And the Lord of the manor (Meaghan was off picking up pizza for the kiddos):
31 October 2020
30 October 2020
AND Happy Birthday to the Mistress of a Thousand Funny Faces...
...second oldest grand-daughter Lydia. She was upstaged by her cousin, Annabelle, who came a month earlier than expected. I can’t believe she’s seven!
Luther and Lewis
If a man preaches in the right manner, he gives praise to our Lord God.—Martin Luther, Short Writing on the Psalms, 1530-32
If anything whatever is common to all believers, and even to many unbelievers, it is the sense that in the gospel they have met a personality.... When we look into the Apocryphal gospels, we find ourselves constantly saying of this or that logion, ‘No. It’s a fine saying, but not His. That wasn’t how He talked.’—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 271.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Even as when he [the priest] baptizes, not he does baptize you, but it is God that possesses your head with invisible power, and neither angel nor archangel nor any other dare draw near and touch you; even so now also. For when God begets, the gift is His only.—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50 on St. Matthew
Catechesis: Ap XXIV THE MASS
A sacrament is a ceremony or act in which God offers us the content of the promised joined to the ceremony; thus Baptism is not an act which we offer God but one in which God baptizes us through a minister functioning in His place.—Ap. XXIV:18
There are two, and only two, types of sacrifice. One is the propitiatory sacrifice; this is a work of satisfaction for guilt and punishment that reconciles God or places His wrath and merits the forgiveness of sins for others. The other type is the eucharistic sacrifice: this does not merit forgiveness of sins or reconciliation, but by it those who have been reconciled give thanks or show their gratitude for the forgiveness of sins and other blessings received.—Ap XXIV:29
29 October 2020
Luther and Lewis
Wherewith shall you awaken your faith? Wherewith shall you stir yourself to give thanks? Will you wait until prayer breaks in upon you or till the devil makes a place for it? That will never happen. You must stir yourself by this Sacrament [of the Altar] and hold fast to it. Here is the fire that can kindle the heart. You must remember your need and thirst, and hear and believe the good that your Saviour has wrought for you! And your heart will be renewed and your thoughts changed.—Martin Luther, Exhortation to the Sacrament, 1530
When Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral... They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 270.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Let us hear therefore, both priests and subjects, what we have had vouchsafed to us; let us hear and tremble. Of His own holy flesh He has granted us our fill; He has set before us Himself sacrificed.—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50 on St. Matthew
Catechesis: Ap XXIV THE MASS
In our [Augsburg] Confession, we have stated our position that the Lord’s Supper does not grant grace ex opere operato, and does not merit for others, whether living or dead, forgiveness of sins or of guilt or of punishment ex opere operato. This position is established and proved by the impossibility of our obtaining the forgiveness of sins ex opere operato through our works and by the necessity of faith to conquer the terrors os sin and death and to comfort hearts with the knowledge of Christ.—Ap XXIV:11, 12
Ha!
The reading at Matins today was Sirach 8. I LOVE verse 3: Strive not with a man that is full of tongue, and heap not wood upon his fire. Implications for so many pointless internet “discussions” with interminably loquacious folk.
28 October 2020
David and Meaghan’s new living furniture
finally arrived, sans the coffee table (still on back order). The way I like to describe it: they are Poirot; we are Miss Marple.
Happy birthday, oldest granddaughter!
Today our sweet peanut Annabelle turns seven. Hard to believe. She’s unbelievably sweet and unfailingly kind to her brothers and sisters. A true “little momma.” (In the second pic, she’s on the left; though two days older than her cousin, Lydia, she’s a bit more compact!).
Luther and Lewis
My advice is that people should not dispute about secret and hidden things, but that they should stay simply by the Word of God and especially the Catechism, for therein is contained a good and true summary of the whole Christian religion and the most important articles put together in brief. For God Himself gave the Ten Commandments, Christ composed and taught the Lord’s Prayer, and the Holy Spirit set down the articles of the Creed in the shortest and most appropriate words.—Martin Luther, Table Talk
If you take the sacrificial idea out of Christianity, you deprive both Judaism and Paganism of all significance.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 270.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Believe, therefore, that even now it is that supper, at which He Himself sat down. For this is in no respect different from that. For neither does man make this and Himself the other; but both this and that is His own work. When therefore you see the priest delivering it unto you, account not that it is the priest that does so, but that it is Christ's hand that is stretched out.—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50 on St. Matthew
Catechesis: Ap XXIV THE MASS
In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals, when the Sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.—Ap. XXIV:1
Epiphanius writes that in Asia Minor there were no daily Masses but Communion was celebrated three times a week, and that this practice comes from the apostles.—Ap. XXIV:8
27 October 2020
It’s the Nostalgia Time Again
Happens to me every single year about this time. The darkness grows, the evenings lengthen, the cold descends, and my mind (which is always rather preoccupied with memories) becomes rather than merely preoccupied, but obsessed with them.
The vanished faces and homes: the smells of the wood fires in my grandparents’ homes... the frosty air on the back porch at Aunt Fanny’s that you needed to step out into sometimes just to catch your breath from the heat in the kitchen... the taste of country butter spread over hot cornbread baked in a wood stove, and the scrapple and sausage that Uncle Archie shared with us after butchering his hogs... the ride one glorious October Sunday afternoon with the leaves at their peak to visit cousin Rachel (my father’s cousin, who still lived on one of our family’s old home places) and her huge cat and the ducks down the road from the Richardsville store (I made my children make a similar trek one summer to visit Rachel’s loquacious daughter and I still hear about it) ... daddy stapling heavy plastic over the back porch windows at my grandma’s to keep some of the wind at bay... the year he dug the trench and laid pipe to get water up from the spring into the house so they wouldn’t have to go outside to fetch it in the snow and cold... also second hand memories from my mom’s accounts, her dad rising very early on Christmas morning to get all the chores done so that day could be spent with the children entirely or the Christmas daddy and Uncle Leon were served up some eggnog by Uncle Archie and came back to the house a tad TOO full of Christmas cheer for my teetotalling mother...
It is absolutely odd to me that having grown up in Maryland, all of these memories center around Richardsville, Virginia where both my parents were from and our ancestors for many generations. With yesterday’s first fire of the season, I had to poke my head out the back door and drink in the smell of the smoke from the chimney and with it all the memories one more time.
Luther and Lewis
The advantage of this is that when Christians gather together, prayer is more powerful than at other times. We can and should most certainly pray at all places and hours, but prayer is nowhere so strong as when, in unity of Spirit, the whole congregation is gathered together to pray.—Martin Luther, Sermon, 1544
A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 269.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Let us also then touch the hem of His garment, or rather, if we be willing, we have Him entire. For indeed His body is set before us now, not His garment only, but even His body; not for us to touch it only, but also to eat, and be filled. Let us now then draw near with faith, every one that has an infirmity.—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50 on St. Matthew
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