December 12

Twenty-first Thursday after Trinity

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13.

APOSTLES, Prophets, Martyrs had the same sinful nature cleaving to them as we have. S. James and S. John sought high places; S. Paul was a persecutor; S. John was fiery; S. Mark shrank from peril; S. Peter was rash and denied our Lord; all forsook Him in the time of peril. But what became they? How was Saul the persecutor transformed by the grace of God into the likeness of his Master. His spirit obeyed every motion of His Holy Spirit until he could say, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." And yet these blessed Apostles, whose names were written in heaven, they who, themselves subdued to God, subdued the world unto the Crucified; these chosen vessels of the Most High to "bear His Name before kings and princes," who made an unjust judge tremble before His prisoner, and a king "almost" to exchange his crown for their bonds; these, to whom "to live was Christ," who "bore about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," to whom our Lord bequeathed "the fellowship of His sufferings," to "fill up" what He willed to "remain over of suffering for His Church;" —these men were born with the same passions as we, they had the same struggle. "By the grace of God" they "were what they were."

My stock lies dead, and no increase Doth my dull husbandry improve; O let Thy graces without cease Drop from above.