Basil the Great: God Sees Into the Hearts of Those who Pray Friday, May 24 2013

God sees into the hearts of those who pray.

What need then, someone will say, that we should ask God for what we need?  Does He not know already what we need?  Why then should we pray?

God does indeed know what things we need, and with generosity provides all we need for the refreshment of our bodies, and since He is good He sends down His rains upon the just and the unjust alike, and causes His sun to shine upon the good and the bad (Mt. 5:45), even before we ask Him.

But faith, and the power of virtue, and the kingdom of heaven, these you will not receive unless you ask for them in labouring and steadfastness.  We must first long for these things.

Then when you desire them, you must strive with all your heart to obtain them, seeking them with a sincere heart, with patience, and with faith, not being condemned by your conscience, as praying without attention or without reverence, and so in time, when God wills, you will obtain your request.

For He knows better than you when these things are expedient for you.  And perhaps He is delaying in giving them to you, designing to keep your attention fixed upon Him; and also that you may know that this is a gift of God, and may safeguard with fear what is given to you.

[...] Do not then lose heart if you do not speedily obtain your request.  For if it were known to Our Good Master that were you at once to receive this favour that you would not lose it, He would have been prepared to give it to you unasked.  But being concerned for you, He does not do this.

[...] Keeping this in mind, let us continue to give thanks to the Lord whether we receive speedily or slowly that which we pray for.  For all things whatsoever the Lord may do He orders all to the end of our salvation; only let us not through faintheartedness cease from our prayers.

It was because of this the Lord spoke the parable of the Widow who persuaded the judge through her steadfastness (Luke 18:2-5): that we also through our steadfastness in prayer may obtain what we ask for.

By this we also show our faith, and our love of God, since though we do not quickly receive what we ask for, yet we remain steadfast in praising Him and giving thanks.  Then let us give Him thanks at all times, so that we may be found worthy of receiving His everlasting gifts; since to Him all praise and glory is due for ever and ever.  Amen.

Basil the Great (330-379): Monastic Constitutions, ch. 1, 6-7 @ Lectionary Central.

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Benedict XVI: Letting God Act On Us – That Is Christian Sacrifice Thursday, Feb 28 2013

To many, many Christians…it looks as if the Cross is to be understood as part of a mechanism of injured and restored right.

It is the form, so it seems, in which the infinitely offended righteousness of God was propitiated again by means of an infinite expiation.

[...] Many devotional texts actually force one to think that Christian faith in the Cross visualises a God whose unrelenting righteousness demanded a human sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own Son, and one turns away in horror from a righteousness whose sinister wrath makes the message of love incredible.

[...] The expiatory activity by which men hope to conciliate the divinity and put him in a gracious mood stands at the heart of the history of religion.

In the New Testament the situation is almost completely reversed. It is not man who goes to God with a compensatory gift, but God who comes to man in order to give to him.

He restores disturbed right on the initiative of his own power to love, by making unjust man just again, the dead living again, through his own creative mercy.

His righteousness is grace; it is active righteousness, which sets crooked man straight, that is, bends him straight, makes him right.

[...] The New Testament does not say that men conciliate God, as we really ought to expect, since after all it is they who have failed, not God. It says on the contrary that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

[...]  God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled; he goes to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the incarnation, of the Cross.

Accordingly, in the New Testament the Cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below.

It does not stand there as the work of expiation which mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of that foolish love of God’s which gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man; it is his approach to us, not the other way about.

With this twist in the idea of expiation, and thus in the whole axis of religion, worship too, man’s whole existence, acquires in Christianity a new direction.

Worship follows in Christianity first of all in thankful acceptance of the divine deed of salvation. The essential form of Christian worship is therefore rightly called “Eucharistia”, thanksgiving.

Christian sacrifice does not consist in a giving of what God would not have without us but in our becoming totally receptive and letting ourselves be completely taken over by him.

Letting God act on us – that is Christian sacrifice.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, pp. 281-283; a longer extract from this passage can be read at the excellent Eclectic Orthodoxy.

