Let the earth bring forth vegetation

"the voice which was then heard and that first command became, as it were, a law of nature and remained in the earth, giving it the power to produce and bear fruit for all succeeding time. . . ."
"Reflect, I beg you, that in consequence of this short word and a command so brief, the earth, chilled and barren, was incessantly in travail and stirred up to productiveness. . . ."
"That command, which even yet is inherent in the earth, impels it in the course of each year to exert all the power it has for the generation of herbs, seeds, and trees.  For, as tops, from the first impulse given to them, produce successive whirls when they are spun, so also the order of nature, having received its beginning from that first command continues to all time thereafter. . . ."
"Consider the word of God moving through all creation, having begun at that time, active up to the present, and efficacious until the end, even to the consummation of the world. . . .
"This command remains in the earth and the earth does not cease serving the Creator. . . ."
"the soul of brute beasts did not emerge after having been hidden in the earth, but it was called into existence at the time of the command. . . ."

St. Basil the Great on Gen 1:11, On the Hexaemeron 5.1, 2, 10; 9.2-3, trans. Sister Agnes Clare Way, C.D.P. (FC 46, 67, 69, 82, 136-138).

Not the extent of our happiness, but the firmness of our determination

"love consists, not in the extent of our happiness, but in the firmness of our determination to try to please God in everything, and to endeavour, in all possible ways, not to offend Him, and to pray Him ever to advance the honour and glory of His Son and the growth of the Catholic Church.  Those are the signs of love. . . ."

St. Teresa of Avila, Interior castle, Third mansions, chap. 2 (Complete works of St. Teresa of Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, vol. 2 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946), 233).

Serving God at a snail's pace

"The penances done by these persons are as carefully ordered as their lives.  They have a great desire for penance, so that by means of it they may serve Our Lord--and there is nothing wrong in that--and for this reason they observe great discretion in their penances, lest they should injure their health.  You need never fear that they will kill themselves:  they are eminently reasonable folk!  Their love is not yet ardent enough to overwhelm their reason.  How I wish ours would make us dissatisfied with this habit of always serving God at a snail's pace!  As long as we do that we shall never get to the end of the road.  And as we seem to be walking along and getting fatigued all the time--for, believe me, it is an exhausting road--we shall be very lucky if we escape getting lost.  Do you think, daughters, if we could get from one country to another in a week, it would be advisable, with all the winds and snow and floods and bad roads, to take a year over it?  Would it not be better to get the journey over and done with? . . .
"When we proceed with all this caution, we find stumbling blocks everywhere; for we are afraid of everything, and so dare not go farther, as if we could arrive at these Mansions by letting others make the journey for us!  That is not possible, my sisters; so, for the love of the Lord, let us make a real effort:  let us leave our reason and our fears in His hands and let us forget the weakness of our nature which is apt to cause us so much worry.  Let our superiors see to the care of our bodies; that must be their concern:  our own task is only to journey with good speed so that we may see the Lord."

St. Teresa of Avila, Interior castle, Third mansions, chap. 2 (Complete works of St. Teresa of Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, vol. 2 (London:  Sheed & Ward, 1946), 226).

"How is it, Lord, that we are cowards in everything save in opposing Thee?"

¿Qués esto, señor, que para todo somos cobardes, si no es para contra uos?

     St. Teresa of Avila, Las exclamaçiones del alma a su dios/Exclamations of the soul to God 12, The complete works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, trans. E. Allison Peers, vol. 2 (London:  Sheed & Ward, 1946), 412; Obras de Sta. Teresa de Jesus, ed. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D., tom. 4 (Burgos:  Typographia de "El Monte Carmelo", 1917), 363.

What is this, Lord, that we are cowards about everything except being against You?

     Soliloquies 12, The collected works of St. Teresa of Avila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. & Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., vol. 2 (Washington, DC:  ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976), 454.

John Wesley on the role in our lives of the faithful departed

"It has in all ages been allowed that the communion of saints extends to those in paradise as well as those upon earth as they are all one body united under one Head. And

Can death's interposing tide
Spirits one in Christ divide?

