Tasmania’s Anglican Church has been warned of a potential legal battle after a rural community lost its fight to save its church from being sold off.

Eight of the churches in the Southern Midlands were earlier this year proposed for sale to help fund the National Redress Scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse.

A revised list of properties to be sold released on Sunday still includes seven of the eight; only St Matthias’ at Woodsdale has been spared a future for-sale sign.

Tony Bisdee, the region’s former mayor who is now a councillor, has vowed to pursue legal action after the decision to proceed with selling the historic St Mary’s Church at Kempton.

“We would have the highest percentage of Anglican churches for sale in Tasmania,” he said.

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Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable medical condition. Easy access to drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and even prescription medications like OxyContin has fueled an epidemic of addiction—the deadliest in U.S. history.

Take the time to watch it all.

Several studies of religion and mental health have shown religious beliefs and practices and positive relationships with a divine being can be powerful resources helping people cope with major challenges such as illness and unemployment.

More recent research also suggests faith may help individuals deal with intense, lasting anger.

Scholars in the developing field of religion and criminal justice are finding evidence that suggests practical ways faith may turn lives around even in the depths of prison.

One of those new findings: Organized religion matters.

A study of 571 prisoners in Oregon found those who identified as religious and spiritual were less likely to reoffend in the 13 years after an initial 2004 survey than spiritual but not religious inmates. More frequent service attendance and the greater likelihood of spending time in private thought and prayer partially explained the differences.

“The results highlight the importance of ensuring support for persons in prison in the process of making meaning, in addition to supporting the work of prisonchaplains and religious volunteers,” researchers reported in the Journal of Criminal Justice and Behavior.

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The lyrics are:

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign

Every eye shall now behold Him
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.

The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture, with what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

Yea, amen; let all adore thee,
High on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory;
Claim the kingdoms for thine own:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Thou shalt reign, and thou alone.

To prevent his disciples from asking the time of his coming, Christ said: “About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments.” He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savour: it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.

Though the Lord has established the signs of his coming, the time of their fulfilment has not been plainly revealed. These signs have come and gone with a multiplicity of change; more than that, they are still present. His final coming is like his first. As holy men and prophets waited for him, thinking that he would reveal himself in their own day, so today each of the faithful longs to welcome him in his own day, because Christ has not made plain the day of his coming.

He has not made it plain for this reason especially, that no one may think that he whose power and dominion rule all numbers and times is ruled by fate and time. He described the signs of his coming; how could what he has himself decided be hidden from him? Therefore, he used these words to increase respect for the signs of his coming, so that from that day forward all generations and ages might think that he would come again in their own day.

Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faint-heartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.

When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity. As Scripture says: “Wake up, you just,” and “I have risen, and am still with you;” and again, “Do not lose heart. Therefore, having this ministry, we do not lose heart.”

–From a commentary on the Diatessaron (the single gospel harmony of the early Syriac church), by St Ephrem (ca. 306 – 373)

Saint Ephrem–Keep watch: he is 2 come agn https://t.co/vdf5eV8mGM 'As holy men+prophets waitd for him, thinking that he wd reveal himself in their own day, so 2day each of the faithful longs 2 welcome him in his own day, bec Christ has nt made plain the day of his coming' #advent pic.twitter.com/Vv4oRyBI6k

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 2, 2018

Make us, we beseech thee, O Lord our God, watchful and heedful in awaiting the coming of thy Son Christ our Lord; that when he shall come and knock, he shall find us not sleeping in sin, but awake and rejoicing in his praises; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” #AdventSunday #Advent #HTT pic.twitter.com/zscshXr63k

— Amy (@amymeganbrown) December 2, 2018

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzzi′ah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezeki′ah, kings of Judah.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
for the Lord has spoken:
“Sons have I reared and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner,
and the ass its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know,
my people does not understand.”

Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
sons who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.

Why will you still be smitten,
that you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and bleeding wounds;
they are not pressed out, or bound up,
or softened with oil.

Your country lies desolate,
your cities are burned with fire;
in your very presence
aliens devour your land;
it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens.
And the daughter of Zion is left
like a booth in a vineyard,
like a lodge in a cucumber field,
like a besieged city.