With thanks to The Ironic Catholic for the suggestion that bloggers should pay tribute to Benedict the XVI on this particular day by posting a favourite quotation or extract from his writings.

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Clement of Alexandria: Christ Deifies Man by Heavenly Teaching, Writing His Laws on Our Hearts Friday, Feb 1 2013

Hail, O light!

For in us, buried in darkness, shut up in the shadow of death, light has shone forth from heaven, purer than the sun, sweeter than life here below.

That light is eternal life; and whatever partakes of it lives.

[...] For “the Sun of Righteousness”… has changed sunset into sunrise, and through the Cross brought death to life.

And having wrenched man from destruction, He has raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating earth to heaven….

He has bestowed on us the truly great, divine, and inalienable inheritance of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, putting His laws into our minds, and writing them on our hearts.

What laws does He inscribe? “That all shall know God, from small to great;” and, “I will be merciful to them,” says God, “and will not remember their sins.”

Let us receive the laws of life, let us comply with God’s expostulations; let us become acquainted with Him, that He may be gracious.

And though God needs nothing let us render to Him the grateful recompense of a thankful heart and of piety, as a kind of house-rent for our dwelling here below.

[...] Will you not allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour, to be bound on to you as an amulet, and, by trusting in God’s own charm, be delivered from passions which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued from sin?—for sin is eternal death.

[...] But it is truth which cries, “The light shall shine forth from the darkness.” Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man, that is, the heart.

And let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal and irradiate the hidden inner man, the disciple of the Light, the familiar friend and fellow-heir of Christ.

[...] I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one word, He freely bestows life on you. And who is He? …

The Word of truth, the Word of incorruption, that regenerates man by bringing him back to the truth—the goad that urges to salvation—He who expels destruction and pursues death—He who builds up the temple of God in men, that He may cause God to take up His abode in men.

Cleanse the temple; and pleasures and amusements abandon to the winds and the fire, as a fading flower; but wisely cultivate the fruits of self-command, and present yourself to God as an offering of first-fruits, that there may be not the work alone, but also the grace of God.

And both are requisite, that the friend of Christ may be rendered worthy of the kingdom, and be counted worthy of the kingdom.

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215): Exhortation to the Heathen, 11. 

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Bede the Venerable: God was Born as a Man to Restore Us to the Image and Likeness of His Divinity Friday, Dec 28 2012

(On Luke 2:15-20)

And they came hurrying and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in a manger….  Once they saw they acknowledged the word that had been said to them about this child.

And let us in the meantime…hurry to perceive with pious faith and to embrace with full love those things which have been said to us about our Savior, who is true God and true human being, so that we may be capable of comprehending these things in the future vision which is perfect recognition.

For indeed this is the only true life of the blessed, not only of human beings, but of angels as well, to continually behold the face of their Creator.

[...] And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen, just as it was said to them.

Let us also learn…how to be turned from contemplation of the Lord’s divinely-arranged plan, by which he deigned to come benevolently to our aid, to giving thanks always for his kindnesses.

For if they, who as yet knew only about his nativity, went back glorifying and praising God in everything which they had seen and heard, we who know about the whole progress of his incarnation in succession, and who are imbued with his sacraments, are all the more obliged to proclaim his glory and praise in everything, not only in words but also in deeds, and never to forget that the reason why God was born as a human being was so that he might restore us through our being born anew to the image and likeness of his divinity.

The reason he was baptized with water was so that he might make the flowing of all waters fruitful for the cleansing of our wicked deeds.

The reason he was tempted in the desert was so that by being victorious over the tempter he might bestow upon us too knowledge and power to make us victorious.

The reason he died was so that he might destroy the sovereignty of death.

The reason he rose and ascended into heaven was so that he might present to us a hope and an example of rising from the dead and reigning perpetually in heaven.

Having “gone back” to gaze upon the most benevolent divinely-arranged plan, let us for the sake of each of these actions glorify and praise God himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit for all ages.

