September 13

“To take up the Cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.”

J. H. NEWMAN

“Every morning, receive thine own special cross from the hands of thy heavenly Father.”

SCUPOLI

“If thou bearest thy cross willingly, it will bear thee. If thou bearest it unwillingly, thou increasest thy load, and yet thou must bear it.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“Thou hast not always promised me rest from my burden, but Thou hast always offered me rest in my burden.”

MATHESON

September 12

“I cannot mount to heaven beneath this ban;
Can Christian hope survive so far below
The level of the happiness of man?
Can angels’ wings in these dark waters grow?
A spirit voice replied, ‘From bearing right
Our sorest burthens, comes fresh strength to bear;
And so we rise again towards the light,
And quit the sunless depths for upper air.
Meek patience is as diver’s breath to all
Who sink in sorrow’s sea, and many a ray
Comes gleaming downward from the source of day,
To guide us re-ascending from our fall,
The rocks have bruised thee sore, but angels’ wings
Grow best from bruises, hope from anguish springs.’”

CHARLES TURNER

“We need as much the cross we bear
As air we breathe, as light we see;
It draws us to Thy side in prayer,
It binds us to our strength in Thee.”

A. L. WARING

September 11

“Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.”

PSALM xxxi 3

“Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene, one step enough for me.”

J. H. NEWMAN

“The crosses which we make for ourselves by our over-anxiety as to the future are not heaven-sent crosses. We tempt God by our false wisdom, seeking to forestall His arrangements, and struggling to supplement His providence by our own provisions. The fruit of our wisdom is always bitter. God suffers it to be so that we may be discomfited when we forsake His fatherly guidance. The future is not ours; we may never have a future; or if it comes, it may be wholly different from all we foresaw.”

Fénélon

September 10

“I sorrowed that the golden day was dead,
Its light no more the country-side adorning;
But whilst I grieved, behold the east grew red
With Morning.

“I sighed that merry Spring was forced to go,
And doff the wreaths that did so well become her;
But whilst I murmured at her absence – lo
‘Twas summer.

I mourned because the daffodils were killed
By burning skies that scorched my early posies;
But while for these I pined, my hands were filled

With roses.

“Half broken-hearted I bewailed the end
Of friendship, than which none had once seemed nearer;
But whilst I wept I found a closer friend
And dearer.

“Thus I learned old pleasures are estranged,
Only that something better may be given –
Until, at last, we find this earth exchanged
For Heaven.”

September 9

“God brings good out of evil, and sometimes what we call evil is not so evil in reality as what we in our ignorance would put in its place. These perplexities cannot always be explained; but many of them can and are. Many times what we fancied was hurtful has been of the greatest service; what we flinched from has made us happier; what we dreaded has come and gone and left a blessing behind it. Many a time what we longed for has been denied us, and the denial has made us happier than if we had obtained it. He must be very short-sighted indeed who cannot see in his own life many instances of his having been led by paths that he did not know.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear with groan and travail-cries
The world confess its sin.

“Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings,
I know that God is good.

“The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above;
I know not of His hate – I know
His goodness and His love.”

WHITTIER

September 8

“Know well, my soul, God’s hand controls
Whate’er thou fearest;
Round him in calmest music rolls
Whate’er thou hearest.

“What to thee is shadow, to Him is day,
And the end He knoweth,
And not on a blind and aimless way
The spirit goeth.”

WHITTIER

“We are all of us like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, following out the pattern of a well-known artist, endeavour to match the threads of divers colours on the wrong side of the woof, and do not see the result of their labours. It is only when the texture is complete that they can admire at their ease those lovely flowers and figures, those splendid pictures, worthy of the palaces of kings. So it is with us. We work, we suffer, and we see neither the end nor the fruit. But God sees it, and when He releases us from our task, He will disclose to our wandering gaze what He, the great artist, everywhere present and invisible, has woven out of those toils that now seem so sterile, and He will then deign to hang up, in his palace of gold, the flimsy web that we have spun.”

FREDERIC OZONAN

September 7

“The deliverance of the soul from all useless and selfish and unquiet cares, brings to it an unspeakable peace and freedom; this is true simplicity. This state of entire resignation and perpetual acquiescence produces true liberty; and this liberty brings perfect simplicity. The soul which knows no self-seeking, no interested ends, is thoroughly candid; it goes straight forward without hindrance; its path opens daily more and more to ‘perfect day’, in proportion as its self-renunciation and its self-forgetfulness increase; and its peace, amid whatever troubles beset it, will be as boundless as the depths of the sea.”

Fénélon

“I think not of to-morrow,
Its trial or its task;
But still, with child-like spirit,
For present mercies ask.
With each returning morning,
I cast old things away;
Life’s journey lies before me –
My prayer is for to-day.”

September 6

“Our life is determined for us, and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us and doing what is given us to do.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“The one secret of life and development is not to devise and plan, but to fall in with the forces at work – to do every moment’s duty aright – that being the part allotted to us; and let come – not what will, for there is no such thing – but what the Eternal Thought wills for each of us, has intended for each of us from the first. If men would but believe that they are in process of creation, and consent to be made – let the Maker handle them as the potter his clay, yielding themselves to respondent motion and submissive hopeful action with the turining of His wheel, they would ere long find themsxelves able to welcome every pressure of that Hand on them, even when it was felt in pain, and sometimes not only to believe but to recognise the Divine end in view, the bringing of a son into glory.”

G. MACDONALD

“We mustn’t be in a hurry to fix and choose our own lot, we must wait to be guided.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

September 5

“If we are really, and always, and equally ready to do whatsoever the King appoints, all the trials and vexations, arising from any change in His appointments, great or small, simply do not exist. If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here? If He appoints me to wait indoors to-day, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out of doors? If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because He sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak them, or ‘show kindness’ for His sake, or at least obey His command, ‘Be courteous’? If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I be put out if to-day’s appointment is some simple work for my hands or errand for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue?”

F. R. HAVERGAL

“The little worries which we meet each day
May lie as stumbling blocks across our way,
Or we may make them stepping-stones to be
Of grace, O Lord, to Thee.”

A. E. HAMILTON

September 4

“’There is nothing in the drudgery og domestic duties to soften’ – you quote that. No, but a great deal to strengthen with the sense of duty done, self-control, and power. Besides, you cannot calculate how much corroding dust is kept off, - how much of disconsolate dull despondency is hindered. Daily use is not the jeweller’s mercurial polish, but it will keep your little silver pencil from tarnishing.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.

“All may of Thee partake,
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this tincture, ‘for Thy sake’,
Will not grow bright and clean.

“A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine.

“This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.”

GEORGE HERBERT