as not wanting to help her, but rather that her faith might be so evident.
Thus he gives her not merely a dog's rights, but is constrained to give her what she petitions for, healing her daughter, and places her among the descendants of Abraham. Her faith brings her to such a state of grace that she is no longer a dog or a Gentile, but is welcomed as a beloved daughter and a blessed woman.
If God had answered Joseph sooner and rescued him, then no doubt Jacob, his father, would have been happy but Joseph would have remained a sheepherder. But because God's answer was long delayed, he became ruler of Egypt and the greatest among his brethren; and God through him accomplished much good in the secular realm as well as in the church.
"Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." Because the Word is true, his promise will not fail.
We will in the end find that God will do far more for us than we asked for, just as is the case with this woman.
Our Lord God thus wishes to teach us that it is not always good to be heard immediately.
The "yes" is deep in his heart, in keeping with Christ's promise "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
So, in the case of this woman, she cries and implores, and will not let the "yes" word be plucked from her heart - that Christ the Lord is friendly and will help.
It's a lesson, indeed, recorded for our learning and comfort, teaching us that Christ is pleased at heart when we persist in prayer and do not give up.
[On calling her a dog] If he had spoken in this manner to me, I would have been scared off... I would have been frightened to death.
Faith takes Christ captive in his word, when he's angriest, and makes out of his cruel words a comforting inversion, as we see here. You say, the woman responds, that I am a dog. Let it be, I will be gladly be a dog; now give me the consideration you give a dog. Thus she catches Christ with his own words, and he is happy to be caught.
He let himself be made captive, and must comply. Be sure of this: that's what he most deeply desires.
You, however, cling firmly to the hope that I will help you and you don't let go of me.
We see here why the Lord presented himself so unyielding and refused to hear her, not because he wanted to present an unfriendly image as not wanting to help her, but rather that her faith might be so evident.
Thus he gives her not merely a dog's rights, but is constrained to give her what she petitions for, healing her daughter, and places her among the descendants of Abraham. Her faith brings her to such a state of grace that she is no longer a dog or a Gentile, but is welcomed as a beloved daughter and a blessed woman.
If God had answered Joseph sooner and rescued him, then no doubt Jacob, his father, would have been happy but Joseph would have remained a sheepherder. But because God's answer was long delayed, he became ruler of Egypt and the greatest among his brethren; and God through him accomplished much good in the secular realm as well as in the church.
"Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." Because the Word is true, his promise will not fail.
We will in the end find that God will do far more for us than we asked for, just as is the case with this woman.
Our Lord God thus wishes to teach us that it is not always good to be heard immediately.
The "yes" is deep in his heart, in keeping with Christ's promise "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
So, in the case of this woman, she cries and implores, and will not let the "yes" word be plucked from her heart - that Christ the Lord is friendly and will help.
Patristic Quote of the Day
The Holy Spirit, then, proceedeth from God the Father as from the fountain; but He is not foreign from the Son; for every property of the Father belongeth to the Word, Who by nature and verily was begotten of Him. -- St. Cyril of Alexandria, *Commentary on Luke* Homily 65.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
What happens when love comes to earth? It suffers. Love must always suffer. Why must love suffer when it is born? Because from the moment of its birth it faces a deadly enemy. That deadly foe is SELF. Was it not so in the life of our Lord? Immediately after that little Babe was born of Mary the struggle began. It continued to Calvary, and it continues down through the ages, "for the sufferings of Christ abound in us." That suffering is the result of the clash between love and self, love struggling in conflict with selfishness. -- Von Schenk, *The Presence* p. 65
10 February 2008
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
Whatever may be the relation of imputation to original sin, our Church holds it to be an impious opinion, that our misery and liability are merely the results of imputation. The primary point is, that we do actually participate, in our nature, in the corruption wrought by the fall. -- Krauth, *The Conservative Reformation* p. 387
Patristic Quote of the Day
[See, I told you] "He found man reduced to the level of the beasts; therefore is He placed like fodder in a manger, that we, having left off our bestial life, might mount up to that degree of intelligence which befits man's nature; and whereas we were brutish in soul, by now approaching the manger, even His own table, we find no longer fodder, but the bread from heaven, which is the body of life. -- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Homily 1 on Luke 2.
LONG Day
I think I spent more time in St. Paul's today than anywhere else. We had the two Divine Services, with Bible Class in between - same as usual. And then we hosted the District's Pastors and Elders Workshop from 2 to 4 (but we were there from 1 to 4:30). Dr. Lessing (from St. Louis sem) did a fine presentation on Jeremiah and coping with disaster. But I must confess the BEST part of the day was when Jimbo (Pastor Leistico) delivered into my greedy little hands St. Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on Luke; he's letting me borrow it for the year or so. Bet you can't guess where Patristic Quotes for the Day are likely to be coming from, can you? Anywho, then at 5 I conducted our Catechism Service and we pondered the Parable of the Prodigal Son and its relationship to private Confession and Absolution. To top it all off, when I came home and Cindi made me go downstairs and watch the weather forecast for tomorrow. ICK!!!
08 February 2008
Luncheon Favorite
Today was a treat. Bekah is home sick, Cindi's not feeling the best, David got home from school before lunch, and it's my day off. We usually go out today, but we ate in instead. And we had one of my all time favorites: fried salmon patties. This was one of my mom's standards. Salmon must be canned red-sockeye and mixed with onions and egg and old bay seasoning (we added that) and pepper and fried in enough oil to make it really crisp. Cindi also has been making a great crab dip - not sure the process there - but we love it when we serve it on crisped cheese (another of her microwave secrets). Induction again. And I'm loving it. Oh, I also ate some salad to make her happy. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)