If the Lord of hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we should have been like Sodom,
and become like Gomor′rah.

–Isaiah 1:1-9

Christians who were the first founders of the church are on brink of “imminent extinction”, the Archbishop of Canterbury warns today.

Describing the “daily threat of murder” faced in the Middle East, the Most Reverend Justin Welby says Christians are experiencing “the worst situation since the Mongol invasions of the 13th Century”.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Archbishop Welby, the most senior clergyman in the Church of England, calls on the Government to take in more refugees.

It comes as figures have revealed just one in 400 Syrian refugees given asylum in the UK last year were Christians despite them being subjected to “horrendous persecution”.

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Christians on brink of extinction in Middle East, warns Archbishop of Canterbury https://t.co/4Ra3HX3zkm pic.twitter.com/fAG5AMTenS

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) December 1, 2018

O Lord, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and who in thy mercy hast led us in safety through all the days of our pilgrimage: Accept the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving, and hear our prayer as now we offer our lives afresh to thee; beseeching thee that in the time that remains to us we may devote ourselves more fully to thy service and prove ourselves more worthy of thy goodness; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Fair winds and following seas, Sir. We have the watch. pic.twitter.com/GdGoBmvKKx

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) December 1, 2018

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Dec 1 – “Bl. Charles de Foucauld” © icon by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM. Happy Feast Day Charles! https://t.co/ZkidRgKepg pic.twitter.com/rz4BO6wocs

— The Trinity Crew (@trinityiconsguy) December 1, 2018

Almighty God, everlasting Father, as another year draws to its close we thank thee for the protection, comfort and guidance thou hast given us through its course. We thank thee for thy goodness that hath created us, for thy bounty that hath sustained us, for thy fatherly discipline that hath corrected us, for thy patience that hath borne with us. Above all, we thank thee for thine incarnate Son, sent as at this time to be our Saviour. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

–Philippians 2:1-11

Let me illustrate this sequence by quoting from the memoirs  of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the famous Scottish-born tycoon who made his fortune in America.[2] Raised as a Presbyterian, he became suspicious of religion. When he read Darwin’s theories of evolution, the great philanthropist received what he thought was a revelation.[3] In his memoirs he wrote (this was during the Gilded Age, before the world wars):

…I remember that light came as in a flood and all was clear. Not only had I got rid of theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth…“All is well since all grows better,” became my motto, my true source of comfort. Man…has risen to the higher forms [and there can be no] conceivable end to [man’s] march to perfection.

I don’t believe anyone can read that with a straight face today. And indeed, as it happens, those were not the last words from Mr. Carnegie. The last paragraph of his autobiography was written as World War I broke out. He reread what he had written earlier, and here’s how he responded to it:

As I read this [what he had previously written] today what a change! The world convulsed by war as never before! Men slaying each other like wild beasts! I dare not relinquish all hope.

The manuscript breaks off abruptly.[4] He never finished the autobiography.

In a certain way, this illustrates the turn in biblical interpretation that I’m describing. The horrors of the two World Wars caused a widespread change in the way that serious people understood history. For biblical interpreters, it caused a change in the way the apocalyptic passages in the Bible were read. It was noted that Jesus said, “Behold, I have told you all things beforehand.”

Apocalyptic writing came out of a catastrophe. The Hebrew people—the Israelites—were the people of blessing. They were the people favored by God, who had promised them a future of safety and prosperity. But then they were overwhelmed and conquered and forced into exile in the far distant, pagan Babylonian empire.

Read it all.

Some of you wanted to hear more about the sermon that begins, "Why is Jesus talking like this?"
I posted it on my website in my Ruminations, along with other Advent material.https://t.co/x1ZrLFkocL

— Fleming Rutledge (@flemingrut) November 30, 2018

There is a movement afoot in the Episcopal Church to remove our restriction that only the baptized receive Communion. In my new location, it seems to be diocesan policy not only to allow the unbaptized to commune, but to invite them explicitly to do so. Every parish my family has visited in the diocese has made it very clear that absolutely everyone is invited to the altar for Communion. I have found this grating, theologically. It disregards the proper sequence of initiation. It undercuts the long-standing historical practice of Christian churches. It renders incoherent any sort of claim to have a baptismal ecclesiology. Most important, it downgrades the central role of commitment to Jesus Christ and a life of discipleship to something optional. I’d heard of such things from afar, and now my eyes have seen them.

