Nothing is less probable

"nothing is less likely than that our flesh, in which we bear about the death of Christ himself, should be deprived of Christ's resurrection."

"nihil minus probabile quam ut privetur Christi resurrectione caro nostra, in qua circunferimus mortificationem ipsius Christi."

     John Calvin, Institutes III.xxv.7, trans. Battles (LCC 21, 1000)  =COS 4, 447.

"because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him"

"We must take care that the praise we offer him proceeds in good order, with no kind of excess creeping in which could offend the one whom we praise. We therefore think it best to follow the path of praise marked out in God’s scriptures, not declining from the way either to the right hand or to the left. I would go so far as to say to you, beloved, that God has praised himself in order to give human beings a pattern by which they can praise him in a seemly fashion. Because God has kindly praised himself, men and women know how to praise him [(ut bene ab homine laudetur deus, laudauit se ipse deus; et quia dignatus est laudare se, ideo inuenit homo quemadmodum laudet eum)]."

     St. Augustine, Exposition of Ps 144 (145).1, trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/20, 379.  Latin from CCSL 40, 2088 ll. 1-8 via CAG via Past Masters.  St. Augustine continues as follows:  "It cannot, of course, be said to God, as it is to humans, Let not your own mouth praise you (Prv 27:2). If a human being praises himself, it is arrogance, but if God praises himself, he does so out of his mercy. It is to our advantage to love him whom we praise because, by loving the good, we become better. Knowing that it is good for us to love him, God has made himself lovable by praising himself, and in making himself lovable he has our good at heart. He therefore stirs up our hearts to praise him, and he has filled his servants with his own Spirit, to enable them to offer him praise. And if it is his own Spirit, present in his servants, who is praising him, what else can we conclude but that God is praising himself?"  Trans. H. Walford, Expositions on the book of Psalms, Library of the Fathers, vol. 6 (1857), p. 314:

in order that the praise which we give Him may be in due order, that it may not by any excess offend Him Whom it praiseth, it is better for us to seek the path of praise in the Scripture of God, that we turn not aside from the way, either to the right hand or to the left.  For I venture to say to you, beloved, God hath praised Himself, that He might be properly praised by man:  and because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him.

"she was squeamish, and she was [still] alive"

     'I have heard that white men eat turtles,' said Long Bear’s wife.  'I do not believe it.'
     'They do eat turtles,' said High Backbone, 'and they eat frogs.  A white man told me.  I asked him.'
     'Ey!  And such unclean things; I could not eat them,' cried Bird Woman [(Sacagawea)].

     . . .

     "How do we know this happened?  Buffalo Bird Woman was there, she told [Gilbert] Wilson, and Wilson told us.  It’s even possible that Wilson confirmed it with Wounded Face.  This simple story, published by a man careful with facts, might tell us two things about Bird Woman in the 1860s:  she was squeamish, and she was alive."

     Thomas Powers, "Getting Sacagawea right," reviewing Our story of Eagle Woman:  Sacagawea:  they got it wrong, by the Sacagawea Project Board of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (Paragon Agency, ), The New York review of books 70, no. 10 (June 8, 2023):  41, 42 (39-42), on Sacagawea "in the mid-1860s", not long before (supposedly) her actual death in 1869, not 20 December 1812 as long thought.  Nineteen or twenty in August of 1806 (39), she would thus have been born c. 1786 or 1787.

Salt and light

"First salt, then light, so that you may learn how profitable sharp words [(τῶν κατεστυμμένων ῥημάτων)] may be and how useful serious doctrine [(τῆς σεμνῆς διδασκαλίας)]."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 201 at 195A =PG 57, col. 232.  NPNF:

"And before they are salt, and now light; to teach thee how great [(ἡλίκον)] is the gain of these strict precepts, and the profit of that grave discipline: . . ."

No easy struggles or unimportant tasks

"Do not think, he says, that you are destined for easy struggles or unimportant tasks.  You are the salt of the earth."

Μὴ τοίνυν νομίσητε, φησὶν, ἐπὶ τοὺς τυχόντας ἀγῶνας ἕλκεσθαι, μηδὲ ὑπὲρ μικρῶν τινων εἶναι τὸν λόγον ὑμῖν·  "ὑμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἄλας τῆς γῆς."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours (Universalis).  =Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1839), vol. 1, p. 199 at 193E =PG 57, col. 231.  NPNF:

"'Think not then,' He saith, 'that ye are drawn on to ordinary conflicts, or that for some small matters you are to give account.' 'Ye are the salt of the earth.'"

