Grant us in all things to see your hand... that.. we may walk with Christ in all simplicity and serve you with a quiet and contented mind. Collect for The Feast of Charles SImeon
I would certainly have chosen a more bucolic graphic for this quote but for two things: One was the quote from today’s Gospel (Luke 9:8) which really struck me: “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Which surely calls us not to la-de-da walking down some country lane or complacency or innocence verging on stupidity, but to using all our faculties to be as astute as are the “children of this generation.”
Then yesterday at mass Jim Kellett said that Charles Simeon faced a lot of persecution and prejudice in his ministry. This is not mentioned in his little vitae in Holy Women, Holy Men, which makes it seem a whole lot easier for him to have been true to today’s quote. So I looked it up on the internet and found the following quote:
“In April, 1831, Charles Simeon was 71 years old. He had been the rector of Trinity Church, Cambridge, England, for 49 years. He was asked one afternoon by his friend, Joseph Gurney, how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his 49-year ministry. He said to Gurney, "My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory" (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.). (anglican library.org)
And so the quote from Charles Simeon’s collect called forth a cityscape rather than a country lane.
Nowhere and in no age is it easy in all things to see your hand... that.. we may walk with Christ in all simplicity and serve you with a quiet and contented mind. Nor is it easy to be astute as the faithless are! But we have companions and examples in this world and in the church triumphant. Somewhere there’s a prayer that “we may follow the saints in all virtuous and godly living.” And as they say, All God’s children said A-MEN!
Charles Simeon 1759-1836
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