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Sunday 31 July 2011

It is still the first book which fits the child’s mind when he begins to learn religion, and the last to which the old man clings as he leaves the world.-J. C. Ryle the Bible,

I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particular ly bungling in
politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and
millions of people." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So if we are going to fight with an eye towards winning, we've got to have a postmillennial faith. Now you can go to heaven without it, but you'll do better in this world and in the world to come, if you stand in terms of the fact that we are to bring everything into captivity to Christ." ~ R. J. Rushdoony

"You don't like the Goths?"
"No! Not with the persecution we have to put up with!"
"Persecution?" Padway raised his eyebrows.
"Religious persecution. We won't stand for it forever."
"But I thought the Goths let everybody worship as they pleased."
"That's just it! We Orthodox are forced to stand around and watch
Arians and Monophysites and Nestorians and Jews going about their
business unmolested, as if they owned the country! If that isn't
persecution, I'd like to know what is!" - L. Sprague DeCamp (_Lest Darkness Fall_)

Someone should set up Cyberholics Anonymous: "My name is John. I'm 45
years old, sleep with an iPhone next to my bed and check emails upon
waking. I have sore thumbs from texting, and waste half the day
replying to useless emails. I've forgotten how to listen and have a
real conversation. I am now a manager of emails - not people." = Tony Featherstone, The lost art of listening, WA Today, 20 September 201

Saturday 30 July 2011

The meaning of the atonement is not to be found in our penitence evoked by the sight of Calvary, but rather in what God did when in Christ on the cross he took our place and bore our sin.- J R W Stott, The Cross of Christ

A bishop once complained to the king that the countess (Lady Huntingdon) and her ministers were making a stir in his diocese. “His Majesty offered a solution— ‘Make bishops of them—make bishops of them.’ The prelate replied: ‘That might be done, but please your Majesty, we cannot make a bishop of Lady Huntingdon.’ At that point the Queen interposed, ‘It would be a lucky circumstance if you could, for she puts you all to shame.’ - Gilbert W. Kirby, The Elect Lady (Northants, England: The Trustees of the Connexion, 1972),

Postmillenialism- The Eschatology of Hope.- Clayton B. Callaway 2

It is true, that you live in the midst of difficulties and snares, and you need a double guard of watchfulness and prayer. But since you know both your need of help and where to look for it, I may say to you, as Darius to Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually is able to preserve and deliver you. Daniel likewise was a public man, and in critical circumstances. But he trusted in the Lord, was faithful in his departments, and therefore though he had enemies, they could not prevail against him.
Indeed the great point for our comfort in life, is to have a well grounded persuasion that we are where, all things considered, we ought to be. Then it is no great matter whether we are in public or in private life, in a city or a village, in a palace or a cottage. The promise, My grace is sufficient for thee, is necessary to support us in the smoothest scenes, and is equally able to support us in the most difficult. -John Newton, 21 July 1796, letter to Wliberforce

I am thermosceptic.
You are a climate cynic.
He is a luddite denialist.

Graham J Weeks M.R.Pharm.S
http://christianquoter.blogspot.com/ My blog
http://www.christiansquoting.org.uk 10201 quotes 654 topics 2452 authors
http://christiansquoting-dailyquotes.blogspot.com/ Daily quotes
http://iuhuru.com/category/columnists/graham-weeks/ - my weekly column
http://grahamslaughs.blogspot.com/ - humour only
http://www.ipc-ealing.co.uk/ Our church
-----------------------------
Question reality. Question authority.
-----------------------------

Friday 29 July 2011

I always said I never wanted to write about love,
but then I went and did that anyway.
Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

He had to go and join *that* stupid club! - Courtney Love, on Kurt Cobain dying at age 27, same as Amy Winehouse

In expository preaching the biblical text is neither a conventional introduction to a sermon on a largely different theme, nor a convenient peg on which to hang a ragbag of miscellaneous thoughts, but a master which dictates and controls what is said.” ~ John Stott

The Bible is clear here: I am to love my neighbor as myself, in the
manner needed, in a practical way, in the midst of the fallen world, at
my particular point of history. This is why I am not a pacifist.
Pacifism in this poor world in which we live -- this lost world --
means that we desert the people who need our greatest help.- Francis Schaeffer, 1984

I must hate Islam and love Muslims, hate unbelief and love agnostics, hate homosexuality and love gays. - ipse dixit

Thursday 28 July 2011

Break the Conventions . . . Keep the Commandments. - G.K. Chesterton.

