Caleb

“The Church, if it is to be the Church, must be the revelation of that divine Love which God “poured out into our hearts.” Without this love nothing is “valid” in the Church because nothing is possible. The content of Christ’s Eucharist is Love, and only through love can we enter into it and be made its partakers.”
― Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World

“We read of feeding on flesh and drinking blood; of body parts and flesh-unions; of vines, branches, and living water; of dying in another’s death and living in another’s life; and of the indwelling Spirit and God becoming flesh. Perhaps it is because this language and these images mystify and puzzle us that we fail to reckon properly with them. We feel a bit like many of Jesus’s contemporaries, confused and even troubled by what he says. But we must reckon with these words, because embedded in them are the most astounding of promises—eternal life, the hope of glory, forgiveness, holiness, redemption, resurrection, bodily transformation, and, most astonishing of all, the Son of God dwelling in us. This is the language of salvation and the logic of the gospel,”
― Marcus Peter Johnson, One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation

“When once your foot enters the church, be bare.
God is more there, than thou: for thou art there
Only by his permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Kneeling ne’er spoil’d silk stocking: quit thy state
All equal are within the church’s gate.”
― George Herbert, From the Temple

“Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.”
― Kosuke Koyama, Three Mile an Hour God: Biblical Reflections