learning on Sorrow

Ever loving and eternal God, source of the light that never sets and of the love that never fails. Life of our life, Father of our spirits; draw near to us, and by the remembrance of your ancient merc...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

Suffering is a dreadful teacher but often the beginning of the best in us. Suffering and creativity arc often interdependent. Pain produces a terrible tension released in our creative response. Suffer...

The Church has water and tears, the water of baptism and the tears of repentance.

Faith does not grow in spite of suffering, but through suffering, when hope learns to contradict reality.

The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

IDENTITY AND SUFFERING The key to understanding today’s readings lies in the first half of 1 Peter. Two themes dominate Peter’s encouragement to these early Christians: identity and suffering. Knowi...

Books on the problem of pain divide neatly into two groupings. The older ones, by people like Aquinas, Bunyan, Donne, Luther, Calvin, and Augustine, ungrudgingly accept pain and suffering as God’s use...

A Note of Understanding The Lectionary and the Liturgical Calendar Preaching from the lectionary isn’t always easy. When the assigned texts align with major moments in the liturgical calendar—Christ...

We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.

Leader: We put our trust in you, O Lord. People: We put our trust in you, do not let us be ashamed, or let our enemies triumph over us. Leader: No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, b...

Leader: To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; People: My God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me. Leader: Let none who look to you be put to shame...

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way.

One of the reasons failure can be so crushing is that we set goals of success, instead of improvement and learning.

When people fail, we are inclined to find fault with them, but if you look more closely, you will find that God had some particular truth for them to learn, which the trouble they are in is to teach t...

Leader: Christ bids us: /“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, an...

O my Savior, help me. I am slow to learn, prone to forget, and weak to climb; I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights; I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days, my poverty o...

Cross-bearing is the long lesson of our mortal life. It is a part of God’s salvation, called sanctification. It is a lesson set before us every moment of every day.” “If life were an art lesson…we cou...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Paul’s Relationship to Philippi There is practically no debate that Philippians was written by Paul. This letter is an intimate portray...

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.

Leader: To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; People: The wise will hear and will learn; and one with understanding will listen to wisdom. Leader: To understand p...

Holy Spirit You are not just a whirlwind in the desert a tempest in a teapot You are also here in the slow growth of learning a nearly imperceptible accrual of wisdom Holy Spirit Inspire us from th...

Any fool can learn from his mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

Rabbi Jesus, Teacher of teachers, thank you for empowering us to know and grow in wisdom and truth. You challenge us and stretch us and open us. You grant us grace to grow over time. We bless you for ...

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to and the people who and the places where and the days when, in memory of the bitter hours when we ...

A man of great memory without learning hath a rock and a spindle and no staff to spin.

B lessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed ...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) who were experiencing social ma...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), who were experiencing social m...

Ancora imparo. Yet I am still learning.