About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

–Acts 16:25-34 (TNIV)

With remarkable understatement, Luke describes an amazing sequence of events for us here. Would you be praying and singing hymns to God if you had just been beaten with rods to within an inch of your life? Would you be praying and singing hymns to God if you had just been thrown in jail unjustly and once there were restricted even further by being put in stockades? Yet that is exactly what Paul and Silas did! Their faith allowed (or perhaps compelled?) them to rejoice in being able to suffer for the Name. Amazing.

And then after an overt act of power, we see the effects of salvation (and thus always the reason for acts of overt power that the NT writers report). Notice carefully how the jailer’s behavior toward Paul and Silas changed. Prior to his conversion he treated them shamefully and cruelly. Now he treats them with kindness. Before he saw them as objects to be abused and mistreated. Now he sees them as human beings who are made in God’s Image and are therefore worthy of respect, dignity, and kindness. Before his conversion, the jailer’s behavior was powered by extreme despair that caused him to want to take his own life. He thought his prisoners had escaped and he knew that this would mean his own execution as a penalty for letting that happen. Afterward, however, Luke tells us that the jailer was filled with joy because he had found a relationship with the Living God through Jesus Christ.

This is the effect of the Gospel. This is what happens to people when the meet Jesus and realize exactly the gift he has given them. This is what allows folks to overcome all that life and Satan can throw in their way.

Do you have this kind of faith? Do you know the Jesus that Paul and Silas knew?

Do not despair. Remember that you were loved when there was really nothing lovely about you at all. You were loved when you were ugly and deformed. You were loved before you were worthy of being loved. You were first loved and only afterward became lovable, worthy of being loved. Can you imagine what Jesus will do for you when cured, considering that he died for you when you were still sick and ungodly? If you really are greedy and want to possess everything, seek everything through humility. Through humility you will possess the Jesus-God who made all these things and thus in possessing him you will possess them too.

–Augustine, Sermon 142.5

A drunkard is baptized. He has heard that drunkenness is included in the list of sins barring people from entering heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). By his baptism all his past sins of drunkenness are forgiven, but the habit remains. The thirst for drink  still tortures him. It tries to penetrate his will and drag him away as its prisoner. If he does not give in to the temptation, it will gradually become less and less because it gets its strength from submission to it.

–Augustine, Sermon 151.4

Here’s a pride test for you. As you read Augustine’s passage above did you focus on the man in his example or did you apply the lesson to that sin in you which continues to weigh you down? If you focused on the former without considering the latter, you probably have an issue with your pride.

Sin is serious business because it separates us from God and perforce leads to death. There can be no life outside of the Source and Author of all life. Sin is doubly hard because as Augustine reminds us here, it is so very difficult to break and we typically cannot do it by ourselves. Thanks be to God that our sin is covered by the blood of Christ.

There is no greater act of love than of letting go in the dark and falling into the arms of our lover with total abandon; offering all for love. Listen to what Father de Foucauld said in the desert. He really understood.

Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me whatever you will. Whatever you  may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.

That is how to pray when you are suffering. That is how to believe in God.

—Why, O Lord?

The mourning for which [Jesus] promises eternal consolation, dearly beloved, has nothing to do with ordinary worldly distress; for the tears which have their origin in the sorrow common to all humanity do not make anyone blessed. There is another cause for the sighs of the saints, another reason for their blessed tears. Religious grief mourns for sin, one’s own or another’s; it does not lament because of what happens as a result of God’s justice, but because of what is done by human malice. Indeed, those who do wrong are more to be lamented than those who suffer it, for their wickedness plunges the sinner into punishment, whereas endurance can raise the just to glory.

—Sermon 95.4-6

I recently wrote a piece about Muslim terrorists in which I said I prayed for them every day. The above excerpt from Leo is why I can do that (besides, of course, that our Lord commands us to do so).

We see that grace can accomplish more than nature. If the words of Elijah had power to bring fire from heaven, will not the words of Christ have power to change the natures of the elements [of the bread and wine at the Eucharist]? You have read that in the creation of the whole world “he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created.” If Christ could by speaking create out of nothing what did not exist, can we say that his words are unable to change existing things [the bread and wine] into something they previously were not [the body and blood of Christ]? It is no lesser feat to create new natures for things than to change their existing natures.

So the Church, in response to grace so great [as expressed in the Real Presence at the Eucharist], exhorts her children, exhorts her neighbors, to hasten to these mysteries: “Neighbors,” she says, “come and eat; friends, drink and be filled.” In another passage the Holy Spirit has made clear for you what you are to eat, what you are to drink. “Taste,” the prophet says, “and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who trusts in him.” Christ is in that sacrament [of Holy Communion], for it is the body [and blood] of Christ. It is therefore not bodily food but spiritual. Finally, it is this food that gives strength to our hearts, this drink which, “gives joy to the heart,” as the prophet has written.

—On the Mysteries 52-54

I love reading passages like these because they remind me that God continues to care and provide for us in quite tangible ways. That is why it is so important for us to feed on Christ in our heart with thanksgiving each week at the Eucharist, to let him strengthen and dwell in us in a tangible as well as spiritual way. This is a great mystery. It is also a great gift of love given to believers through grace and faith.

O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee

O Master, let me walk with thee
in lowly paths of service free;
tell me thy secret; help me bear
the strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move
by some clear, winning word of love;
teach me the wayward feet to stay,
and guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me thy patience; still with thee
in closer, dearer company,
in work that keeps faith sweet and strong,
in trust that triumphs over wrong;

In hope that sends a shining ray
far down the future’s broadening way,
in peace that only thou canst give,
with thee, O Master, let me live.

–Washington Gladden 430