November 27

“Any strictness which sours our temper, which makes us dislike our fellow-creatures, which shuts us up in ourselves; or, again, any which interferes with our duties, and oppresses us with little fidgety difficulties, instead of carrying us along in obeying the laws of our state of life, is almost certain to be a morbid strictness. The object of all strictness is to fence duties round, so as to make their performance more sure, and to fence our hearts round, so as to make the feeling more human and so more heavenly; and if our strictness do not give us these results, we must look to it that we are not making some great blunder.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“Take care not to lay upon yourselves unnecessary burdens. Do not attempt more prayers than your time and strength allow. . . . Beware of a fidgety, fussy kind of religion. Do not be over anxious. A great saint was once asked, ‘How can I live the higher life?’ and he answered, ‘My child, go and live the lower life, and God will teach you the higher.’”

Bishop WILKINSON

November 26

“Rules of holy living may be a snare, and prove burdensome and entangling rather than helpful, if, in administering them to ourselves, we do not continually keep our eye fixed on the spirit and principle of them. ‘The end of the commandment is love’, a growing and ever deepening recognition of God as our tender Father through Christ, and of men as our brethren.”

GOULBURN

“Love is higher than duty, just as it is more excellent to worship God than to hold fast by a rule, however excellent that rule may be. But the reason is that love in reality contains duty in itself. Love without a sense of duty is a mere delusion from which we cannot too soon set ourselves free. Love is duty and something more. Love is a noble tree of which duty is the trunk. Love is a beautiful plant, with a beautiful flower, of which duty is the stalk.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“He said . . . . ‘It was not well to be so wedded even to the mopst pious observances . . . as never to break through them, lest under the garb of faithful adherence to rule self-love should creep in. And moreover’, he added, ‘consideration for others is the offspring of love, and worth more than strictness.’”

From Life of St Francis de Sales