saint athanasius' "on the incarnation of the word," part one

Read St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word recently and thought I'd post some quotes over the next few days. I'll start with a couple of early sentences that seem to set forth his aim for that work.

"You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been manifest in bodily form... He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning." (Chapter One)

Been a while...

Okay, so it's been a little...alright, long while. But I promise I still want to do something really cool with this site. I guess no promises on a timeline for that...

Another prayer from Teresa

Here's another prayer from St Teresa of Avila's The Way of Perfection. A good prayer for cultivating humility.

"Grant us, my God, to understand how little we understand ourselves and how empty our hands are when we come to Thee that Thou, of Thy mercy mayest forgive us."

A Prayer from St. Teresa of Avila

Here's a brief prayer from St. Teresa of Avila's The Way of Perfection that I've found a helpful.

"Blessed and praised be the Lord, from whom comes all the good that we speak and think and do. Amen."

A Fresh Start

I started this blog a good while back with the intention of doing more reading of ancient (or at the very least, dead) Christians and then sharing some of my reflections on that reading here. Well, since this is my second post in about 14 months, clearly I haven't come out of the gate sprinting.

I still intend to write at varying levels of reflection on my interaction with ancient Christians. But, needing to at least start somewhere, I'm going to aim at offering a quote or prayer every week or two just to get going with this little project.

Learning from the Ancients

On this blog, my aim will be to post a short essay on the Christian life that draws upon ancient Christianity. What do I mean by "ancient Christianity?" My effort will be to learn from Christians in the first several centuries of the Church--say, through the 400s. While I will endeavor to read original works, I may rely on other figures throughout the history of the Church who took these foundational Christians seriously--Wesley, Luther, Calvin, and others.

If I am to listen well to the ancient Christians, I will not be able to post often. But I will point to posts on this blog from my "Guy's Mental Wanderings" blog.

I desire to drink deeply from the well of Christian Tradition, to learn from those that have gone before, and I invite you to walk with me on the journey.