Why Were the Saints Saints?

    All Saints Day is tomorrow - Nov. 1, 2014.  Here is a little saying my Grandfather kept on his dresser mirror.

 

Why Were The Saints Saints?

 

Because they were cheerful

when it was difficult to be cheerful;

Patient

when it was difficult to be patient;

and because they pushed on

when they wanted to stand still;

And kept silent

When they wanted to talk;

And were agreeable

When they wanted to be disagreeable.

That was all.

It was quite simple

and always will be.

Love Thy Neighbor

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given us a new commandment that we should love one another: Give us also grace that we may fulfill it. Make us gentle, courteous, and forbearing. Direct our lives so that we may look to the good of others in word and deed. And hallow all our friendships by the blessing of thy Spirit; for his sake who loved us and gave himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

B.F.Wescott- HT to Kendall   

Rock of Ages

      After the death of my father last year and my mother's move to a retirement community this year, our family have been sorting through my parents' library.  In some cases this has meant also sorting through books that belonged to their parents.  One such book, from my maternal grandfather, was a little book published in 1934 by General Mills no less. How he came by it is unknown to me.   Entitled The Story of Fifty Hymns, it has write-ups of many familiar hymns. 

     Amazon has this description of the book "The Story of Fifty Hymns published by the millers of Gold Medal "Kitchen-tested" Flour Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Copyrighted by General Mills, Inc. in 1934 and 1939.  This booklet was presented through the courtesy of General Mills in commemoration of the 6th Annual Marshall County Church of Bible School Day featuring "Hymns of All Churches Parade", June 26, 1940, Marshalltown, Iowa.  It has a Preface about a group of artists and musicians headed by Joe Emerson, a nationally known figure in radio in 1934, who started a program of morning hymns with every faith represented, and Gold Medal "Kitchen-tested" Flour was the sponsor of the radio show. "

Here is the text concerning Rock of Ages which we sing at Church tomorrow.

"In the 31st Psalm, we read these words:  'Be thou a strong rock...a house of defense to save me...' This is the thought of the hymn, 'Rock of Ages,' familiar to many churches,  It was written in 1776 by Augustus M. Toplady, priest of the Church of England.   An interesting sidelight on the steadfast faith expressed in the hymn is found in the words of the writer as he lay dying, "I cannot tell you the comforts I feel in my soul; they are past expression.  My prayers are all converted to praise..."  On the one hundredth anniversary of the writing of 'Rock of Ages', more than ten thousand people gathered at the place where it is supposed to have been written, to pay homage to this great symbol of faith expressed in song."

Of this hymn Wikipedia says "Traditionally, it is held that Toplady drew his inspiration from an incident in the gorge of  the Mendip Hills in England. Toplady, a preacher in the nearby village of Blagdon, was travelling along the gorge when he was caught in a storm. Finding shelter in a gap in the gorge, he was struck by the title and scribbled down the initial lyrics.

The fissure that is believed to have sheltered Toplady is now marked as the "Rock of Ages", both on the rock itself and on some maps, and is also reflected in the name of a nearby tea shop.

See below for a nice rendition of this hymn.  It is interesting to compare our hymnal version with The Rev. Toplady's text. 

           

The Feast Day of St. Teresa of Avila- 1582

Let nothing trouble you,

let nothing frighten you.

All things are passing;

God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.

He who possesses God lacks nothing:

God alone suffices.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada (28 March 1515 – 4 October 1582), was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, an author of the Counter Reformation and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be a founder of the Discalced Carmelites along with John of the Cross.

In 1622, forty years after her death, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV and on 27 September 1970, was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI. Her books, which include her autobiography (The Life of Teresa of Jesus) and her seminal work El Castillo Interior (trans.: The Interior Castle) are an integral part of Spanish Renaissance literature as well as Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practices as she entails in her other important work, Camino de Perfección (trans.: The Way of Perfection).  (Wikipedia)

The Ocean of His Goodness

Should we fall into a sin, let us humble ourselves sorrowfully in his presence, and then, with an act of unbounded confidence, let us throw ourselves into the ocean of his goodness, where every failing will be cancelled and anxiety turned into love.

