Readings for New Year’s Day:
Num. 6:22-27; Luke 2:15-21
January 1, 2010
The Rev. Karen Faye Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA
Today is the feast of the Holy Name. Originally, it was called the feast of the Circumcision. On the eighth day of life, a Jewish boy would be circumcised. And so it was with Jesus as described in today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke. Jesus is the Greek name for Joshua, which means God is salvation. There are many ways to understand how God saves us. One way is through the embrace of wisdom.
Each year on the feast of the Holy Name, I share with my congregation, sayings of wisdom that I have recorded throughout the year. One of my most important sources of wisdom comes from the Episcopal quarterly pamphlet, Forward Day by Day [FDBD]. You can find a copy in the farmhouse and I highly suggest you read the short meditation listed for each day. So here are my favorite quotes of 2009:
“If you want peace, work for justice.” [Pope Paul VI]
“We still seek signs to bolster our belief. We know better of course. Jesus is not bound to do our bidding. God will not allow us to reduce Jesus to a magician.” [FDBD]
“Let not love of country make your love of God less fervent.” [From book on Leadership]
“Young people come of age with a critical eye and a hopeful heart. It’s a combination of a critical eye and a hopeful heart that brings change.” [Marshall Ganz]
“We need to hear from a mind that is greater than our own which created the problem.” [unknown]
“Many people think that faith involves believing the right thing. It doesn’t. Faith is a relationship with God and with others.” [ERD Lenten meditations]
“Suffering can have meaning if it changes one for the better.” [Yalom]
“Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.” [St. Augustine]
“A major antidote of fear is to acknowledge the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with you at all times…Jesus still says: “It is I; do not be afraid.”” [FDBD]
“An idea of health that does not generously and gracefully accommodate the fact of death is obviously incomplete.” [Wendell Berry]
“We need to recover the sense of religious fear, so that it may be overcome by religious hope.” [T.S. Eliot]
“There is a place for a teaching church in most any community, and especially in settings where the congregation includes a goodly number of highly educated persons. It is better to boil up the people than to water down the gospel.” [Ben Witherington III]
“A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.” [Fortune cookie]
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” [Plato]
“The power behind you is always greater than the task ahead of you.” [Barbara Harris]
“By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.” [Winston Churchill]
“Dependence on God does not mean we win all the wars. It means we trust God enough to lay down the weapons.” [FDBD]
“Most of us would love to place God at the center of our lives, but our lives have already developed so unevenly that is seems impossible to find the center, much less put God there.” [FDBD]
“Forgiveness is a choice.” [Robert Enright]
“The time you spend in quiet prayer multiplies the value of all your other time. It puts things in perspective and helps you see the bigger picture of your life. You distinguish between the important and the merely urgent.” [ERD, Lenten Meditations]
“Planning and worrying aren’t synonyms. Planning is developing strategies while worrying is experiencing pain in advance of its actual arrival in your life… So do not worry about tomorrow.” [ERD, LM]
“A fool rejoices when he finds something that is in error. A wise man rejoices when he finds the truth.” [11th C saying]
“When there is hell to pay, heaven will cover the debt; not by taking away the consequences or pain, but by granting a gradual, graced, return to balance and life.” [FDBD]
“But to all who take refuge in You, will be glad. They will sing out their joy forever.” [Psalm 5]
A word of hope by George Herbert: “Who would have thought my shriveled heart could have recovered greenness.”
“For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
[Romans 10:13]
| Updated January 15, 2010 |
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