Month: June 2005

What sober-minded man, then, will not acknowledge that we are not atheists, worshipping as we do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we are supplied, as we have been taught that the only honour that is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has brought into being for our sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need, and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation, and for all the means of health, and for the various qualities of the different kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons; and to present before Him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith in Him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed. —from the First Apology

God gives what He commands. This testimony of non-violence is not an ‘ideal’ which will appear at the end of our ‘efforts.’ Here, as everywhere else, the life of obedience to which we are called is given to us by grace. This weakness, which I called a demand implied in the Gospel, is really a magnificent promise made to anyone who believes in Jesus Christ. If the branch remains attached to the vine, it too will bear the rare and delicate fruit (John 15). Besides, to live in Christ and keep His commandments is surely one and the same thing. In other words, the triumphant life of Christ crucified and resurrected springs forth of its own accord in the heart of anyone who joins himself to Christ by faith. We are not asked to practise non-violence and imitate Christ’s weakness, so much as to remain in His communion. But He has proclaimed to us that if we remain in it and keep His words, He gives us the grace to live by His example, because He comes Himself to live in our being and obey for us. Then our daily existence is genuinely a witness, because it tells of His love and sings of His power. —Jean Lasserre