Spiritual Quote of the Day (Barry Hannah, on Jesus, Who ‘Forgives Our Wretchedness’)

“[A]t the center of all my faith, as at the center of the sadly unvisited Good Book, is a man who also forgives our wretchedness. He was not always strong himself. In the garden of Gethsemane he asked his father to let this cup, the crucifixion, be passed from him. His stumbling under the cross up the Via Dolorosa reminds me always of our own stumbling and crawling, over a mighty rough pathway of words left to us by long-dead writers, toward the good mountain of our deliverance.”— American novelist and short story writer Barry Hannah (1942-2010), “The Maddening Protagonist,” Paste Magazine, Issue 19 (December 2005-January 2006)

The image accompanying this post, Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary (ca. 1514-16), was created by the Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael (1483-1520).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, on God’s Appearance to Humanity)

“He whom presently you scorn was once transcendent, over even you. He who is presently human was incomposite. He remained what he was; what he was not, he assumed. No ‘because’ is required for his existence in the beginning, for what could account for the existence of God? But later he came into being because of something, namely for your salvation, yours, who insulted him and despised his Godhead for that very reason, because he took on your thick corporeality. Through the medium of the mind he had dealings with the flesh, being made that God on earth….He was carried in the womb, but acknowledged by a prophet yet unborn himself, who leaped for joy at the presence of the Word for whose sake he had been created. He was wrapped in swaddling bands, but at the Resurrection he unloosed the swaddling bands of the grave. He was laid in a manger, but was extolled by angels, disclosed by a star and adored by Magi. Why do you take offense at what you see, instead of attending to its spiritual significance?”— St. Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop of Constantinople and “Doctor of the Church” (c. 330-390), On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius

TV Quote of the Day (Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, on How ‘The Higher Life of Man is God’)

“The higher life of man is God. And if man is ever to be lifted up, God in some way must come down to man.”—Venerable Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), Life Is Worth Living, Season 4, Episode 112, “The True Meaning of Christmas,” original air date 1956

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Pope St. Leo the Great, on the Son of God in ‘The Form of a Servant’)

“He took the form of a servant without stain of sin. He enhanced our humanity but did not thereby diminish his divinity. The emptying by which the invisible one made himself visible, and by which the Lord and Creator of all things willed to be one with mortal men, was a bending down in pity, not a failure of power. Accordingly, he who in the form of God was the maker of man, was himself made man in the form of a slave. Thus the Son of God enters into the depths of this world, coming down from his heavenly throne, yet not leaving his Father's glory, begotten into a new order by a new birth.”— Pope St. Leo the Great (ca. 391-461), Letters (Leo the Great), Letter 28 (“The Tome”), 3

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Henri Nouwen, on Jesus and ‘Success, Popularity, and Power’)

“Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity, and power is a false identity — an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: 'You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.'”—Dutch-born Catholic priest, theologian, psychologist and writer Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (1994)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (First Letter of St. Peter, on the ‘Living Hope’ of Easter)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” —1 Peter 1:3-5

The image accompanying this post, The Resurrection, was painted by the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (ca. 1445-1510) around 1490.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Frederica Mathewes-Green, on ‘God as Suffering Parent’)

“Maybe this crazy thing happened: God came down in a suit of skin and bones, and walked and talked, and offended people, and finally they tortured him to death. And by that death he destroyed death; he rescued us and gave life everlasting and every other good thing. Into this universe crammed with pain we say that God came down, because he loves us with the kind of love that we can only understand by thinking of how a parent loves.” —Religious author and commentator Frederica Mathewes-Green, “God as Suffering Parent,” Beliefnet, December 22, 1999, reprinted in The Best Christian Writing 2000, series editor: John Wilson (2000)

The image accompanying this post, The Crucified Christ, was created in 1610-1611 by Flemish artist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on How ‘Christ is the Day’)

“Awake, then, while it is day: the day shines, Christ is the day. He is ready to forgive sins, but to them that acknowledge them; ready to punish the self-defenders, who boast that they are righteous, and think themselves to be something when they are nothing.”—St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), “Homilies on the Gospel of John (Chapter III: 6-21),” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Christian Classics Ethereal Library), edited by Philip Schaff (1888)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Scott Dudley, on Why Jesus ‘Wants Us to Love Him and be Loved by Him’)

“Power cannot generate love. Power can generate obedience, fear, awe, grudging submission — but not love. The God who comes to us in Jesus doesn’t want grudging submission; he wants us to love him and be loved by him. He wants relationship, including friendship, and so he came in vulnerability, not in power.”— Scott Dudley, senior pastor at Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Wash., quoted by Peter Wehner, “Why Jesus Loved Friendship,” The New York Times, Dec. 24, 2022

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Ignatius of Antioch, on Jesus and the Star over Bethlehem)

“How, then, was [God] manifested to the world? A star shone forth in heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly great above them all. And there was agitation felt as to whence this new spectacle came, so unlike to everything else [in the heavens]. Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.”—Syrian-born early Christian writer and martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 50 AD-108 AD), “Epistle to the Ephesians”

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Latrelle Miller Easterling, on Love and the Pharisees’ Test of Jesus)