The Venerable Bede (672/4-735):Homilies on the Gospels, 1:7 (Christmas), “Homilies on the Gospels, Book One, Advent to Lent”, trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst OSB (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991).

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Thomas Aquinas: “Rejoice Always, Pray Constantly, Give Thanks in All Circumstances, for This is the Will of God” Tuesday, Dec 18 2012

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 16:18). 

When Paul says: rejoice always, he shows how they ought to behave towards God; and he mentions three things.

First, to rejoice in Him; and so Paul says, rejoice always, that is, in God; for whatever evil might occur, it is incomparable to the goodness which is God.

Hence, no evil ought to interrupt it, and so Paul insists: rejoice always.

 Secondly, to pray for the blessings they want to receive.

Paul urges, pray constantly. “They ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Lk. 18: 1).

How is this possible? It may happen in three ways.

First, that person who does not neglect the appointed hours for prayer, prays always. “You shall eat at my table always” (2 Sam. 9:7).

Secondly, “Pray constantly” means to pray continuously. But then prayer is considered under the aspect of the effect of the prayer. For prayer is the unfolding or expression of desire; for when I desire something, then I ask for it by praying.

So prayer is the petition of suitable things from God; and so desire has the power of prayer. “O Lord, thou wilt hear the desire of the meek” (Ps. 10: 17).

Therefore, whatever we do is the result of a desire; so prayer always remains in force in the good things we do; for the good things we do flow forth from the desire of the good.

There is a commentary on this verse pointing out: “He does not cease praying, who does not cease doing good.”

A third way by which it is possible to pray without ceasing is through the giving of alms which may be a sort of cause of continual prayer.

In the lives of the Fathers we read: “He who gives alms is the one who always prays, for the person who receives alms prays for you even when you are asleep.”

The third thing he mentions is to offer thanks for those blessings already received, hence Paul says: in all circumstances, that is, in good times and in bad times, give thanks.

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom. 6:28). “Abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:7). “With thanksgiving” (Phil. 4.6).

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Commentary on 1 Thessalonians, cap. 5, lect. 2.

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Humbert of Romans: A Heart Dedicated Unto God Saturday, Nov 3 2012

Cast from your hearts idle thoughts, unworthy affections, bad intentions, violent actions, useless sadness, self-centered love and individual feelings.

Before the eyes of God be fearful of such thoughts, which you would blush to carry into action before human eyes.

Each of you should strive to have a heart that is like a garden abloom with trees of virtues, like a storeroom filled with the perfumes of holy affections, like a flower giving off a heavenly dew, like a box enclosing within it a marvellous treasure, like a fountain always flowing with streams of devotion, like a mirror depicting the image of God.

O happy heart which shows itself to be a throne on which God may sit, a chamber in which

God may rest, a seal on which the likeness of God is impressed, a cellar filled with God’s own vintage, a book in which God’s memories are written, gold which God moulds to any form.

Each of you should strive again and again to have a heart dedicated to God, discerning in its thoughts, wary in temptation, free of anger, separated from judgments, pining with longing for eternity, wounded with love, shining in intellect, careful in works, raised up by contemplation, concerned about the good, cut to pieces by sorrow for sin, holy in its manner of life, guarded by fear, adorned with grace.

Finally, brothers, let us strive most eagerly to turn away from sin with our whole heart by avoiding faults; let us turn to the Lord with our whole heart by doing penance.

Let us seek the Lord with our whole heart by begging pardon; let us cling to the Lord with our whole heart loving God above all things; let us serve the Lord with our whole heart with our praise; with our whole heart let us follow the path of the Lord by our pursuit.

We really owe all this to the Lord who gives our heart countless gifts.

The Lord illumines our hearts with wisdom, governs them with goodness, feeds them with delights, draws them with beauty, changes them with power, makes them one with love, allures them with promises, teaches them with harsh blows, shakes them with threats, and softens them with blessings.

