nogreaterlove.myfreeforum.org :: Index

This corner and thread is set aside for us to share Christian thoughts. Please participate by sharing poetry, an encouraging word, story, video, picture, etc. .

Love's as warm as tears,

Love is tears:

Pressure within the brain,

Tension at the throat,

Deluge, weeks of rain,

Haystacks afloat,

Featureless seas between

Hedges, where once was green.

Love's as fierce as fire,

Love is fire:

All sorts - infernal heat

Clinkered with greed and pride,

Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,

Laughing, even when denied,

And that empyreal flame

Whence all loves came.

Love's as fresh as spring,

Love is spring:

Bird-song hung in the air,

Cool smells in a wood,

Whispering 'Dare! Dare!'

To sap, to blood,

Telling 'Ease, safety, rest,

Are good: not best.'

Love's as hard as nails,

Love is nails:

Blunt, thick, hammered through

The medial nerves of One

Who, having made us, knew

The thing He had done,

Seeing (with all that is)

Our cross, and His.

C.S. Lewis

The soul of man is receptive of impressions, and in whatsoever she meditates, she is dyed withal and becomes the colour of the same. When she hears the dirges of the wailing women, she overflows with grief and pours out tears over the departed; and when again she hears the songs and jests of the actors she waxes wanton, that with a loud voice she may pour forth laughter. When she hears evil reports, dread comes upon her; but if she hears good tidings, she is glad. And every wind that blows towards her moves her; and in whatsoever direction it be, each time she turns. When, then, she hears the sound of the service of God's house, spiritually she is moved with love towards God; and as it were she despises the evil world and its affairs, and comes in and mingles with these godly meditations; and she cleaves to and loves that spiritual conversation. She contemns the world and its affairs and its doings; and she is steeped in these voices of holiness, and all carnal thoughts depart from her. And the soul contemns the love of the world and its pleasures, and thoughts of wantonness and remissness. And when she hears these voices that are sung to her, she is chaste and lowly and full of hope and moderation. Wherefore it is right that he who enters in to give himself to prayer should be long in God's house.

- ST. JACOB of SERÛGH

Talking of Christian Thoughts reminded me of one particular "Thought for the Month" article on the website of our church. Please see the Thought for June 2002 here http://www.grovebaptist.co.uk/thought_for_month.htm . I hope it is OK to link in this way (it has been a while since I last visited)

Thanks for putting it into my head.

Thanks Grove - and I liked the "How to be sure of Heaven" link.

Martyrs of great love, only your suffering is less than your love. Every worldly love brings suffering greater than its love. But you have loved what is deeper than time and wider than space.

When your mortal brothers hear about your sufferings they consider them unbelievable and unbearable. For they can really imagine themselves only in your sufferings and not in your love, in the meaning of your sufferings. Oh, if they could only imagine themselves in your love also! All your sufferings would seem like nothing to them, just as they seemed to you. Just as the cold rain and the howling of the wind seem like nothing to a mother as she hurries home to her child.

-St Nikolai of Ohrid

And there she lay the girl with crystal tears,
displaying to the world her deepest fears.
And there he sat, he sits all alone
with all his hopes that have now all gone

The rain, it was the rain that made her cry.
For look the sun is out and her eyes are dry.

The tears dried up, inside he died.
He just gave up so long he tried:
To show his love he gave his all.
His all he gave was he too loyal.

And there he lay, with his crystal tears.
Reflecting on all those wasted years.
So now he sits to contemplate the shock,
in his heart of heart he hope she hasn't forgot:

It was the rain, the rain that made her cry,
and now the sun is out that her eyes are dry.
The tears dried up, inside they died,
the anger stopped, so long they tried.
To show their love, their all they gave,
was it enough, for their love to save.......

St Veronica (Bernice), a woman healed by Christ. Commemorated on July 12.

Saint Veronica (also Berenice) is known as the woman who wiped Christ's face as He carried His cross towards Golgotha and as the woman who Christ cured of the issue of blood, who is also traditionally identified as Herod the Great's niece.

Life
Few concrete details are known of the life of Saint Veronica, though much folklore has arisen, especially in Western Christendom, concerning her miraculous cloth, or veil, which touched the face of Christ.

Traditionally, Veronica came to believe in Christ when He healed her of an ailment that had afflicted her for twelve years:

And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and
touched the hem of his garment:
For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.
But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.
And the woman was made whole from that hour.

The next episode that we hear of in her life is the famous cloth incident during Christ's crucifixion. When Christ paused in exhaustion, Veronica was able to give the Lord her handkerchief. When she looked at the cloth again, she realized that an image of Christ's face had appeared on it; this is often called the first icon. Veronica's name itself is said to be derived from the Latin words meaning true (verus) image/icon .

No one is certain of what happened to Veronica in her later years, though one story has it that she cured the Roman Emperor Tiberius of some kind of sickness using her iconic cloth. Some sources say that she and her husband, named Zacchaeus, travelled all the way to Southern France confessing the Gospel.

Hymn
Troparion (Tone 8)

The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Mother,
For you took up the Cross and followed Christ.
By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away,
But to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal.
Therefore your spirit, O Holy Mother Veronica, rejoices with the Angels!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Welcome To "no greater love" Guest