MONDAY, October 25

Psalm 44. We have heard with our ears, O God, our forefathers have told us, the deeds you did in their days, in the days of old.

Will and Ariel Durant, in their book The Lessons of History, remind us of the importance of an open study of the past. “To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing.”

God has worked through such people, and their example, instead of being a “depressing chamber of horrors,” becomes for us light to lighten our own road. We need this perspective of the past. This is especially true in a sophisticated age such as our own, when relevance to the demands of the present so often seems to dominate our thinking. It is good for us to recall how God has worked in that spacious country where saints and poets and lovers have lived, where they have taught and carved and sung. This can help us to see God at work in our own day. (1972)

PRAY for the Diocese of Irele–Eseodo (Nigeria)

Ps 41, 52 * 44; Ecclesiasticus 19:4-17; Revelation 11:1-14; Luke 11:14-26

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.

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