Fr Luke Miller

With thanks to Fr Tim Handley of S James Garlickhythe who drew my attention to this passage from Jeremy Taylor.  [The Eucharist] is the greatest solemnity of prayer, the most powerful liturgy and means of impetration [fervent request], in this world. For when Christ' was consecrated on the cross, and became our high priest, having reconciled us to God by the death of the cross, he became infinitely gracious in the eyes of God, and was admitted to the celestial and eternal priesthood in heaven; where, in the virtue of the cross, he intercedes for us, and re-presents [ie makes present an eternal reality here and now. ] an eternal sacrifice in the heavens on our behalf. That he is a priest in heaven, appears in the large discourses and direct affirmatives of St. Paul. That there is no other sacrifice to be offered, but that on the cross, it is evident, because "he hath but once appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself;" and, therefore,...

S Andrew by the Wardrobe is host to an Indian Orthodox congregation. They cast petals on the ground on their Palm Sunday procession. Seeing them there as I came home yesterday put me in mind of a poem of S Therese of Lisieux, An Unpetalled Rose The text is here . The poem meditates on the first trembling steps of the child Jesus, beginning with what seems the sentimental desire to unpetal a rose 'So that your little foot might rest ever so softly on a flower.' The wobbling attempts of the toddler are but the first steps on the way of the Cross. The poet realises this as she suggests that her life should be unpetalled; not standing proud like the flowers in the vase, but unpetalled and cast on the processional path: 'The rose in its splendor can adorn your feast... but the unpetalled rose is just flung out to blow away... like it, with joy I abandon myself to you." So often we want to be heroes of the faith, obvious in our devotion, strangely selfish in our ver...

Fr George Congreve SSJE was a great spiritual writer. I hope my study of his thought and writings will appear next year. This is from an essay written in South Africa on The Incarnation of Our Lord . By a Divine act God has raised creation up to a new relation to Himself for ever It is not that the Christian poets have struck a new vein of joy in a higher and more hopeful way of looking upon nature and man's destiny, which is expressed in the story of Bethlehem: but that by a Divine act God has raised creation up to a new relation to Himself for ever. Fallen man had always an obscure fellowship with nature in sorrow and desire; but by the Incarnation their fellowship is advanced to the joy of an immeasurable hope, and of praise which cannot be expressed. For on a certain day the Eternal Son of God took His place in creation and became the Head over all things, in order to sum up the created universe in Himself, and present it to the Father, raised to the height of the Divine pur...