I always thought of myself as a pretty good wit,but my wife says I'm only half-right.- William D. Blake

Good conduct arises out of good doctrine. ~ John Stott

The chief occupational hazard of leadership is pride. ~ John Stott

Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value-systems.~ John Stott

Wednesday 27 July 2011

"Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day, Christ will chastise me, saying, ‘Leonard, you took Me too seriously’?" -Leonard Ravenhill

"If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -Leonard Ravenhill

"And the most encouraging work within the American Church at this moment in history is the great revival of biblical fatherhood, virtuous womanhood, blessed family life, and patriarchal multi-generational vision, most beautifully found within the home school movement of America." Doug Phillips

"At the heart of the notion of chivalry is the biblical doctrine of male sacrifice. This doctrine was embodied in the life of Jesus Christ who gave His life for His "Bride," the Church." ~Doug Phillips

"Whatever person is loved ultimately for themselves, and not for a higher end, even for God, His service, His honor, His relation to them, or His excellency appearing in them, is sinfully loved. For a person is made our god when they are loved ultimately for themselves." ~Richard Baxter

"Feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands." -- G.K. Chesterton

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy. ~John Calvin

To control the future requires the control of education and of the child. Hence, for Christians to tolerate statist education, or to allow their children to be trained thereby, means to renounce power in society, to renounce their children, and to deny Christ's Lordship over all of life. ~ R.J. Rushdoony

The Great Commission is not an option to be considered, but a command to be obeyed. -Hudson Taylor, Missionary to China.

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. -John Wesley
Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.
Phillips Brooks

Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours.
Phillips Brooks

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
Phillips Brooks

Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.
Phillips Brooks

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.
Phillips Brooks - "Going up to Jerusalem", Sermons (1886)

Sunday 24 July 2011

"There was a poignant moment in the proceedings when the senior Mr. Murduck described the emotional toll the News Corp. scandal had taken on him: “People have been saying such terrible things about me, I’ve stopped listening in on their conversations.”'- The Borowitz Report


We are disciples--Jesus is our Master. The world we live in is His school--and every person and event is under His management, designed to forward us in the great lessons which He would have us to learn--such as . . .
self-denial,
a distrust of creatures, and
an absolute dependence upon Himself.

In this view,
afflictions--are mercies,
losses--are gains,
hindrances--are helps,
and all things, even those which seem most contrary--are working together for our good.

Creatures smile--or frown, caress--or disappoint us,
friends grow cool, and enemies become kind--
just as His wisdom sees most expedient to promote our spiritual progress.

Where we look for most blessing--it often comes to little;
where we look for nothing--we often obtain most benefit.

Our wisest plans and best endeavors at one time produce great troubles!
At another time, what we do at random, and what we account the most trifling incidents--are productive of happy, lasting, and extensive consequences.

It is well for us if, by a long train of such changing, checkered experiences--we at length attain to some proficiency, and can say with David, "My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from Him."

The heart possession of two maxims of Matthew Henry, is well worth all that the acquisition can cost us:
1. Every creature is to us--only what God makes it.
2. We cannot expect too little from man--nor too much from God.

In this school I am placed--and these lessons I am aiming to learn. But I am a poor scholar and indeed any master but He who condescends to be my teacher--would turn me out as an incorrigible dunce!

Yet I sincerely wish to be willing to be what, and where, and how the Lord would have me be--to cast all my cares simply upon Him, and to be always satisfied in my mind that He assuredly cares for me! - Letters of John Newton
God's grace actually saves. It doesn't try to save and fail.- James White

Ee, but she were a grand worker - A Yorkshire farmer at his wife's funeral according to one of the James Herriot books. ( Herriot was a customer of mine 63-64 and I went to scjhol with his children 56-630 http://www.christiansquoting.org.uk/my_claim_to_fame.htm

Friday 22 July 2011

It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. ▬ John FlavelIt is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. ▬ John Flavel

Courage is not limited to the battlefield. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like enduring pain when the room is empty or standing alone when you're misunderstood.- Charles Swindoll

Thursday 21 July 2011

I am pleasantly plump. She is Ruebenesque. He is fat.

