St. Jerome says...

For to be a

Christian

and not merely seem

like one is the

greatest thing.

+++

Quote from Day by Day with the Early Church Fathers,Hendrickson Publishers, 1999. page 30

Words from St. Ambrose

“We read and believe many things in light of the Incarnation. But even in our human feelings, we can observe God’s greatness. For example, Jesus is wearied by His journey so that He can refresh the weary. He desires a drink when He is abiut to give spiritual water to the thirsty. He was hungry when He was about to supply the food of salvation to the hungry, He dies to live again. He is buried to rise again. He hangs on the dreadful cross to strengthen those in dread. He veils the heaven with thick darkness so that He can give light. He makes the earth shake so that He may make it strong. He rouses the sea so that He can calm it. He opens the tombs of the dead so that He can show that they are the homes of the living. He is born of a virgin so that people can believe He is born of God. He pretends not to know so that He can make the ignorant know. As a Jew He is said to worship so that the Son may be worshipped as the true God.”

Ambrose, from His Passion: Christ’s Journey to the Resurrection. 2004, Integrity Publishers.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

A sermon delivered on January 28, 2007, the 4th Sunday in the Epiphany of our Lord.

I Corinthians 12:31b-13:13

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.