Recently, our family ventured a bit further north, into the Diocese of California, to a parish where the logic of Communion without baptism is being carried to its logical conclusion, which is also a reductio ad absurdum. The parish we visited did much well: the hymnody and chant were excellent; the liturgy, while using expansive language, remained fairly grounded in traditional forms. Then we reached the fraction anthem.

After a verse about Christ giving himself to his beloved in the bread, we turned a corner in which claims about breaking this bread with Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims were articulated. While I am confident that the intention behind these words was to be open and inclusive, to express solidarity among people of faith, its effect was to undo any sort of claims about Christ’s uniqueness or the necessity for salvation, as well as to colonize these other religious traditions, rather than respecting them in their diversity.[1]

The canons of the Episcopal Church are clear: no unbaptized person is eligible to receive Holy Communion at our altars (I.17.7). This creates a rather interesting contrast in the current church.

Having updated our canons (but not our doctrine, as set forth in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer) to make marriage gender-neutral, there is a movement afoot to bring Communion Partner bishops into line, so that the trial rites for marriage are celebrated in all jurisdictions. At General Convention, Resolution 2018-B012 provided a means for doing this while also respecting the consciences, teaching office, and liturgical presidency of bishops within their dioceses. William Love, the Bishop of Albany, has caused a furorwith his refusal to comply with the provisions of B012, prompting suggestions that Title IV charges be brought against him.[2] Leaving to the side the question of the precise canonical force of a resolution passed by General Convention, and, hence, the applicability of disciplinary charges, we must acknowledge that this outcry is in some tension with other realities in our church….

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Does more robust funding of, say, worker-training programs seem to be the ticket to address the kind of existential angst evidenced by the slide into opioid abuse? Should we expect the induced labor-supply growth from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to counteract the emptiness met by a bottle or pill jar? Is moralizing about civic society sufficient to rebuild a frayed social fabric that leaves too many isolated and alone?

Alone, none of these is sufficient, but the conversation Cass and others have started seems like a step toward responding to the challenge. Broadening our lens beyond economic growth to encourage caring for family, volunteering, or other non-remunerative but socially beneficial activities creates space for small spheres of being needed that can serve as the antidote to anomic suicide.

The worst-case scenario looks something like the human devastation wrought in mid-1990s Russia, and we’re not there yet. But this crisis will continue to, as the cliché goes, get worse until it gets better. Yes, we need to stanch the immediate bleeding, but we need to focus on saving the patient over the long term.

COMMENTS
Doing so requires more creativity and less economic determinism, more willingness to question orthodoxies and less attention paid to the Twitter contretemps of the day, in favor of a politics that places creating space for small spheres of meaning at the forefront of any social agenda.

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Falling Life Expectancy and a Politics of Meaning https://t.co/0wGZMwFG2g

— David Quinn (@DavQuinn) November 30, 2018

The announcement was first reported by Business Insider and comes after a petition from internet-safety advocacy group Enough is Enough garnered more than 26,000 signatures.

The nonprofit launched a porn-free campaign aimed at McDonald’s and Starbucks in 2014, and it says that while McDonald’s “responded rapidly and positively,” Starbucks did not.

Starbucks said in 2016 that the company was “in active discussions with organizations on implementing the right, broad-based solution that would remove any illegal and other egregious content,” according to a statement Monday by Enough is Enough CEO Donna Rice Hughes. But they didn’t act, she said.

“Starbucks has had a tremendous opportunity to put its best foot forward in protecting its customers from images deemed obscene and illegal under the law, but they haven’t budged, despite their promise two years ago and despite the fact that they voluntarily filter this same content in the UK,” Hughes said in the statement.

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Starbucks says the company will start blocking pornography over its stores' Wi-Fi starting in 2019. https://t.co/KTZ5H3cb2m

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 29, 2018

Americans are dying younger, as drug overdoses and suicide kill an increasing number of people, according to a grim new set of government statistics.