Question authority before authority questions you.

Break traditions - Keep the Commandments.

The Apostate Bishop: “For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? ‘Prove all things’ . . . to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”
Dick (the redeemed soul): “If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.” - CSL - The Great Divorce

Wednesday 20 July 2011

'I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifele-ss and it isn't much of value. Life hasn't revealed it's beauty to them'' Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

A wife asked her husband: What do you like most in me, my pretty face or my sexy body?.. He looked at her from head to toe and replied: your sense of humour.

A kid gave his teacher a blank piece of paper. Teacher: What is this? Kid: It's a drawing of a cow eating grass. Teacher: (looked at the paper) Where's the grass? Kid: The cow ate all of it. ...Teacher: (looked at the paper again)Then, where's the cow?

Dear "Popular kids" you may drink, smoke weed, take drugs, slack off in school, and think your "hard". but in 5 years time, while i have a job and you dont, i'm going to laugh right in your face

'Hahahahaha, You Failed!" "
'Yeah, so did your dads condom."

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Our philosophy dares to accept the “stumbling block of the cross of Christ” even as the cornerstone of its epistemology.-Herman Dooyeweerd

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. - Jonathan Edwards

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. - Winston Churchill

Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. - Bob Marley

Do you remember when...your close friends became strangers, lollipops turned into cigarettes, the innocent ones became sluts, soda turned into vodka, kisses turned into sex. Remember when getting high was swinging on the playground? when protection meant....?- Unk
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: Jesus Christ and the American soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.It is the soldier, not the reporter who gives us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet who gives us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer who gives us freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin in draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. ~ Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.-Andrew Jackson, in 1832, to a delegation of bankers with the National Bank:

Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest,
Far did I rove, and found no certain home;
At last I sought them in His sheltering breast,
Who opes His arms and bids the weary come:
With Him I found a home, a rest divine,
And I since then am His, and He is mine.

The good I have is from His stores supplied:
The ill is only what He deems the best.
He for my friend, I’m rich with naught beside;
And poor without Him, though of all possessed.
Changes may come—I take, or I resign
Content, while I am His, and He is mine.

Monday 18 July 2011

The question is not how far...the question is do you possess the constitution--the depth of faith--to go as far as is needed.- Unk

I must point out that my rule of life prescribes as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.-Winston Churchill

Sic vis pacem, parabellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.

All men die...not every man truly lives

Saturday 16 July 2011

A full belief in the statement of our text is A CURE FOR PRESENT WORRY. O Lord, if my times are in thy hand, I have cast my care on thee, and I trust and am not afraid! Why is it, my sister—for this habit of worrying abounds among the gracious sisterhood—why do you vex yourself about a matter which is in the hand of God? If he has undertaken for you, what cause have you for anxiety? And you, my brother—for there are plenty of men who are nervous and fretful—why do you want to interfere with the Lord’s business? If the case is in his hand, what need can there be for you to be prying and crying? You were worrying this morning, and fretting last night, and you are distressed now, and will be worse to-morrow morning. May I ask you a question? Did you ever get any good by fretting? When there was not rain enough for your farm, did you ever fret a shower down? When there was too much wet, or you thought so, did you ever worry the clouds away? Tell me, did you ever make a sixpence by worrying? It is a very unprofitable business. Do you answer, “What, then, are we to do in troublous times”? Why, go to him into whose hand you have committed yourself and your times. Consult with infinite wisdom by prayer; console yourself with infinite love by fellowship with God. Tell the Lord what you feel, and what you fear. Ten minutes’ praying is better than a year’s murmuring. He that waits upon God, and casts his burden upon him, may lead a royal life: indeed, he will be far happier than a king…..If we believe that all our times are in God’s hand, we shall be expecting great things from our heavenly Father. When we get into a difficulty we shall say, “I am now going to see the wonders of God, and to learn again how surely he delivers them that trust in him.”
A firm conviction of this truth is A QUIETUS AS TO FUTURE DREAD. “My times are in thy hand.” Do you wish to know what is going to happen to you in a short time? Would you look between the folded leaves of the future?…..Many people would pay largely to have the future made known to them. If they were wise, they would rather desire to have it concealed. Do not want to know; such knowledge would answer no useful purpose. The future is intended to be a sealed book. The present is all we need to have before us. Do thy day’s work in its day, and leave to-morrow with thy God. If there were ways of reading the future, it would be wise to decline to use them. The knowledge would create responsibility, arouse fear, and diminish present enjoyment; why seek after it? Famish idle curiosity, and give your strength to believing obedience. Of this you may be quite sure, that there is nothing in the book of the future which should cause distrust to a believer. Your times are in God’s hand; and this secures them…..Do not tremble about what may never happen. — Charles Spurgeon, Cures for Worry and Anxiety – sermon delivered on Lord’s Day Morning 17 May 1891 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.Preached from the text of Psalm 31:15, “My times are in thy hand.”