“The word ‘test’ in the Bible is only used in relation to the Pharisees and the devil. They didn’t realize that Jesus could play ball. They threw a curveball and he hit a home run. Jesus called them out as they were trying to demean him. He said, ‘All are worthy of love. Full stop. All are worthy of love.’ ”— Bishop Latrelle Miller Easterling, in her Chautauqua Institution sermon “I am a Friend of God: Not a Greeting Card Kind of Love,” quoted by Mary Lee Talbot, “Love is a Decision, Easterling Says, Not an Emotion,” The Chautauquan Daily, June 27, 2023

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Hubert Butler, on the Assurance Provided by Christ)

“To me God is the assurance that the world of men is not purposeless or evil and that we can trust ourselves to it, and that when old laws lose their significance, new ones will slowly shape themselves to take their place. As for Christ, he is the assurance that a man can learn when and how to free himself from the power of the law, however strongly it may be reinforced with venerable traditions and popular approval. The show bread may have to be eaten, the sabbath profaned, the prostitute exalted. ‘GOD’ is the promise that out of this disorder a better order will ultimately ensue.”—Anglo-Irish essayist Hubert Butler (1900-1991), “Little K,” in Independent Spirit: Essays (1996)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (John Dominic Crossan, on God’s ‘Collaboration’ With Us)

“You have been waiting for God, [Jesus] said, while God has been waiting for you. No wonder nothing is happening. You want God’s intervention, he said, while God wants your collaboration. God’s kingdom is here, but only insofar as you accept it, enter it, live it, and thereby establish it.”—Irish-American theologian and scholar John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer (2010)

(The accompanying photo of John Dominic Crossan was taken during a lecture at Bellarmine University on Nov. 8, 2008 by Donald Vish.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on How Christ Draws Us to Him)

“Offer a handful of grass to a sheep and you draw it after you. Show a boy nuts and he is enticed. He is drawn by the things he is running to take, drawn because he desires, drawn without any physical pressures, drawn simply by the pull on his appetite. If, then, the things that lovers see as the delights and pleasures of earth can draw them, because it is true that ‘everyone is drawn by his delight’, then does not Christ draw when he is revealed to us by the Father?” —St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), homily on St. John’s Gospel, in Ordinary Graces: Christian Teachings on the Interior Life, edited by Lorraine Kisly (2000)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on ‘The Path of Charity’)

“Let me ask of my reader, wherever, alike with myself, he is certain, there to go on with me; wherever, alike with myself, he hesitates, there to join with me in inquiring; wherever he recognizes himself to be in error, there to return to me; wherever he recognizes me to be so, there to call me back: so that we may enter together upon the path of charity, and advance towards Him of whom it is said, Seek His face evermore.” — St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), On the Trinity, translated by Arthur West Haddan (1887)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (C.S. Lewis, on the Proper Place of the Bible)

“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is Myth (but of course Myth specially chosen by God from among countless Myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention to the whole nature and purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.” —British novelist, academic and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), letter to “Mrs. Johnson,” Nov. 8, 1952, in The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950-1963 (2007)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on Jesus at Bethlehem)

“Look at how He miniaturized Himself so that He could lie in that manger. That doesn't mean He had to leave something behind in order to fit. He just received what He wasn't while remaining what He was.

“Behold, we have the infant Christ in front of us.

“Let’s grow old with Him.”—St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), “Sermo CXCVI: Christmas #13,” translated by William Griffin, in The Best Christian Writing 2006, edited by John Wilson

The image accompanying this post is The Nativity, by Italian painter Federico Barocci (1535-1612.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Joseph Mary Plunkett, on Christ, the Reaper)

“The sun rose up at midnight,
The sun rose red as blood,
It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ,
Upon His cross of wood.
 
“For many live that one may die,
And one must die that many live—
The stars are silent in the sky
Lest my poor songs be fugitive.”—Irish poet, journalist, and patriotic martyr Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887-1916), “The Stars Sang in God’s Garden,” in Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology of Catholic Poets, with a supplement of more recent poems edited by Shaemas O’Sheel (1939)
 
(The image accompanying this post, a detail of the painting Christ Crucified, was part of the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, by the late Italian Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Charles Spurgeon, on How Christ ‘Pulls Us to Shore’)

“Faith has a saving connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope, and as we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore; but all good works having no connection with Christ are drifted along down the gulf of fell despair.” — English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), Feathers for Arrows; Or, Illustrations for Preachers and Teachers, from My Notebook (1883)

The image accompanying this post is Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1695), by the Dutch painter Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Rev. Zina Jacque, on Jesus and the ‘Emergent Moment’)

“Our role is to emerge from the fires of hate, racism, economic injustice and climate change. It is in our DNA to emerge. Like the butterfly, effort is required for us to emerge.

“When we do emerge, we will be like Jesus — bringers of truth, walking humbly and loving mercy. We will have a relationship with the divine and we will share that love with all those we meet. We will stand in the gap for those in need and we will be willing to be put outside to bring others in.”— Rev. Zina Jacque, lead pastor of the Community Church of Barrington, IL, “In an Emergent Moment” sermon delivered July 4, 2021, at the Chautauqua Institution (NY), quoted in Mary Lee Talbot, “To Emerge Requires Transformation in Darkness, Waiting and Struggle, Zina Jacque Says,” The Chautauquan Daily, July 7, 2021