Our most delightful God looks into our hearts by proving them, speaks by informing them, touches by stirring them, visits in consoling them, gives life by justifying them, and opens them by shedding light on them.

For all these gifts it behoves us to thank God tirelessly.

Humbert of Romans (c.1200-1277): From the letter On Regular Observance, from the Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours for the Order of Preachers, feast of St Martin de Porres.

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Maximus of Turin: Imitate the Tiniest Birds… Friday, Oct 26 2012

A Christian worthy of the name will be intent on praising his Lord and Father throughout the whole day and on doing all things to his greater glory, in accordance with these words of the Apostle:

Whether you eat or drink, in fact whatever you do, let all of it be offered for God’s glory.

[...] Above all, says the Apostle, let all be done for the sake of God’s glory.

Christ wants our every act to be carried out in his own presence as companion and witness, and for this reason:

that his personal inspiration may influence us for good, while his constant partnership may cause us to refrain from evil.

Let us, then, give thanks to Christ on rising, and throughout the day let us begin our every deed with the Saviour’s sign.

[...] For you must realize that Christ’s one sign alone will guarantee the total success of every enterprise.

And whoever makes that sign at the sowing of his seed will reap the harvest of eternal life, whilst he who makes it at the outset of his journey will travel all the way to heaven.

Thus in Christ’s sign and name must all our actions be performed, and to it all life’s ups and downs must be referred, for has not the Apostle told us, in him we live and move and have our being?

But when evening’s shadows lengthen, we must sing to him in the psalmist’s words and declare his praises in melodious chants.

For, in having overcome our labours and our struggles, we, like conquerors, have deserved our rest and the oblivion of sleep as the reward of our toil.

Who, then, possessing human intelligence, would not be ashamed to end the day with no repetition of the psalms, when even the birds pour out their own sweet psalms in gratitude, and with no exultant hymns sung to the glory of him whom the birds praise in melodious song?

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, imitate the tiniest birds by giving thanks to the Creator in the early morning and at evening.

And if you are specially devout imitate the nightingale, for whom the day alone is not enough to fill with praise, and so it sings the whole night through as well!

You also, then, as you vanquish the day with your songs of praise, must add a nightly round to your office, and with a sequence of psalms console your sleepless diligence in the work which you have undertaken!

Maximus of Turin (d. between 408 and 423): Sermon 73.3-5 (CCL 23:305-307); ); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Saturday of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Year 2

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Peter of Damascus: “In Everything Give Thanks” and “Pray Without Ceasing” Thursday, Sep 6 2012

We should all give thanks to Him, as it is said: “In everything give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18).

Closely linked to this phrase is another of St Paul’s injunctions: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), that is, be mindful of God at all times, in all places, and in every circumstance.

For no matter what you do, you should keep in mind the Creator of all things.

When you see the light, do not forget Him who gave it to you; when you see the sky, the earth, the sea and all that is in them, marvel at these things and glorify their Creator; when you put on clothing, acknowledge whose gift it is and praise Him who in His providence has given you life.

In short, if everything you do becomes for you an occasion for glorifying God, you will be praying unceasingly.

And in this way your soul will always rejoice, as St Paul commends (cf. 1 Thess. 5:15).

For as St Dorotheos explains, remembrance of God rejoices the soul; and he adduces David as witness: “I remembered God, and rejoiced” (cf. Ps. 77:3. LXX).

God has done all things for our benefit.

We are guarded and taught by the angels; we are tempted by the demons so that we may be humbled and have recourse to God, thus being saved from self-elation and delivered from negligence.

On the one hand, we are led to give thanks to our Benefactor through the good things of this world.

[...] We are led to love Him and to do what good we can, because we feel we have a natural obligation to repay God for His gifts to us by performing good works.

It is of course impossible to repay Him, for our debt always grows larger.

On the other hand, through what are regarded as hardships we attain a state of patience, humility and hope of blessings in the age to be.

[...]  Indeed, not only in the age to be, but even in this present age these things are a source of great blessing to us.