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: Jesus Christ and the American soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.It is the soldier, not the reporter who gives us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet who gives us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer who gives us freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin in draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. ~ Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC

Friday 15 July 2011

"Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price". ;- Benjamin Franklin

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.'
-Mark Twain"

“Political Correctness is about turning a blind eye to painful reality because your comfortable feelings are more important to you than saving lives and providing quality of life to people who work their ass off to be productive and are a benefit to this great American Dream.” -Ted Nugent

Any time you find yourself on the same sidelines as socialists, commies, Michael Moore and various other subhuman debris, you should think about what our founding fathers would think of you.-Ted Nugent.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.-Thomas Jefferson

"When a Goverment fears the people, They get Liberty", But when the people fear the Goverment, They get Tyranny". - Thomas Jefferson.

'What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms!'- Thomas Jefferson 1787

When the S**t rolls down Hill, I always seem to be in the Valley".- From the Movie "Choirboys".
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.

Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse.

I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.

All from John Osborne, 1929 - 1994

I regret that I did not walk out of Inadmissible Evidence in 1966.

Thursday 14 July 2011

"Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone." Psalm 71:9
I am drawing nearer and nearer to the season which the Psalmist either expected or felt. Many reasons teach the aged believer the need of this prayer. As his graces are still imperfect, so his powers are feelingly upon the decline. It was but little he could do at his best--and now less and less.
He feels other props and comforts dropping off apace. When he was young he had warm spirits and pleasing prospects; but now what a change of the friends in which he once delighted! In some he has found inconstancy--they have forsaken and forgotten him; and others have been successively taken away by death. They have fallen like the leaves in autumn--and now he stands almost a naked trunk. If any yet remain, he is expecting to lose them likewise--unless he is first taken from them.
Old age abates, and gradually destroys, the relish of such earthly comforts as might be otherwise enjoyed. Pains, infirmities, loss of sleep, the failure of sight and hearing, and all the senses--are harbingers, like Job's messengers, arriving in close succession to tell him that death is upon his progress, and not far distant!
If youth has no security against death--then old age has no possibility of escaping the grim monster. But though friends fail, cisterns burst, gourds wither, strength declines, and death advances--if God does not forsake me--then all is well.
"Even to your old age and gray hairs--I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you!" Isaiah 46:4 - Letters of John Newton

Are we to think that God has failed? But the failure of a
Christianity that expresses what we have made of revelation
does not change at all what God has accomplished. He became
incarnate. Jesus Christ, the Son, died (and our sins were
pardoned). He is risen (and death, chaos, and the devil are
defeated). No matter what may be the mischances of history or
the errors and aberrations of the human race, these things
endure. What is done is done. Irrespective of what we make of
Christianity, God's work and accomplishment are complete, and
they are inscribed in human history.- Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), The Subversion of Christianity, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986, p. 12

Tuesday 12 July 2011

The devil is easy to identify. He appears when you're terribly tired and makes a very reasonable request which you know you shouldn't grant.

I am certain that the good Lord never intended grapes to be made into grape jelly.

It makes no difference if I burn my bridges behind me — I never retreat.

Politics is very much like taxes - everybody is against them, or everybody is for them as long as they don't apply to him.

There is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets.

When I make a mistake, it's a beaut!
All from Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882 - 1947

Monday 11 July 2011

What Must I Do to Be Saved? It is impossible to ask a more weighty question! It is deplorable that we hear it asked with no more frequency, with no more agony. ~ Cotton Mather

An in honour of the day i.e. Orangeman's

Oh the bricks they will bleed and the rain it will weep
And the damp Lagan fog lull the city to sleep
It's to hell with the future and live on the past
May the Lord in his Mercy be Kind to Belfast.
Maurice Craig

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and asked if the god I did not believe in was the protestant God or the catholic one. - Quentin Crisp

I have never met anyone in Ireland who understood the Irish Question, except one Englishman who had only been there a week. Keith Fraser MP, House of Commons, May 1920.