St. Paul of the Cross

A Prayer for Today

O God, whose love we cannot measure, nor even number thy blessings: We bless and praise thee for all thy goodness, who in our weakness art our strength, in our darkness, light, in our sorrows, comfort and peace, and from everlasting to everlasting art our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

Pop Nihilism and the Allure of ISIS

A thoughtful article from John Stonestreet

What’s with all these stories of Western defections to Islamic radicalism? Well, the answer may be more over here than over there.

News broke recently of two beautiful teenage girls from Austria, aged 15 and 16, who became burka-wearing recruiters for the terror group known as ISIS, or the Islamic State. And their journey to radicalism is not an isolated case.  In my own state of Colorado, a 19-year-old female just pled guilty to trying to join ISIS, too. And then there are the two young American men who died in Syria fighting for ISIS.

Why are young 21st-century Westerners converting to a brutal form of Islam? Why would young people, with seemingly so much to live for, leave the West for terrorism?

This question came up last month in a panel discussion with radio hosts Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager, as well as Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute and myself. We all agreed that the answer was not the radicalism of Islam, but the current emptiness of Western materialism.

The idea that matter is all that matters pervades everything young people see and hear these days. They hear it in science class, from the new Cosmos television series, and even, and as I added especially, in advertising and other media messages. Nearly every commercial message tells us that we’re born to be consumers, that stuff will make us happy and save us from our misery, and that there’s nothing beyond the immediate gratification of this world to live for.

As Dennis Prager said that night, “Secular society produces a lot of bored people . . . Secular society is a curse because ultimately life is meaningless if there’s no God.” The materialistic salvation sold to us promises to fill what Pascal called the God-shaped hole in our hearts … with stuff. But many see the meaningless of secular salvation, and they become bored; others become angry, even murderous.

Remember Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed 13 people at Columbine High School? They weren’t Muslims. Then there’s T.J. Lane, a 19-year-old serving three life sentences for shooting to death three high school students in 2012. At his sentencing, in which he taunted his victims’ families with expletives, Lane opened his blue dress shirt to reveal a T-shirt on which he had scrawled the word “killer.”

We’ve always had young murderers, but the nihilism of today is different. Writing in Time several years ago, Harvard’s student body president called it the “Rude Boy” culture. The tough guy of the ‘60s and ‘70s, he observed, would say, “I’m better than you, I can beat you up”—but the tough guy today says, “I flip you off; you don’t matter and neither do I.”

And that’s a whole new level of brokenness. That’s the cultural shift toward nihilism. A few years ago, the rock band Switchfoot hit the nail on the head when they sang, “We were meant to live for so much more. But we lost ourselves.”

This sort of empty pop-nihilism, to borrow a term from Baylor’s Thomas Hibbs, makes even the evil radicalism of extremist Islam look attractive to some. And parasitic ideologies like these find folks in despair easy prey.

Might it be that ISIS finds this shallow ground as fertile soil from which to harvest young souls for its deadly agenda?

Decades ago, even before the Internet and social media took over so much of our lives, Aldous Huxley warned of the capacity of the media to exploit “man's almost infinite appetite for distraction.” Could it be that even ISIS looks attractive to those who, after having their fill, still feel empty inside?

Wait a minute, you say, that’s just a small minority. Not every kid flees to ISIS or thinks of murder as a way to meaning. Well, true, but how many others are living shriveled up lives of perpetual boredom? What addictions and distractions are they fleeing to in pursuit of meaning and purpose? How can Christians point our culture to the One we were made for?

Well, the panel discussion I mentioned earlier can start that discussion. Come to BreakPoint.org to find out how to watch or listen to my conversation with Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, and Steve Meyer on this and other topics relating to God and culture.

For more from Breakpoint on this topic , click HERE