Juniper (died 1258

 Francis of Assisi referred to Juniper as "the renowned jester of the Lord'

more on Juniper in living water: his thumb nail bio and additional stories

Cowpers Names of God

Jehovah-Rophi. I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee

(Exodus, xv.26)

Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are,

Waiting to feel Thy touch:

Deep-wounded souls to Thee repair

And, Saviour, we are such.

Our faith is feeble, we confess,

We faintly trust Thy word;

But wilt Thou pity us the less?

Be that far from Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied,

With trembling, for relief;

"Lord, I believe," with tears he cried,

"Oh, help my unbelief!"

She too, who touch'd Thee in the press,

And healing virtue stole,

Was answer'd, "Daughter, go in peace,

Thy faith hath made thee whole."

Conceal'd amid the gathering throng,

She would have shunn'd Thy view;

And if her faith was firm and strong,

Had strong misgivings too.

Like her, with hopes and fears we come,

To touch Thee, if we may;

Oh! send us not despairing home,

Send none unheal'd away! 

William Cowper

Casting a caim or encircling prayer

Casting a caim or encircling prayer is a technique that was used by the early Celtic Church. You can Draw an invisible circle around yourself with your right index finger by extending your arm towards the ground and turning clockwise with the sun. As you do this, become aware that you are safe and encompassed by the love of God: that you are encircled, enfolded and protected.

Circle me Lord Keep hope within Keep doubt without

Circle me Lord Keep protection near And danger afar Circle me Lord Keep peace within Keep evil out

Circle me Lord Keep light near And darkness afar

May You be a bright flame before me
May You be a guiding star above me,
May You be a smooth path below me,
And a loving Guide behind me,
Today, tonight, and forever.

*Cross image by Cari Buziak 

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691)

 
The more one knows God, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love.

We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him. And when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.

I see Him in such a manner as might make me say sometimes, I believe no more, but I see.

People seek methods of learning to know God. Is it not much shorter and more direct to simply do everything for the love of Him? There is no finesse about it. One only has to do it generously and simply.

It is the Creator who teaches truth, who in one moment instructs the heart of the humble and makes him understand more about the mysteries of faith and even about Himself than if he had studied them for a long term of years.

God alone is capable of making Himself known as He really is. We search in reasoning and in sciences, as in a poor copy. What we neglect to see is God's painting Himself in the depth of our soul.

I walk before God simply, in faith, with humility and with love; and I apply myself diligently to do nothing and think nothing which may displease Him ... and this without any other view than purely for the love of Him, and because He deserves infinitely more.

In continuing the practice of conversing with God throughout each day, and quickly seeking His forgiveness when I fell or strayed, His presence has become as easy and natural to me now as it once was difficult to attain.

We are made for God alone, who can only be pleased when we turn away from ourselves to devote ourselves to Him.

I know that for the right practice the heart must be empty of all other things; because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone, without emptying it of all else besides, so neither can He act there and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him.

We ought to give ourselves up to God, both in temporal and spiritual things, and seek our satisfaction only in fulfilling His will. Whether He leads us by suffering or consolation, all is the same to one truly resigned.

We only deceive ourselves by seeking or loving God for any favors which He has or may grant us. Such favors, no matter how great, can never bring us as near to God as can one simple act of faith. Let us seek Him often by faith.

 Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God.

The end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.

The most excellent method of going to God is that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing people but purely for the love of God.

We ought not to grow tired of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.


The more one knows God, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love.

We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him. And when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.

I see Him in such a manner as might make me say sometimes, I believe no more, but I see.

God does not ask much of us. But remembering Him, praising Him, asking for His grace, offering Him your troubles, or thanking Him for what He has given you will console you all the time ... lift up your heart ... little remembrances please Him.

We should, once and for all, heartily put our whole trust in God and make a total surrender of ourselves, secure that He will not deceive us.

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.



quotes from the letters of Brother Lawrence  (compiled in the text of "Practicing the presence of God") 17th century

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (634-687)

Cuthbert was born in Northumbria in about the year 635 - the same year in which Aidan founded the monastery on Lindisfarne. He came from a well-to-do English family and like most boys of that class, he was placed with foster-parents for part of his childhood and taught the arts of war. We know nothing of his foster-father but he was very fond of his foster-mother, Kenswith.

