Kind maker of the world, O hear The fervent prayers with many a tear Poured forth by all the penitent Who keep this holy fast of Lent! Our call this Ash Wednesday and throughout Holy Lent is to exercise our mouths by confessing our sins. We are beckoned to empty our hearts and our bellies…
Does receiving ashes on the forehead, a custom widely practiced on Ash Wednesday, go against Christ’s command to keep your fasting a secret (Matt. 6:16–18)? This command appears in the Sermon on the Mount. Christ’s teaching there on fasting is the last in a mini-series on spiritual disciplines which includes almsgiving and prayer. He opens this…
Love divine, all loves excelling,joy of heaven, to earth come down,fix in us thy humble dwelling,all thy faithful mercies crown.Jesus, thou art all compassion,pure, unbounded love thou art;visit us with thy salvation,enter every trembling heart. The stage is set. Christ Jesus has set His face towards Jerusalem, where He knows He is journeying towards certain…
One step down, my back turned against pear groves As the perfume of orange blossoms drifts On the breeze, mixed memoirs of when we clove Tightly to each other. An anchor lifts, But casually, skirting the floor and primed To fall in the wake of first resistance, And I don’t know if its weight is…
If “the new birth of the Spirit is closely coupled with new birth by water,” as Browne argues, then a question that follows is how this new birth of the Spirit is applied to infants. The difficulty, as it is often presented, is that whereas “in the case of adults, faith and repentance are necessary…
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in God’s excellent Word! What more can be said than to you God hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? Whom do you trust? Our age is a time of distrust. Distrust in government, in corporations, and…
A Certain Young Ruler Luke 18:18–29. He seemed to make sense then, this Jesus, the “prophet,” A few days ago when he urged being shrewd When making investments to earn a good profit, But now I can see the man wants to exclude All those who know business and aren’t just naïve. He talks of…
The lion at your side, Like you, cadaverous master, Stares up at the dark sky And waits this world’s disaster. With never a pause you pray And with creation groan, Striking at your hard heart To break it with a stone. Did you find holiness Inside the cave you keep, And does the Spirit guard…
‘As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.’ Simple enough, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God have been given to us. Jesus tells us in this very gospel reading today. The…
American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order. By Jerome E. Copulsky. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024. 384 pp. $40 (hardcover). “The concept of heresy,” Jerome Copulsky observes, “is…relational—it is a term deployed by a group to mark out its boundaries, define its foes, and police deviance within its ranks” (3). That is to…