Living Out Christian Unity

This can apply not just to East and West, but to any division in the church: High Church and Low, Liturgical and Free, Evangelical and Charismatic, etc ...

"If I can unite in myself, in my own spiritual life, the thought of the East and the West, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russians with the Spanish mystics, I will create in myself a reunion of the divided Church. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come the exterior and visible unity of all Christians."
-- Thomas Merton

Old and New in One

From a devotion by James H. Kurt:
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"Jesus will be born of a woman from whom it seems no child could come -- a consecrated virgin -- and this of the Holy Spirit, who is with Him and even before time. He is a new testament, however, signified by His birth of a woman of youth and not old age. Though hailed by the old, he brings the newness of God into our midst. His birth fulfills all the births and words and wisdom of the prophets and judges and kings of the Old Testament."

Bearing the Cross

from St. Thomas a Kempis:

"If thou willingly bear the Cross, it will bear thee, and will bring thee to the end which thou seekest, even where there shall be the end of suffering; though it shall not be here. If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest a burden for thyself and greatly increaseth thy load, and yet thou must bear it. If thou cast away one cross, without doubt thou shalt find another and perchance a heavier."

Athanasius on Resurrection

"Before the Savior came, death was terrible to the saints. Everyone wept for the dead as though they perished. But now that the Savior has risen, death isn't terrible anymore. For everyone who believes in Christ tramples over death. They would rather die than deny their faith in Christ. For they know that when they die they aren't destroyed, but actually begin to live."

Augustine on Charity

"That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you are able to help others, and refuse, so often did you do them wrong."

Einstein on Charity

Albert Einstein: "More and more I come to value charity an dlove of one's fellow being above everything else ... All our lauded technological progess -- our very civilization -- is like the axe in the hannd of the pathological criminal."

"Finished"

From John Calvin:

"Now this word, which Christ employs, well deserves our attention; for it shows that the whole accomplishment of our salvation, and all the parts of it, are contained in his death ... the meaining therefore is that everything which contributes to the salvation of men is to be found in Christ and ought not to be sought out anywhere else."

The Cross

From Saint Theodore the Studite:

How precious the gift of the Cross. How splendid to contemplate. In the Cross, there is no mingling of good and evil as in the tree of paradise. It is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil the lord of death and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord like a brave warrior wounded in hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature.

A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life.

The Problem With Protestants

... of which I am one ...
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"The diversity of belief within even so small a segment of Christianity ... illustrates one of the frustrating aspects of Protestantism in general. No one agrees with anyone else, becasue there is no final authority. This has led to the formation of literally hundreds of denominations, with more being added continually."

-- David B. Currie

A Religious Man

From Thomas A Kempis
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"A religious man who exercises himself seriously and devoutly in the most holy life and passion of our Lord shall find there abundantly all things that are profitable and necessary for him, neither is there need that he shall seek anything better beyond Jesus. Oh! If Jesus crucified would come into our hearts, how quickly and completely should be have learned all that we need to know!"