It seems, from stories about his childhood, that he was brought up as a Christian. He was credited, for instance, with having saved by his prayers, some monks who were being swept out to sea on a raft. There is some evidence that, in his mid-teens, he was involved in at least one battle, which would have been quite normal for a boy of his social background.

His life changed when he was about 17 years old. He was looking after some neighbour's sheep on the hills. (As he was certainly not a shepherd boy it is possible that he was mounting a military guard - a suitable occupation for a young warrior!) Gazing into the night sky he saw a light descend to Earth and then return, escorting, he believed, a human soul to Heaven. The date was August 31st 651AD - the night that Aidan died. Perhaps Cuthbert had already been considering a possible monastic calling but that was his moment of decision.

He went to the monastery at Melrose, also founded by Aidan, and asked to be admitted as a Novice

For the next 13 years he was with the Melrose monks. When Melrose was given land to found a new monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert went with the founding party and was made guestmaster. In his late 20s he returned to Melrose and found that his former teacher and friend, the prior Boisil, was dying of the plague. Cuthbert became prior (second to the Abbot) at Melrose.

In 664AD the Synod of Whitby decided that Northumbria should cease to look to Ireland for its spiritual leadership and turn instead to the continent the Irish monks of Lindisfarne, with others, went back to Iona. The abbot of Melrose subsequently became also abbot of Lindisfarne and Cuthbert its prior.

Cuthbert seems to have moved to Lindisfarne at about the age of 30 and lived there for the next 10 years. He ran the monastery; he was an active missionary; he was much in demand as a spiritual guide and he developed the gift of spiritual healing. He was an outgoing, cheerful, compassionate person and no doubt became popular. But when he was 40 years old he believed that he was being called to be a hermit and to do the hermit's job of fighting the spiritual forces of evil in a life of solitude.

After a short trial period on the tiny islet adjoining Lindisfarne he moved to the more remote and larger island known as 'Inner Farne' and built a hermitage where he lived for 10 years. Of course, people did not leave him alone - they went out in their little boats to consult him or ask for healing. However, on many days of the year the seas around the islands are simply too rough to make the crossing and Cuthbert was left in peace.

At the age of about 50 he was asked by both Church and King to leave his hermitage and become a bishop. He reluctantly agreed. For two years he was an active, travelling bishop as Aidan had been. He seems to have journeyed extensively. On one occasion he was visiting the Queen in Carlisle (on the other side of the country from Lindisfarne) when he knew by second sight that her husband, the King, had been slain by the Picts doing battle in Scotland.

Feeling the approach of death he retired back to the hermitage on the Inner Farne where, in the company of Lindisfarne monks, he died on March 20th 687AD.

His body was brought back and buried on Lindisfarn

Early Christian Teaching: Free Will (1)

Early Church Fathers on Free Will

   "We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered according to the merit of each man's actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be predestined that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions-whatever they may be.... For neither would a man be worthy of reward or praise if he did not of himself choose the good, but was merely created for that end. Likewise, if a man were evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable to do anything else than what he was made for."
(Justin Martyr (110-165) First Apology chap. 43)

"He makes Himself known to those who, after doing all that their powers will allow, confess that they need help from Him." (Origen (185-255 )Against Celsus bk. 7, chap. 42)

"A man by himself working and toiling at freedom from sinful desires achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself to be very eager and earnest about this, he attains it by the addition of the power of God. God works together with willing souls. But if the person abandons his eagerness, the spirit from God is also restrained. To save the unwilling is the act of one using compulsion; but to save the willing, that of one showing grace." (Clement of Alexandria (190) Salvation of the Rich Man chap. 21)

 "Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and avoidance, if evil is involuntary." (Clement of Alexandria Miscellanies bk. 1, chap. 17)

