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Selections on pastoral character and work are now collected under “Pastoral Practice” in the menu item to the right and in the Categories below. The first selections are from Gregory the Great’s Book of Pastoral Rule or Care, his treatise on the responsibilities of ministers that he wrote shortly after his inauguration as Bishop of Rome in… Read More Selections on Pastoral Practice
Selections on morning prayer and the practice of piety in the morning from Lewis Bayly are now collected in the category “The Practice of Piety” below and at the menu item “Devotions – The Practice of Piety” to the right and linked here:
In short: Men who are gifted for ministry and exercise genuine piety have been given those gifts not just for themselves but also to serve others. They ought not refuse the call out of desire for ease. The care of feeding the flock is the proof of loving it. Refusing to feed it is failing to love… Read More The Book of Pastoral Rule (Care), Gregory the Great, Part I, Chapter V
From Bayly. Think not any business or haste, though never so great, a sufficient excuse to omit prayer in the morning: But meditate— 1. That the greater thy business is, by so much the more need thou hast to pray for God’s good speed and blessing upon it, seeing it is certain that nothing… Read More Morning Piety: How A Private Man Must Begin the Morning with Piety – Further Meditations to stir us up to Prayer in the Morning
“O great and wonderful Lord our God, thou only light of the eyes, open, I implore thee, the eyes of my heart, and of others my fellow-creatures, that we may truly understand and contemplate thy wondrous works. And the more thoroughly we comprehend them, the more may our minds be affected in the contemplation with… Read More Prayer of Thomas Bradwardine, c. 1295-1349, Chaplain and Confessor to Edward III, King of England.
From Bayly 6. Lastly, when such thoughts come into thy head, either to keep thee from prayer, or to distract thee in praying, remember that those are the fowls which the evil one sends to devour the good seed, and the carcasses of thy spiritual sacrifices [Matt. xiii:19]; but endeavour with Abraham, to drive them… Read More Morning Piety: How A Private Man Must Begin the Morning with Piety – Meditations (on Distractions) to stir us up to morning prayer & Short Morning Prayer – 6
From Bayly 5. Consider, that if the papists, in their blind superstition, do in an unknown, and therefore unedifying tongue, fit only for the children of mystical Babylon (1 Cor. xiv. 14; Gen. xi. 9; Rev. xvii. 5), mutter over upon their beads every morning and evening so many scores of ave-maries, paternosters, and idolatrous… Read More Morning Piety: How A Private Man Must Begin the Morning with Piety – Meditations to stir us up to morning prayer – 5: Sincere devotion, not papist superstition and repetition
From Bayly. 4. Call to mind the zealous devotions of the Christians in the primitive church, who spent many whole nights and vigils in watching and praying for the forgiveness of their sins, and that they might be found ready at the coming of Christ; and that David was not content to pray at morning,… Read More Morning Piety: How A Private Man Must Begin the Morning with Piety – Meditations to stir us up to morning prayer – 4: Zealous devotions of the ancient Christians
From Bayly. 3. Remember, that as loathing of meat, and painfulness of speaking, are two symptoms of a sick body; so irksomeness of praying when thou talkest with God, and carelessness in hearing, when God, by his word, speaks unto thee, are two sure signs of a sick soul. ________________ Is. 57:15 For thus saith… Read More Morning Piety: How A Private Man Must Begin the Morning with Piety – Meditations to stir us up to morning prayer – 3: Symptoms of a sick body
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