But it is difficult to say either what kind or what degree of union may be between them. It is not improbable their fellowship with us is far more sensible than ours with them. Suppose any of them are present, they are hid from our eyes, but we are not hid from their sight. They no doubt clearly discern all our words and actions, if not all our thoughts too; for it is hard to think these walls of flesh and blood can intercept the view of an angelic being. But we have in general only a faint and indistinct perception of their presence, unless in some peculiar instances, where it may answer some gracious ends of Divine Providence. Then it may please God to permit that they should be perceptible, either by some of our outward senses or by an internal sense for which human language has not any name. But I suppose this is not a common blessing. I have known but few instances of it. To keep up constant and close communion with God is the most likely means to obtain this also.
"Whatever designs a man has, whatever he is proposing to do, either for himself or his friends, when his spirit goes hence all are at an end. And it is in this sense only that ‘all our thoughts perish.’ Otherwise all our thoughts and designs, though not carried into execution, are noted in His Book who accepts us according to our willing mind and rewards intentions as well as actions. By aiming at Him in all things, by studying to please Him in all your thoughts and words and actions, you are continually sowing to the Spirit; and of the Spirit you will reap life everlasting."

John Wesley, letter to Mary Bishop dated 9 May 1773.  The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., ed. John Telford (London:  The Epworth Press, 1960 [1931]), vol. 6, pp. 26-27.  Cf. http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/letters/1773.htm.

"But we have no reason to think they [departed souls] are confined to this place [heaven]; or, indeed, to any other.  May we not rather say that, as 'servants of his,' as well as the holy angels, they 'do his pleasure,' whether among the inhabitants of the earth or in any other part of his dominions?"

John Wesley, sermon "On faith, Hebrews 11:1," Works of John Wesley (Bicentennial edition of the works of John Wesley), ed. Albert Outler et al., vol. 4 (Sermons IV, 115-151), p. 195.


Both quotations were encountered originally in Maura Hearden, "Our lady of sacramental communion:  Marian possibilities emerging from Catholic-Methodist dialogue," Pro ecclesia 19, no. 1 (Winter 2010):  90.  Except that Hearden (a Catholic) doesn't quote the paragraph beginning, "Whatever de[s]igns a man has, whatever he is proposing to do, either for himself or his friends, when his spirit goes hence all are at an end."  How did Wesley reconcile these statements?  By restricting the designs-at-an-end to those of this life only?

Maddox:  "At least once [Wesley] suggested a participation by the 'souls of departed Christians' (saints?)" in the providential care of God (Randy L. Maddox, Responsible grace:  John Wesley's practical theology (Nashville, TN:  Kingswood Books, Abingdon Press, 1994), 60 with 282n92, where the second of the two quotations above is cited), but "valued the saints as honored exemplars, not intercessors" (208 with 352n94, where references to his "criticism of intercessory prayer to saints" are given).  For more on this according to Maddox, see Laurence Hull Stookey, "The Wesleys and the saints," Liturgy 5 (1985-1986):  77-81, and Geoffrey Wainwright, "Wesley and the communion of the saints,"  One in Christ 27 (1991):  332-345.

Tempus fugit

"And then suddenly, the receiver pressed to my ear, another even more inert silence filled the optic lines connecting us.  And I had the sharpest pain that Ann was going to die, not in Haddam and not immediately, not even soon, but not so long from then either--at the end of a period of time that, because she was abandoning me for the arms of another, would pass almost imperceptibly, her life's extinguishment paying out beyond my knowing. . . ."

Frank Bascombe in Richard Ford's Independence Day:  a novel (Boston:  Little, Brown and Company (Canada) Limited, 1995), 102.

"each event is revealed to us only at the surrender of every alternate course."

The mysterious stranger in the Epilogue to Cormac McCarthy's Cities of the plain (The Border trilogy: All the pretty horses, The crossing, Cities of the plain, Everyman's Library 261 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 274).