Life expectancy declined in 2017, falling to 78.6 years, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control released on Thursday. It is the third straight year life expectancy in the US has declined or stayed flat, reversing course after decades of improvement.

“These sobering statistics are a wake-up call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable,” Dr Robert Redfield, the CDC’s director, said in a statement.

Life expectancy fell from 78.7 in 2016. Women generally live longer, with a life expectancy of 81.1 last year, a number that stayed flat compared with the year before. For men, the number dropped by a 10th of a year to 76.1.

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Almighty God, who didst give such grace to thine apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of thy Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give unto us, who are called by thy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is the Feast Day of Andrew the Apostle. This beautifully illuminated initial shows Andrew's martyrdom on the saltire cross, also known as the Saint Andrew's Cross. It is found in an early-15th century Breviary owned by Archbishop Chicheley (d.1443). [MS 69] #StAndrewsDay pic.twitter.com/ivO6w6Jqbf

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) November 30, 2018

O Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, thanks be to Thee, my joy and my glory, my confidence and my God, thanks be to Thee for Thy gifts. Preserve them to me, for so wilt Thou preserve me myself, and those things shall be enlarged and perfected which Thou hast given me, and I myself shall be with Thee, Who didst give me being. … O Lord, my God, I lay my whole heart upon the altar of Thy praise, a whole burnt-offering of praise I offer to Thee. Let the flame of Thy love set afire my whole heart; let nothing in me be left to myself, nothing wherein I may look to myself; but may I burn wholly before Thee. Lord, let Thy fire consume all that is mine: let all be Thine.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.

–Psalm 140:13

On Tuesday, a CNN poll about the state of anti-Semitism in Europe startled many Americans — and confirmed what Jews who have been paying attention already knew about the Continent.

Not 74 years since the Holocaust ended, a third of respondents said they knew only a little or nothing at all about it.

The poll, which surveyed more than 7,000 people across Austria, France, Germany, Britain, Hungary, Poland and Sweden, didn’t only discover ignorance. It exposed bigotry.

Nearly a quarter of the respondents said Jews have too much influence in conflict and wars. More than a quarter believe that Jews have too much influence in business and finance. Nearly one in five believe that most anti-Semitism is a response to the behavior of Jews. Roughly a third say Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own goals. Just 54 percent say Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state.

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Horrible that this has to be said. Wonderful that @bariweiss is here to say it so well: https://t.co/lTWCGo8N6K

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) November 29, 2018

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ”˜thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.

–C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 2001), p. 134

Happy 120th to CS Lewis! pic.twitter.com/Tg73tZI6Pr

— Mike Schutt (@MichaelSchutt) November 29, 2018

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

–C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Harcourt Brace, 1956), p.228

“You can make anything by writing” -C.S. Lewis#OnThisDay in 1898 C.S. Lewis was born. Follow in his footsteps and check out some of our writer workshops: https://t.co/onWVaJhrGJ #QOTD #CSLewis pic.twitter.com/v4zgTgb0z9

— Gail Borden Library (@gailbrdnlibrary) November 29, 2018

John Gray:…I think the further away secular humanism is from its Christian roots, and the closer it gets to a certain kind of Enlightenment rationalism, in many ways the more illiberal it gets, because in Bentham’s calculus, it could turn out that a widespread cruelty to some small minority could by some calculations turn out to be felicifically or utilitarianally maximal, so why not do it? The only argument Bentham could give then would be to say, “Well, maybe you’d be giving too much power to the majority.” I think the revulsion of modern sensibility is not only that it’s dangerous to do this; it’s that securing pleasure from the suffering of others is in and of itself bad. I can’t think of a classical author or a classical philosopher who says that.

Rowan Williams: Neither can I, and that takes us back to the question of how we think of ethics in terms of the universal recognisability of human dignity, human worth, the claim on our attention – and again, it’s something we’ve learned. I remember reading a book by Joanna Bourke about the early debates on animal rights as well as on women’s rights, and she quoted a pamphlet written by a woman in the early 19th century saying that animals appeared to have more moral recognition in some philosophical discourse than women did. Putting that alongside the endemic racism of a lot of 18th-century thought and it was clear that for some very influential thinkers it was simply not obvious that you recognised the same humanity in people of another race. The universalist claim that there’s something recognisable in the physical humanity of another is an ethical fact of real substance.

