A word from us...
The Living Spirit - June 23rd
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum (1985) “An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943”
From Galatians 5:
“Now the works of the flesh are evident; sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum (1985) “An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943”
From Galatians 5:
“Now the works of the flesh are evident; sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."
The Living Spirit - June 16th
“Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God –
a "foursome," as it were - for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion
with God.”
Miroslav Volf. After Our Likeness:
The Church as the image of the Trinity
From John 6:
Jesus answered them,“Do not grumble among yourselves.No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven,so that one may eat of it and not die.I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
“Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God –
a "foursome," as it were - for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion
with God.”
Miroslav Volf. After Our Likeness:
The Church as the image of the Trinity
From John 6:
Jesus answered them,“Do not grumble among yourselves.No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven,so that one may eat of it and not die.I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Living Spirit - June 9th
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold, Death’s great black wing scrapes the air, Misery gnaws to the bone. Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods, cherries blow summer into town; at night the deep transparent skies glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close to the ruined, dirty houses— something not known to anyone at all, but wild in our breast for centuries.
Anna Akhmatova
From Acts 17:
"The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God......While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, He now commands all people everywhere to repent."
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold, Death’s great black wing scrapes the air, Misery gnaws to the bone. Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods, cherries blow summer into town; at night the deep transparent skies glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close to the ruined, dirty houses— something not known to anyone at all, but wild in our breast for centuries.
Anna Akhmatova
From Acts 17:
"The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God......While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, He now commands all people everywhere to repent."
The Living Spirit - June 2nd
The Gospel tells us that the Kingdom of God is within us first of all. If we cannot find the Kingdom of God within us, in the very depth of ourselves, our chances of meeting him outside ourselves are very remote. When [Yuri] Gagarin [the first man to go into space] came back from space and made his remarkable statement that he never saw God in heaven, one of our priests in Moscow remarked, “If you have not seen him on earth, you will never see him in heaven.”
Archbishop Anthony Bloom
From Luke 17:
"Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied' The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, not will people say ‘here it is' or 'there it is', because the kingdom of God is in your midst. Then he said to his disciples 'the time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man,’ but you will not see it. People will tell you 'There he is!’ Do not go running off after them, for the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation."
The Gospel tells us that the Kingdom of God is within us first of all. If we cannot find the Kingdom of God within us, in the very depth of ourselves, our chances of meeting him outside ourselves are very remote. When [Yuri] Gagarin [the first man to go into space] came back from space and made his remarkable statement that he never saw God in heaven, one of our priests in Moscow remarked, “If you have not seen him on earth, you will never see him in heaven.”
Archbishop Anthony Bloom
From Luke 17:
"Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied' The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, not will people say ‘here it is' or 'there it is', because the kingdom of God is in your midst. Then he said to his disciples 'the time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man,’ but you will not see it. People will tell you 'There he is!’ Do not go running off after them, for the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation."