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Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
by Colin Smith
This short (1220 words) reflection/sermon identifies the stages involved in thanksgiving. Using a story and three relevant old and new testament Bible verses, these essential preconditions are identified i) Noticing a service has been done, ii) Realising what it has cost the pe…
Lectio Divina the Sacred Art - 14 Afterword
Lectio Divina the Sacred Art - 14 Afterword
by Christine Valters Painter
AFTERWORD The purpose of contemplative practice is cultivation of freedom and compassion. As we grow in inner freedom, we become less caught up in the demands of life. We begin to let go of our compulsions to grow ever busier. As we learn to welcome in the full spectrum of our ow…
Lectio Divina - The whole Bible as a unity
Lectio Divina - The whole Bible as a unity
by SPCK - Enzo Bianchi
The whole Bible as a unity The attitude of ‘hearing the word of God with reverence’ (Dei Verbum 1), which we express by interpreting Scripture with its divine authorship in mind, also involves paying attention to the ‘unity of the whole of Scripture’ (DV 12). Only the unity of th…
Mere Apologetics - 5 The Reasonableness of the Christian Faith
Mere Apologetics - 5 The Reasonableness of the Christian Faith
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
The Reasonableness of the Christian Faith Apologetics is about persuading people that Christianity makes sense. C. S. Lewis, perhaps the greatest Christian apologist of the twentieth century, describes the capacity the Christian faith has to make sense of things with characterist…
The Monastery Of The Heart - 22 Spiritual Tools
The Monastery Of The Heart - 22 Spiritual Tools
by SPCK - Joan Chittister
Spiritual Tools “These are the tools of the spiritual craft.” Benedictine spirituality is clear: Beware the spirituality, the Rule implies, that lacks balance, that lacks the fullness of the spiritual life, that revolves around mystique and mystery, around esoteric ritual or secr…
Great Christian Thinkers - 17 St. Hilary of Poitiers
Great Christian Thinkers - 17 St. Hilary of Poitiers
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Hilary of Poitiers I reflect now on a great Father of the Church of the West, St. Hilary of Poitiers, one of the important episcopal figures of the fourth century. In the controversy with the Arians, who considered Jesus the Son of God to be an excellent human creature but on…
Great Christian Thinkers - 27 Boethius and Cassiodorus
Great Christian Thinkers - 27 Boethius and Cassiodorus
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
Boethius and Cassiodorus I now discuss two ecclesiastical writers, Boethius and Cassiodorus, who lived in some of the most turbulent years in the Christian West and in the Italian peninsula in particular. Odoacer, King of the Rugians, a Germanic race, had rebelled, putting an end…
Great Christian Thinkers - 41 Rabanus Maurus
Great Christian Thinkers - 41 Rabanus Maurus
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
Rabanus Maurus A truly extraordinary figure of the Latin West, Rabanus Maurus was an exceptional and prolific monk. Together with men such as Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede and Ambrose Autpert, two of whom I have spoken previously, during the centuries of the so-called…
Lectio Divina - God's word and scripture
Lectio Divina - God's word and scripture
by SPCK - Enzo Bianchi
God’s Word and Scripture In the first two chapters of this book I offered some reflections in answer to the question, ‘Why spiritual exegesis?’ In the chapters to come, we will ask who should do lectio divina and look at how and where it is done. Before we turn to this topic, we …
Gate in wood