May he reward with blessed gifts all who sing in these quiet hours the Psalms of David

Köln, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und
Dombibliothek, 215 (12th cent.), fol. 212v

May he reward with blessed gifts all who—at the most hallowed of times on this, the first of all days, at which the world stood forth created, and the resurgent Creator, having conquered death, set us free—sing, in these quiet hours, the Psalms [of David].

     An amalgam of stanzas one and four of the anonymous 6th- or 7th-century hymn Primo dierum omnium, sometimes attributed to St. Gregory the Great, and assigned traditionally to Sunday Matins during the winter season.  I have taken but two further slight liberties:  "times" ("sacratissimo . . . tempore") is singular, and "having conquered death" ("morte victa") should read, literally, "death having been conquered".  Though I have not taken this from a properly critical edition, the whole runs as follows:

Primo dierum omnium,
quo mundus exstat conditus
vel quo resurgens conditor
nos, morte victa, liberat,

Pulsis procul torporibus,
surgamus omnes ocius,
et nocte quaeramus pium,
sicut Prophetam novimus,

Nostras preces ut audiat
suamque dextram porrigat,
et hic piatos sordibus
reddat polorum sedibus,

Ut, quique sacratissimo
huius diei tempore
horis quietis psallimus,
donis beatis muneret.

Deo Patri sit gloria
eiusque soli Filio
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula.  Amen.

As translated at Universalis:

On this the first of all days,
When the world came forth created
And when, with death conquered,
The risen Creator frees us,

Having cast aside all sloth
Let us all arise with alacrity
And by night seek the merciful One
Whom we recognize as a prophet,

That he may attend to our prayers
And stretch out [to us] his right hand,
And, once cleansed of our sins,
Grant [us] a place in heaven,

That he may reward with blessed gifts
All who at the most hallowed
Time of this day,
Sing his praises in these quiet hours.

Glory be to God the Father
And to his only Son
With the Spirit Paraclete
For ever and ever.  Amen.

As translated by Walsh and Husch (One hundred Latin hymns:  Ambrose to Aquinas, Dumbarton Oaks medieval library (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2012), no. 38, pp. 147, 438-439, where Walpole, Early Latin hymns (1922), 262-263; Wieland, The Canterbury hymnal (1982), 24-25; and Milfull, The hymns of the Anglo-Saxon church (1982), 115-119 are also cited):

On this, the first day of all days
on which the world, being made, emerged,
on which the maker rose again
and freed us, having conquered death,

Let us, sloth driven far away,
rise all together urgently,
in darkness beg the holy one,
as we know the prophet did,

That he might hearken to our prayers
and offer unto us his hand,
and render us, here cleansed of filth,
unto the heavenly demesnes;

And that whoever on this day,
which is the holiest of all,
do hymn him in these hours of rest
be endowed by him with blessed gifts.

Trundling along at my own leisurely pace

Source

     "A sister wanted to know just how this martyrdom [of love] worked out in practice.
     "'Give God your unconditional consent,' she said, 'and then you will find out. What happens is that love seeks out the most intimate and secret place of your soul, as with a sharp sword, and cuts you off even from your own self. I know of a soul cut off in this way so that she felt it more keenly than if a tyrant had cleaved her body from her soul.'
     "We knew, of course, that she was speaking about herself. A sister wanted to know how long this martyrdom was likely to last.
     "'From the moment we give ourselves up wholeheartedly to God until the moment we die,' she answered. 'But this goes for generous hearts and people who keep faith with love and don’t take back their offering; our Lord doesn’t take the trouble [(ne s'appliquer pas)] to make martyrs of feeble hearts and people who have little love and not much constancy; he just lets them jog along in their own little way [(il se contente de les laisser rouler leur petit train, he is content to allow them to trundle [along at] their [own] leisurely pace)] in case [(de crainte que, for fear that)] they [will] give up and slip from his hands altogether; he never forces our free will.'"

     Françoise-Madeleine de Chaugy of St. Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal, Memoires de la Mère de Chaugy:  sur la vie et les vertus de Sainte Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal III.3, as translated in the Liturgy of the hours as reproduced by Universalis.  French:  2nd ed. (Le Mans:  Fleuriot; Paris:  Sagnier et Bray, 1845), 347.  "for fear that" ("de crainte que") is far less ambiguous than "in case".  The translation in Universalis allows for the possibility that God hopes we'll "give up and slip from his hands altogether".