Theology of Andrew: Spirituality

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Surprised by Joy

It's funny because I'm supposed to feel somber and solemn these days. My RC chaplain friend is pissed at me, and I have a bunch of papers due, but I can't help it. I'm not sad or scared.

I'm joyful.

I feel so free.

I haven't felt this good in so long. I have hope. I sing with St. Paul: "Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies." (Rom 8:33)

The Reformer of Wittenberg used to sign his name: Martinus Eleutherius, meaning Martin the Free One.

As an Anglican I used to pray daily in the morning Liturgy to the God, "whose service is perfect freedom". I love that phrase. It's beautiful.

I have the whole evening to myself, I could do anything, and I'm going to sit down, put on some pajamas, make some hot chocolate, and grab my biggest bible and a patristic commentary.

Just the thought that God unconditionally accepts me for Christ's sake is too marvellous to bear. This great crucified God, "[w]ho was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Rm 4:25).

Blessed be God forever.

Quotes For Thought

"If baptism is the beginning of my life, and the day of regeneration is the first of days, it is obvious that the words spoken when I received the grace of adoption are more honorable than any spoken since....Through this confession I was made a child of God, I, who was His enemy for so long because of my sins. May I pass from this life to the Lord with this confession on my lips." - St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 26.

"To know Jesus and Jesus crucified is the sum total of my philosophy." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Oh the extraordinary goodness of God toward man? The just of the Old Testament thank God in the weariness of long years; but that which they obtained, by means of a long and heroic service pleasing to God, Jesus gives to you in the brief time span of an hour. Indeed, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that God had raised him from the dead, you will be saved and you will be introduced into heaven by the same one who introduced the good thief." - St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith" - St. Augustine

"Nor must we trust in holiness of origin, in forefathers, or in
the gifts of God which we enjoy. We must look to the Word alone and judge thereby. Those alone who truly embrace the Word will be as immovable forever as Mount Zion. They may be few in number and thoroughly despised by the world, as were Noah and his children. But God, through these few, preserved to man the truth of that promised mastery when he had not even room to set his foot upon the earth." - Bl. Martin Luther "Commentary on Genesis"