 "All the creatures that God made, He made very good. And He gave to every individual the sense of free will, by which standard He also instituted the law of judgment.... And certainly whoever will, may keep the commandments. Whoever despises them and turns aside to what is contrary to them, shall yet without doubt have to face this law of judgment.... There can be no doubt that every individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases."(Archelaus (250-300) Disputation With Manes sees. 32, 33)

 "Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils. "(Methodius (260-315) The Banquet of the Ten Virgins discourse 8, chap. 16)

Feast of theTheophany

Orthodox Christian Churches celebrate the Theophany of Christ, on (January 6 (Gregorian Calendar)/January 19 (Julian Calendar) it is one of the Great Feasts of the (Eastern) Orthodox Christian Church.  In Orthodox Tradition, the feast commemorates the biblical event which reveals the Holy Trinity to the world. The Baptism of  Christ by John the Baptist is seen as that moment. Specifically when Christ  emerges from the waters of the river Jordan, The Holy Spirit of God descends upon Him as a dove and the voice of God The Father is heard, simultaneously (Mt.3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22).

Theophany, from the Greek (ἡ) Θεοφάνεια (Τheophaneia, meaning "appearance of God"),refers to the appearance of a deity to a human. 

The term has been used to refer to appearances of the gods in the ancient Greek and Near Eastern religions. The Iliad is the  earliest source for  a description of Throphany in classical Greek literature.  Probably the earliest description of a theophany is in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The term theophany has acquired a specific usage for Christians and Jews: It refers to the manifestation of God to man; the sign or way by which the presence of God is revealed.

In Celtic Christianity  in a general sense all of creation can  be seen as a theophany, a vehicle by which God is revealed.


see more on theophany and epiphany

Desert Wisdom (9)

 

There were two old men who dwelt together for many years and who never quarreled. Then one said to the other: "Let us pick a quarrel with each other like other men do. "I do not know how quarrels arise," answered his companion. So the other said to him: "Look, I will put a brick down here between us and I will say "This is mine." Then you can say "No it is not, it is mine." Then we will be able to have a quarrel." So they placed the brick between them and the first one said: "This is mine." His companion answered him: "This is not so, for it is mine." To this, the first one said: "If it is so and the brick is yours, then take it and go your way." And so they were not able to have a quarrel.

Anthony of Egypt (251–356)

The Death of Anthony of Egypt

When Saint Anthony felt that the day of his departure had approached, he commanded his disciples to give his staff to Marcus, and to give one sheep skin cloak to  Athanasius and the other sheepskin cloak to Serapion, his disciple. He further instructed his disciples to bury his body in an unmarked grave. He died in 356 on Mount Kolzin by the Red Sea, 105 years old..

He probably spoke only his native language, Coptic, but his sayings were spread in a Greek translation. He himself left no writings. His biography was written by  St.Athanasius and titled Life of Saint Anthony the Great. Many stories are also told about him in various collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Though Anthony himself did not organize or create a monastery, a community grew around him based on his example of living an ascetic and isolated life. Athanasius' biography helped propagate Anthony's ideals. Athanasius writes, "For monks, the life of Anthony is a sufficient example of Asceticism.

The Vision of St Ita

The Vision of Ita

(Saint Ita sees Christ come to her in a vision as a baby to be nursed)


It is Jesu
who is nursed by me in my little hermitage:
though it be a cleric with treasures,
all is a lie save Jesu.

The nursing I do in my house
is not the nursing of a base clown:
Jesus with the men of Heaven
under my heart every single night.

Young Jesu, my eternal good!
to heed him is a cause of forgiveness,
the king who controls all things,
not to beseech Him will cause repentance.

It is Jesus, noble, angelic,
not an unlearned cleric,
who is fostered by me in my little hermitage,
Jesus the son of the Hebrew woman.

Sons of princes, sons of kings,
though they should come into my country,
I should not expect profit from them;
more likely, I think, from Jesu.

Sing ye a chorus, O maidens,
to Him who has a right to your little tribute,
who sits in his place above,
though Jesu is at my breast.

A lullaby attributed to St Ita later put to music as one of  Samuel Barbers Hermit  Songs

SOURCE:
The Martyrology of Oengus. translated by Whitley Stokes. London, 1905.