Devotion for Good Friday 2024
Reflections on the Cross
Quotes, Books & Resources Referenced
The story from E. Stanley Jones was recounted in Demaray, Donald E.., Johnson, Reginald. Spiritual Formation for Christian Leaders. United Kingdom: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Letter of St. Catherine of Sienna
Jesus "has climbed into the professorial chair of the cross, and teaches us doctrine, having written it on his body and made of himself a book, with initial letters so large that there is no man who is so illiterate or of little sight that he is not able to read it perfectly and easily. Read, then, read, our soul; in order to read more carefully, let the feet of our affection climb up to the affection of Christ crucified. Nothing else will allow you to read him so well."1
From the St. Augustine’s Prayer Book:
Devotions on the Passion
The cross is the abyss of wonders, the center of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theater of joys, and the place of sorrows. It is the root of happiness and the gate of heaven. There we may see a man loving all the world and a God dying for humanity...there we may see the most distant things in eternity united... It is the well of life beneath which we may see the face of heaven above and the only mirror wherein all things appear in their proper colors: that is, sprinkled in the blood of our Lord and Savior.
—Thomas Traherene, Centuries2
Crucifying3
By John Donne
By miracles exceeding power of man, Hee faith in some, envie in some begat, For, what weake spirits admire, ambitious, hate; In both affections many to him ran, But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can, Alas, and do, unto the immaculate, Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate, Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to'a span, Nay to an inch. Loe, where condemned hee Beares his owne crosse, with paine, yet by and by When it beares him, he must beare more and die: Now thou art lifted up, draw mee to thee, And at thy death giving such liberall dole, Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul.
Digest
Strange Fruit: JoAnne Marie Terrell’s Power in the Blood
Southern trees bear strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the Poplar trees Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burning flesh Here’s a fruit for the crows to pluck,…
Homily for Thursday in the First Week of Lent
Scriptures: Additions to Esther (Apocrypha) 14:1-14 Psalm 138 Matthew 7:7-12 In the name of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I've been thinking a lot recently, about love of neighbor, and about love of enemy. As one commentator put it, the two are often the same. Love of enemy, is actually an expans…
Faith Comes by Hearing
In his letter to the Romans, Paul addresses the importance of preaching to the Christian community when he writes: But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to p…
Cited in Tylus, Jane, Reclaiming Catherine of Siena: Literacy, Literature, and the Signs of Others (Chicago, Il.: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 256
Thomas Traherne, Centuries, cited in David Cobb and Derek Olsen, eds., Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, Revised Edition (Cincinnati, OH: Forward Movement, 2014), p. 269
“Crucifying” in The Complete English Poems (Everyman's Library), by John Donne, p. 432