Teacher and writer Eliza Edmunds Hewitt (1851-1920) became handicapped by a serious spinal injury early on in her life. Rather than becoming bitter at her condition, Eliza turned to the study of English literature and hymn-writing. In 1887 she composed these encouraging lyrics to the hymn “More About Jesus.” These words encourage us to be […]
In Revelations of Divine Love by the English mystic, Julian of Norwich, we find this beautiful statement about the immeasurable and incomprehensible love of God. She describes the wondrous journey of grace-enabled perseverance by which we grow in the knowledge of God’s love. For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even […]
Sir Philip Sidney, in his poem, Leave Me, O Love, Which Reachest But To Dust, beautifully illustrates the contrast between fleeting pleasures and the eternal love of God. Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things! Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades […]
The Great Commission is a command for all believers, one we often find difficult to put into action. Leon Tucker wrote the helpful words to this little hymn sometime during the nineteenth-century. Though “short and sweet,” as they say, these lyrics, from “Lord, Lay Some Soul upon My Heart”, simply ask for God’s help and […]
The juxtaposition of intellectual capacity and spiritual insight in Evelyn Underhill’s life makes her perceptions on the devotional life especially valuable. In her work, The Essentials Of Mysticism, she describes how our thoughts and emotions, while of some value, should not be allowed to sidetrack us from the goal of God-centered prayer. The determined fixing […]
Thomas Merton, in his book, Contemplative Prayer, speaks against letting asceticism creep in to our devotional life. He cautions us in this passage about a hyper-spirituality that can disconnect us from everyday life. A false supernaturalism which imagines that ‘the supernatural’ is a kind of realm of abstract essences (as Plato imagined) that is totally […]