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. -- Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

To the north of the island of Inkiltere is the island of Irlanda. Its length is some twelve days' journey, and its breadth at the center about four days, and it is famous for its multiplicity of dissension. Its people were heathens and then adopted Christianity in imitation of their neighbours. - Ibn Sa'id - 13th century

There is a story that when incoming jets throttle back for the approach to Belfast's Aldergrove Airport, the pilots tell their passengers to put their watches back to local time--1690. -- Quoted by Russell Miller, 1980

Sunday 10 July 2011

My life's but a weaving between my Lord & me,
I cannot choose the colours...
Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride forget
He sees the upper but I the under side.
Not till the loom is silent & the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas & explain the reason why
The dark threads are as needed in the Weaver's skillful hand
As threads of gold & silver in the pattern life has planned. -B M Franklin

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian
does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has
a right to judge that he is not a Christian. Here Jesus is
stating something else which is much more cutting, much more
profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father
sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that
Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the
oneness of true Christians.-Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), The Mark of the Christian, Inter-Varsity Press, 1976, p. 15
One of the greatest paradoxes in Christian history is that the church is most pure in times of cultural hostility. When things are easy and good, that is when the church most often goes astray. When Christianity seems identical with the culture and even when the church seems to be enjoying its greatest earthly success, then it is weakest. Conversely, when the church encounters hardship, persecution, and suffering…then it is closest to its crucified Lord, then there are fewer hypocrites and nominal believers among its members, and then the faith of Christians burns most intensely.-Gene Edward Veith, Tabletalk, v. 28, n. 8, p. 18, Ligonier Ministries

Faith endures "as seeing Him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11:27) Faith endures the disappointments, the hardships, and the heart-aches of life--by recognizing that all comes from the hand of Him who is too wise to err--and too loving to be unkind. So long as we are occupied with any other object than God Himself, there will be neither rest for the heart, nor peace for the mind. But when we receive all that enters our lives as from His hand--then, no matter what may be our circumstances or surroundings--whether in a hovel, a prison-dungeon, or a martyr's stake--we shall be enabled to say, "The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places!" (Psalm 16:6). But that is the language of faith--not of sight or of sense. - Arthur Pink, The Sovereignty of God

Saturday 9 July 2011

Wise and godly silence is as excellent a virtue as holy speech, for he knoweth not how to speak which knoweth not how to hold his tongue. ~William Perkins, Of the Government of the Tongue

Forgiven souls are FORGIVING. They do as they have been done by. They look over the offenses of their brethren. They endeavor to "walk in love, as Christ loved them, and gave Himself for them." (Eph. 5:2.) They remember how God for Christ's sake forgave them, and endeavor to do the same towards their fellow-creatures. Has He forgiven them pounds, and shall they not forgive a few pence? Doubtless in this, as in everything else, they come short—but this is their desire and their aim. A spiteful, quarrelsome Christian is a scandal to his profession. Forgiveness is the way by which every saved soul enters heaven. Forgiveness is the eternal subject of song with all the redeemed who inhabit heaven. Surely an unforgiving soul in heaven would find his heart completely out of tune. Surely we know nothing of Christ's love to us but the name of it, if we do not love our brethren.
~ J.C. Ryle, Old Paths, “Forgiveness”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 202, 203.

Friday 8 July 2011

We can never be too frequent or too solemn in the general surrender of our souls to God and binding our souls by a vow to be the Lord’s forever: to love Him above all things, to fear Him, to hope in Him, to walk in His ways in a course of holy obedience, and to wait for His mercy and eternal life.-Isaac Watts, A Guide to Prayer.

We must be willing to accept the bitter truth that, in the
end, we may have to become a burden to those who love us. But
it is necessary that we face this also. The full acceptance of
our abjection and uselessness is the virtue that can make us
and others rich in the grace of God. It takes heroic charity
and humility to let others sustain us when we are absolutely
incapable of sustaining ourselves.
We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere--both
in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of
our affliction.-Thomas Merton (1915-1968), No Man is an Island, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955; reprint, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 93-94