A CHANGE IS IN THE AIRWritten by Irvin L. Rozier
I woke up this morning and sensed a change A new direction for me Lord is about to arrange Many obstacles and hills have been in my way Today is third day of month of MayI've been hindered and oppressed for many years I've had many doubts and my share of fears The Lord has heard my anguished cries He has seen my tears and took note of my sighs Jesus knows how many burdens I can take He will intervene and make a way of escape I know his word is strength and truth I read in Bible how he blessed sister Ruth
| | Does Society Need a St. Bernard?Written by Robert Bruce Baird
You all know big dogs that carry rum to save Swiss or alpine skiers caught in a storm or some other trouble. That is not St. Bernard I am contemplating but you might think this St. Bernard to be an even bigger dog once you get to know him.“The intellectual and institutional evolution of these reform movements during almost exactly one thousand years between Benedict of Nursia (who founded monastery of Monte Cassino in about 529) and Martin Luther (who entered monastery of Augustinian Hermits at Erfurt in 1505) is a story of inestimable importance for history of Europe and of world. (13) Over and over, it was primitive model of Christ as Monk, and of monk as imitator of model, that animated these reform movements. There is in some ways a depressing repetition of pattern, as each monastic reform in its turn protests against decline and stagnation in monasteries, sets up new administrative and disciplinary structures to reverse downward trend, prevails for a century or two, and then proves itself vulnerable to same tendencies of stagnation and decline. Benedict of Aniane in Carolingian period; Odo of Cluny and Cluniac reform movement a century or so later; about a century after that monastic reformation that began at Citeaux, which through powerful life and Christocentric thought of Saint Bernard spread Cistercian message throughout Europe; then friars of twelfth and thirteenth centuries in their new dedication to renewal; and, in reaction to Protestant Reformation and under inspiration of an intensified Christ-mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain, Society of Jesus.” (14)
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