Part of the typical secularist narrative is that there is a steady advance in liberality of spirit, in inclusiveness of sympathy, which has something to do with the liberation of individuals from the slavery of dogmatic belief. The Christian response would be, I guess, to say the idea that belief in God is a slavery really assumes a very powerful, very persistent and pervasive version of the religious story in which God is a very large version of what we are, and therefore is in competition with us: because he’s very big and very powerful, he will, on the whole, win such competitions, and therefore we’d better be on our best behaviour. Whereas if certain aspects of the Christian story are foregrounded more obviously, what you end up with, I believe, is the notion that because God has no interests to defend and is in no sense in competition with us, then the dignity of humanity is something we can affirm without any trouble, and without any offence or diminution to the honour of God. And my own liberalism, such as it is, would, I think, be rooted in that sort of conviction: there is something about humanity as endowed by God with the dignity, the beauty, the creativity that we see which again becomes a significant factor in our moral thinking.

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"One of the biggest problems about a lot of contemporary discussion of ethics is the idea that somewhere there is a completely self-evident morality which we’ve never had to learn" Great discussion. John Gray is much better "iron" for Church than Dawkins https://t.co/eTIBuDW35r

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) November 29, 2018

Dorothy grew up with a secret longing for spiritual truth which she successfully ignored for a number of years in which she had an affair, was deserted by her feckless lover, had an abortion – “the great tragedy of her life” – twice attempted suicide, made a brief unsuccessful marriage and then entered into a common-law relationship which, paradoxically (God can use any circumstance to effect transformation, however seemingly unpropitious) was the direct cause of her conversion.

Living in a beach house on Staten Island during her last relationship, she unexpectedly became pregnant and felt that God had given her a second chance at motherhood. Not yet a Catholic she wanted baptism for her baby daughter, Tamar, while knowing that it would mean the end of her relationship to the anarchist and free spirit, Forster Batterham, with whom she had set up home.

Dorothy wrote later that it only slowly dawned on her that “worship, adoration, thanksgiving, supplication – these were the noblest acts of which men were capable in this life.” From her earliest years she had had a strong social conscience; now her Catholic faith gave her the spiritual underpinning to live out this deep humanitarian impulse and to love those at the bottom of the social heap for the rest of her life.

For Dorothy the acute question was, was it possible “to promote and live according to the ideas of Catholic Social teaching and philosophy in a way that would serve others and promote the common good?”

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"Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them".
~Dorothy Day
8 Nov. 1897-29 Nov. 1980
Painting by Ruben Ferreira#dorothyday #thecatholicworker#thedutyofdelight pic.twitter.com/wKDtGVbeIl

— Marlinda Stull (@binkyboo42) November 29, 2018

O Lord our God, who didst in the earthly ministry of your son Jesus Christ didst teach us that you came among us as one who serves, give us grace this day to follow in the steps of your servant Dorothy Day, who sought to lift up the weak, to strengthen the hand of the worker, and always to try to care for one more, to the glory of your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

On 29 November 1980 #DorothyDay passed away in New York City, at Mary house—one of the Catholic settlement houses she had helped establish.
Dorothy Day on Anarchy: https://t.co/2l9G1uMYe2 pic.twitter.com/diUdwo7j8T

— Bread 4 Today (@bread4today) November 28, 2018

Grant us grace, O Father, not to pass by suffering or joy without eyes to see; give us understanding and sympathy, and guard us from selfishness, that we may enter into the joys and sufferings of others; use us to gladden and strengthen those who are weak and suffering; that by our lives we may help others to believe and serve Thee, and shed forth Thy light which is the light of life.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten pounds, and said to them, ‘Trade with these till I come.’ But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ When he returned, having received the kingdom, he commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by trading. The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten pounds more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds.’ And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound, which I kept laid away in a napkin; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man; you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘I will condemn you out of your own mouth, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank, and at my coming I should have collected it with interest?’ And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the pound from him, and give it to him who has the ten pounds.’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds!’) ‘I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.’”

–Luke 19:11-27