Category Archives: Quotation

The General Thanksgiving – Book of Common Prayer

By | |
Leave a comment

The General Thanksgiving

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.

We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages.
Amen.

From: Office of Morning Prayer, Book of Common Prayer (1979), p 101

(Go to Disciplewalk.org for a few thoughts about this prayer)

Thankfulness – John Stott

By | |
Leave a comment

“Give thanks in all circumstances! [1 Thessalonians 5:18]

“Thankfulness ought always to characterize the people of God, as they say to themselves: ‘Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits’ (Ps.103:2). Indeed, ‘the Christian’s life is to be an unceasing eucharist’. Thanksgiving also belongs, side by side with rejoicing and praying, to our public worship (Cf. Eph.5:20). In it there is a place for a ‘general thanksgiving’ in which we express our gratitude both for the material blessings of the creation and above all for God’s priceless love in redeeming the world through Jesus Christ, which we celebrate at the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Communion or, as it soon became to be called in the early Church, the Eucharist (*eucharistia* meaning simply thanksgiving’)….

“We cannot of course thank God ‘for all circumstances’, including those which are evil and displeasing to him; but we can and should thank him *in all circumstances* or ‘whatever happens’ (REB).  We may not always feel like praising, praying or giving God thanks. Our circumstances may not be conducive to these things. Yet we are to do so all the same. Why? Because *this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus* (18b). This statement almost certainly belongs to all three commands which precede it. It is God’s will, as expressed and seen in Jesus Christ, whenever his people meet together for worship, and whatever their feelings and circumstances may be, that there should be rejoicing in him, praying to him and giving him thanks for his mercies.”

From: John Stott, The Message of Thessalonians: The Cross of Christ. The Bible Speaks Today, Inter-Varsity Press UK, Nottingham.

Gifts of Life – Laurence Freeman

By | |
Leave a comment

If we can learn to savour the gifts of life, if we can learn to see what life truly is, the goodness that it brings us, that savouring of the gifts of life enables us to accept its tribulations, its difficulties, its problems and suffering. This is what we learn gently, slowly day by day, as we meditate.

From: Laurence Freeman, Aspects of Love

Work, gratitude, prayer – Wendell Berry

By | |
Leave a comment

Be thankful and repay
Growth with good work and care.
Work done in gratitude,
Kindly, and well, is prayer.
You did not make yourself,
Yet you must keep yourself
By use of other lives.
No gratitude atones
For bad use or too much.

From- Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997

Gratitude – Albert Schweitzer

By | |
Leave a comment

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

From – Albert Schweitzer

(Go to Discipleswalk.org for a question or two in “light” of Schweitzer’s remark.)

Language of Heaven – A J Gossip

By | |
Leave a comment

“Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there.”

From:A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926, p. 181

“…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  – 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)

Traveling in the Dark – Thomas Merton

By | |
Leave a comment

“In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.  In another sense we have already arrived.  We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness.  But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light.  But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!”

~~~ Thomas Merton in The Seven Storey Mountain