 |
Prayer and Worship Resources |
|
inspired by the Celtic Christian Church |
|
Connexions
|
Quotes for meditation"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of
us is here for a brief sojourn;for what purpose we know not, though
sometimes sense it. But we know from daily life that we exist for
other people first of all for whose smiles and well-being our own
happiness depends."
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe
, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our
thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind
of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of
prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection
for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves
from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty... We
shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind
is to survive."
"If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its
power and joy and courage, men must recapture the basic conviction
that this is a Visited planet. It is not enough to express formal
belief in the "Incarnation" or in the "Divinity of
Christ"; the staggering truth must be accepted afresh -- that
in this vast, mysterious universe, of which we are an almost infinitesimal
part, the great Mystery, Whom we call God, has visited our planet
in Person. It is from this conviction that there springs unconquerable
certainty and unquenchable faith and hope. It is not enough to believe
theoretically that was both God and Man; not enough to admire, respect,
and even worship Him; it is not even enough to try to follow Him.
The reason for the insufficiency of these things is that the modern
intelligent mind, which has had its horizons widened in dozens of
different ways, has got to be shocked afresh by the audacious central
Fact -- that, as a sober matter of history, God became one of us."
"The Christian does not think God will love us because we
are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just
as the roof of a sunhouse does not attract the sun because it is
bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."
"Like water, be gentle and strong. Be gentle enough to follow
the natural paths of the earth, and strong enough to rise up and
reshape the world. "
"When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God
is going to invade, all right...something so beautiful to some of
us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice
left? For this time it will be God without disguise...it will be
too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose
to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up."
"Sometimes the Lord rides out the storm with us and other
times He calms the restless sea around us. Most of all, He calms
the storm inside us in our deepest inner soul."
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's
peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds
will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment
is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous
and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable;
the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support
life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In
this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are
the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing
the very nature of the world--the very nature of its life."
"The more we are separated from nature, the unhappier we get.
"
" I will thank (God) for the pleasures given me through my
senses, for the glory of the thunder, for the mystery of music,
the singing of the birds and the laughter of children… Truly,
O Lord, the earth is full of thy riches! "
"Yet of his being who shall be able to speak? Of how he is
everywhere present and invisible, or of how he fills heaven and
earth and every creature, according to that saying, Do I not fill
heaven and earth? Saith the Lord, and elsewhere, The Spirit of God,
according to the prophet, has filled the round earth, and again
heaven is my throne, but earth is the footstool of my feet?"
"If God could be found on this side of the sea we would indeed
journey across. Since, however, God is near to all who call upon
him, we are under no obligation to cross the sea. The kingdom of
heaven can be reached from every land."
" If I could live in a tiny dwelling on a rock in the ocean,
surrounded by the waves of the sea and cut off from the sight and
sound of everything else, I would still not be free of the cares
of this passing world, or from the fear that somehow the love of
money might still come and snatch me away. "
" The entire way of life of stillness is interwoven with the
following three virtues: with faith that comes from listening, and
with hope and with love, out of which real faith is made known.
"
"Just as the sun, God's creature, is one and the same the
whole world over, so also the church's preaching shines everywhere,
giving light to all who want to come to a knowledge of truth."
"All our life is a celebration for us; we are convinced,
in fact, that God is always everywhere. We sing while we work, we
sing hymns while we sail, we pray while we carry out all life's
other occupations. "
"Christ has turned all our sunsets into dawns"
" God is invisible, though he is seen; incomprehensible,
though manifested by grace; inconceivable, though conceived by human
senses. "
"Wherever you are on earth, so long as you remain on earth,
'the Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything'.
" God has made for us two kinds of eyes: those of flesh and
those of faith. When you come to the sacred initiation, the eyes
of the flesh see water; the eyes of faith behold the Spirit. Those
eyes see the body being baptized; these eyes see the old existence
being buried. "
"You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of
prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey,
standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft."
"God can be sensed when we gaze with trembling hearts at that
power of his which controls, guides, and rules everything, when
we contemplate his immense knowledge and his knowing look which
the secrets of the heart cannot evade."
"We marvel at the Creator, not only as the one who made heaven
and earth, sun and ocean, elephants, camels, horses, oxen, leopards,
bears and lions, but also as the one who made the small creatures:
ants, gnats, flies, worms and the like - things whose shape we know
better than their names. And as in all creation we revere his skill,
so the one whose mind is given to Christ is earnest in small things
as in great, knowing that an account must be given even for an idle
word."
"Every creature is a divine word because it proclaims God"
"Pleased be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially
Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendours and bears
likeness of you, Most High One."
"It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless we preach
as we walk"
"I was like a stone lying deep in mud, but he that is mighty
lifted me up and placed me on top of the wall."
|
