Graffiti KL (XVIII)

The Greatest Saint

Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fast most; it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful of God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.
(William Law)

The Teaching of St. Francis of Assisi

*Everyday I find so much sweetness in meditating upon the memory of the humble witness of the Son of God, that should I live till the end of the world, there would be little need of my hearing or meditating upon anything further in the scriptures.

*The contemplative life is to leave behind all earthly things for the love of God, to seek only the things of heaven, to pray without tiring, to read often and with concentration, to praise God continually with hymns & canticles.

*Blessed are you, servant of God, if you do not consider yourself any better when you are honoured & extolled by other than when you are considered low & simple & despise; for what you are before God that is what you are, and no more.

*If you, o servant of God, are upset, for any reason whatever, you should immediately rise up to prayer, and you should remain in the presence of most high Father as long as it takes for him to restore you to the joy of your salvation.

*When you are visited by the Lord in prayer, you should say:"Lord, you have sent me this comfort from heaven, even though I am sinner & unworthy, and I entrust it to your keeping because I feel like a thief of your treasures". And when you leave your prayer, you should seem to be only a poor little sinner, and not someone especially graced by God

*My dear brothers, obey a command immediately without waiting for it to be repeated. And don't say that it is impossible, for if you are commanded something beyond your strength, holy obedience will give you the strength you lack.

*What has always been and still is most dear to me and sweeter and more acceptable is whatever the Lord my God is most pleased to let them happen in me & to me. For my only desires is to found always conformed and obedient is his will for anything.

*The pure of heart are those who despise earthly things and seek those of heaven, and who never cease adoring and looking with pure heart and soul upon the Lord God living and true

*Blessed are those servants who do not talk in order to gain something and who do not reveal everything about themselves and not quick to speak, but wisely consider what they are going to say and how they are going to answer.

*In holy charity, which God is, I beg all of you; that removing every obstacle and putting aside every worry and every care as best you can, you strive to serve, love, adore and honour the Lord God with pure heart & pure mind, which is what He asks above all else.

If at any time the brother abandon their small, poor dwellings because someone has offered them something more spacious and comfortable, they thereby give the worst kind of scandalous example.

*A Prayer: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", that we may love you with our whole heart by always thinking of you; with our whole soul by always desiring of you; with our whole mind by directing all our intentions to you and seeking your honour in all things; with all our soul by spending all the power and senses of body & soul in the service of your love & not in anything else; and that we may love our neighbour even as ourselves, drawing everything, to the best of your power, to your love; rejoicing in the good of others as in our own, and being compassionate in their troubles, and giving offense to no one.

Other Communions of Jesus

*If the people meet together in the name of Jesus and thus in his presence, with the facts of the good news inspiring their heart to worship and praise, whatever food & drink they share will be Holy Communion

*Christians are so inclined to think themselves as the 'do-gooders', the strong ones who help others in their need. So often representatives of the church minister from a position of superiority, conveying a spirit of condescension that spoils everything. Jesus did not begin the conversation at the well by saying, "Now what I can do to help you, my dear? What's your problem?" He said, "Give me a drink", and immediately the barriers were down.

*It was people's mistake not that they were expecting too much of Jesus. They were expecting too little.

*On the basis of taking together all the communion services recounted in the gospels, only a fully open communion is possible. Any attempt to restrict the list of guests at a meal hosted by Jesus contradicts the host's intention. Those eating & drinking then do so in an unworthy manner and debase, even invalidate the communion.

*Jesus in choosing his disciples seems to have gone for a typical cross section of humanity rather than a selection of the more suitable candidates. This is so far from our practice of selecting people for key positions in the church that is difficult for us to comprehend. Hurdles are set up to eliminate unsuitable candidates from the Christian ministry. Jesus still want them, they are told, but please will they look for some other avenue for the service. But the objective of Jesus was to redeem humanity in total, as it is, not a carefully selected example.

*Jesus practicing on many occasions of forcign a decision either for or against him. Jesus has more respect for the person who decisively rejects him than fr the one who vacillates or wants to have it both ways.

*On the basis of taking together all the communion services recounted in the Gospels, only a fully open communion is possible. Any attempt to restrict the list of guest at a meal hosted by Jesus contradicts the host's intention. Those eating and drinking then do so in an unworthy manner and debase , even invalidate the communion

(Other Communions of Jesus: Eating & Drinking The Good News Way - John Henson)

Service - True vs Self-Righteous Service

Self-righteous Service:
-comes trough human effort
-expends immense amounts of energy calculating & scheming how to render the service
-concerned to make impressive gains on ecclesiastical scoreboards
-require external rewards
-seeks human applause
-highly concerned about results
-picks ad chooses whom to serve
-affected by moods and whims - can serve on ly when there is a 'feeling' to serve
-temporary - it functions only while the specific acts of service are being performed
-insensitive - insist on meeting the need even when to do so would be destrucive
-fractures community - centres in the glorification of the individual

True Service:
-comes from a relationship with the divine other deep inside
-finds it almost impossible to distinguish the small from the large service
-rest contented in hiddenness (does not fear the lights of attention, but does not seek them either)
-free of the need need to calculate results (delights only in the service)
-indiscriminate in its ministry (serves all)
-minister simply & faithfully because there is a need (disciplines the feeling)
-is a lifestyle - acts from ingrained patterns of living
-springs spontaneously to meet human needs
-can withhold the service as freely as perform it
-builds community (draws, bind, heals ,build)
-quietly & unpretentiously goes about caring for the needs of others

[Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline]

Lewis - Essay Collection

>The differences between the pagan Christs and the Christs himself is much what we should expect to find. The pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when.

>The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other.

>On End Days
We must never speak to simple excitable people about "the Day" without emphasizing again and again the utter impossibility of prediction. We must try to show them that impossibility is an essential part of the doctrine. If you do not believe our Lord's words, why do you believe in his return at all? And if you do believe them must you not put away from you, utterly and forever, any hope of dating that return? His teaching on the subject quite clearly consisted of three propositions:
1. That He will certainly return
2. That we cannot possibly find out when
3. And that therefore we must alway be ready for Him

The point is simple enough. There will be wars and rumours of wars and all kind of catastrophes, as there always are. Things will be , in that sense, normal, the hour before the heavens roll up like a scroll. You cannot guess it. If you could, one chief purpose for which it was foretold would be frustrated. And God's purposes are not so easily frustrated as that.

>Indeed the expectation of finding God by astronautics would be very like trying to verify or falsify the divinity of Christ by taking specimens of his blood or dissecting Him. And in their own way they did both. But they were no wiser than before. What is required is a certain faculty of recognition. If you do not at all know God, of course you will not recognise Him, either in Jesus or in outer space.

>We believe that God forgives us our sins; but also that he will not do so unless we forgive other people their sins against us. There is no doubt about the second part of this statement. We are to forgive them al, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don't we shall be forgive none of our own.

>This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that sea (meeting God) and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal.
Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honset but reluctant tax payers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope-we very ardently hope-that after we have paid it there will still be enough to live on.

Graffiti KL (XVII)