Thus God in His unutterable goodness has arranged all things in a marvellous way for us.

And if you want to understand this and to be as you should, you must struggle to acquire the virtues so as to be able to accept with gratitude everything that comes, whether it is good or whether it appears to be bad, and to remain undisturbed in all things.

Peter of Damascus (?12^th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 173-174.

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John Chrysostom: In All That Happens Let Us Rejoice and Give Thanks to the Benevolent God Saturday, Jul 21 2012

Consider the story of Job, and how, after the loss of his wealth and the destruction of his herds, not one, two or even three of his children were taken from him, but all of them together in the very flower of their youth.

When you hear of his great spiritual courage, even if you are the weakest of men, it is not so difficult to recover yourself and return to life.

For you, my friend, at least watched over your sick child as he lay on his bed, you heard his last words and attended him as his life came to an end, you shut his eyes and closed his mouth.

But Job was not present at his children’s death, nor saw them dying in the house where all were buried as in a single tomb.

Yet after such overwhelming disasters he neither grieved nor despaired, but said: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; it has been done as the Lord willed. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever.

Let us too utter these words in every misfortune that life brings us, be it loss of wealth, bodily sickness, abuse, slander, or any other human ill.

Let us say: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; it has been done as the Lord willed. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever.

If we make this our philosophy, no misfortune will ever cause us suffering, however many we endure.

The gain will always be greater than the loss, and the good will outweigh the bad, since with these words you attract the favour of God and shake off the tyranny of the devil.

For as soon as you utter them, the devil at once takes to flight, and when he has gone the cloud of dejection lifts too and oppressive thoughts disappear in the company of their master; and besides all this you will have as your reward all the blessings both of earth and of heaven.

You have a steadfast example in Job and also in the Apostles, who scorned the terrors of this world for God’s sake, and so gained the blessings of eternity.

Let us then follow them, and in all that happens to us rejoice and give thanks to the benevolent God.

So shall we pass this present life in contentment and gain the blessings to come, by the grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

John Chrysostom (c.347-407): Homily on the paralytic who was Let Down through the Roof (PG 51:62-63); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year 2.

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Clement of Alexandria: Uninterrupted Converse with God by Knowledge, Life, and Thanksgiving Thursday, Jul 5 2012

Now we are commanded to reverence and to honour the same one, being persuaded that He is Word, Saviour, and Leader.

And, by Him, the we reverence the Father – not on special days, as some others, but doing this continually in our whole life, and in every way.

Certainly the elect race justified by the precept says, “Seven times a day have I praised Thee.”

Whence not in a specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals and on appointed days, but during his whole life, the True Christian in every place, even if he be alone by himself, and wherever he has any of those who have exercised the like faith, honours God.

That is, he acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge of the way to live.

The presence of a good man, through the respect and reverence which he inspires, always improves him with whom he associates.

With much more reason does, therefore, does he who always holds uninterrupted converse with God by knowledge, life, and thanksgiving, grow at every step superior to himself in all respects—in conduct, in words, in disposition.

Such a one is persuaded that God is ever beside him, and does not suppose that He is confined in certain limited places; so that under the idea that at times he is without Him, he may indulge in excesses night and day.

Holding festival, then, in our whole life, persuaded that God is altogether on every side present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to rule.

The True Christian, then, is very closely allied to God, being at once grave and cheerful in all things—grave on account of the bent of his soul towards the Divinity, and cheerful on account of his consideration of the blessings of humanity which God hath given us.

[...] God knows and perceives all things—not the words only, but also the thought.

[...] Do not also volitions speak to God, uttering their voice? And are they not conveyed by conscience?

And what voice shall He wait for, who, according to His purpose, knows the elect already, even before his birth, knows what is to be as already existent?

Does not the light of power shine down to the very bottom of the whole soul; “the lamp of knowledge,” as the Scripture says, searching “the recesses”?

God is all ear and all eye, if we may be permitted to use these expressions.

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215): Stromateis 7,7.

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