The Home Council

Living the Eternal Life

Upon this the Jews began murmuring against Jesus for saying—”I am the Bread which came down from Heaven.”

“Is not this Jesus, Joseph’s son,” they asked, “whose father and mother we know? How is it that he now says that he has come down from Heaven?”

“Do not murmur among yourselves,” said Jesus in reply. “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him to me; and I will raise him up at the Last Day. It is said in the Prophets—

“‘And they shall all be taught by God.’

“Every one who is taught by the Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father, except him who is from God—he has seen the Father. In truth I tell you, he who believes in me has Immortal Life. I am the Life-giving Bread. Your ancestors ate the manna in the Wilderness, and yet died. The Bread that comes down from Heaven is such that whoever eats of it will never die. I am the Living Bread that has come down from Heaven. If any one eats of this Bread, he will live for ever; and the Bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the Life of the world.”

Upon this the Jews began disputing with one another:

“How is it possible for this man to give us his flesh to eat?”

“In truth I tell you,” answered Jesus, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have not Life within you. He who takes my flesh for his food, and drinks my blood, has Immortal Life; and I will raise him up at the Last Day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood true drink. He who takes my flesh for his food, and drinks my blood, remains united to me, and I to him. As the Living Father sent me as his Messenger, and as I live because the Father lives, so he who takes me for his food shall live because I live. That is the Bread which has come down from Heaven—not such as your ancestors ate, and yet died; he who takes this Bread for his food shall live for ever.”

All this Jesus said in a Synagogue, when he was teaching in Capernaum.

—John.

The Value of Time

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

—Henry Drummond.

The Eternal Consequences of Choice

(The Road not Taken)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

—Robert Frost.

Alternate Reading: I John 2:12-17.

True Democracy

My Brothers, are you really trying to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the worship of rank? Suppose a man should enter your Synagogue, with gold rings and in grand clothes, and suppose a poor man should come in also, in shabby clothes, and you are deferential to the man who is wearing grand clothes, and say—” There is a good seat for you here,” but to the poor man— “You must stand; or sit down there by my footstool,” is not that to make distinctions among yourselves, and to show yourselves prejudiced judges? Listen, my dear Brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the things of this world to be rich through their faith, and to possess the Kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you—you insult the poor man! Is not it the rich who oppress you? Is not it they who drag you into law-courts? Is not it they who malign that honorable Name which has been bestowed upon you? Yet, if you keep the royal law which runs—” Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thou dost thyself,” you are doing right; but, if you worship rank, you commit a sin, and stand convicted by that same law of being offenders against it. For a man who has laid the Law, as a whole, to heart, but has failed in one particular, is liable for breaking all its provisions. He who said “Thou shalt not commit adultery” also said “Thou shalt not murder.” If, then, you commit murder but not adultery, you are still an offender against the Law. Therefore, speak and act as men who are to be judged by the Law of Freedom. For there will be justice without mercy for him who has not acted mercifully. Mercy triumphs over Justice.

—James, a Brother of Jesus.

The Value of Noble Souls

Beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the attachment we form to noble souls, because to become one with the good, generous, and true is to become, in a measure, good, generous, and true ourselves.

—Thomas Arnold.

True to God

He’s true to God who’s true to man;
Wherever wrong is done
To the humblest and the weakest
‘Neath the all-beholding sun,
That wrong is also done to us,
And they are slaves most base,
Whose love of right is for themselves,
And not for all the race.

—James Russell Lowell.

The Perversion of Pity

The practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades.

—G. K. Chesterton.

It is our duty to relieve the poor and the needy, to visit the sick and bury the dead without distinction of race or creed.

—The Talmud.

“Home—the place where the great are small, and the small are great.”

Alternate Reading: I John 2: 1-11.

Jesus Preaching at Capernaum

So, on the next day, when the people saw that Jesus was not there, or his disciples either, they themselves got into the boats, and went to Capernaum to look for him. And, when they found him on the other side of the Sea, they said:

“When did you get here, Rabbi?”

“In truth I tell you,” answered Jesus, “it is not on account of the signs which you saw that you are looking for me, but because you had the bread to eat and were satisfied. Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for Immortal Life, which the Son of Man will give you; for upon him the Father—God himself—has set the seal of his approval.”

“How,” they asked, “are we to do the work that God would have us do?”

“The work that God would have you do,” answered Jesus, “is to believe in him whom God sent as his Messenger.”

“What sign, then,” they asked, “are you giving, which we may see, and so believe you? What is the work that you are doing? Our ancestors had the manna to eat in the Wilderness; as Scripture says—

‘He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.'”

“In truth I tell you,” replied Jesus, “Moses did not give you the Bread from Heaven, but my Father does give you the true Bread from Heaven; for the Bread that God gives is that which comes down from Heaven, and gives Life to the world.”

“Master,” they exclaimed, “give us that Bread always!”

“I am the Life-giving Bread,” Jesus said to them; “he that comes to me shall never he hungry, and he that believes in me shall never thirst again. But, as I have said already, you have seen me, and yet you do not believe in me. All those whom the Father gives me will come to me; and no one who comes to me will I ever turn away. For I have come down from Heaven, to do, not my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and his will is this—that I should not lose one of all those whom he has given me, but should raise them up at the Last Day. For it is the will of my Father that every one who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have Immortal Life; and I myself will raise him up at the Last Day.”

—John.

Sorrow Understood

Upon my lips she laid her touch divine.
And merry speech and careless laughter died;
She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine,
And would not be denied.

I saw the West Wind loose his cloudlets white
In flocks, careering through the April sky;
I could not sing, though joy was at its height,
For she stood silent by.

I watched the lovely evening fade away;
A mist was lightly drawn across the stars:
She broke my quiet dream,—I heard her say,
“Behold your prison bars!

“Earth’s gladness shall not satisfy your soul;
This beauty of the world in which you live,
The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole,—
That, I alone can give.”

I heard, and shrank away from her afraid:
But still she held me, and would still abide;
Youth’s bounding pulses slackened and obeyed,
With slowly ebbing tide.

“Look thou beyond the evening star,” she said,
“Beyond the changing splendors of the day;
Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread,—
Accept, and bid me stay!”

I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength;
And slowly, sweetly, I became aware
Within my arms God’s angel stood at length,
White-robed and calm and fair.

And now I look beyond the evening star;
Beyond the changing splendors of the day,—
Knowing the pain He sends more precious far,
More beautiful than they.

—Celia Thaxter.

Alternate Reading: I John 1: 5-10.

True Religion

Mark this, my dear Brothers:—Let every one be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry; for the anger of man does not forward the righteous purpose of God. Therefore, have done with all filthiness and whatever wickedness still remains, and in a humble spirit receive that Message which has been planted in your hearts and is able to save your souls. Put that Message into practice, and do not merely listen to it—deceiving yourselves. For, when any one listens to it and does not practise it, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror. He looks at himself, then goes on his way, and immediately forgets what he is like. But he who looks carefully into the perfect Law, the Law of Freedom, and continues to do so, not listening to it and then forgetting it, but putting it into practice—that man will be blessed in what he does. When a man appears to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue, but imposes upon his own conscience, that man’s religious observances are valueless. That religious observance which is pure and spotless in the eyes of God our Father is this—to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the world.

—James, a Brother of Jesus.

A Monument of Good Deeds

Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of the evening.

—Thomas Chalmers.

The Heart-Life

Who dwelleth in that secret place,
Where tumult enters not,
Is never cold with terror base,
Never with anger hot:
For if an evil host should dare
His very heart invest,
God is his deeper heart, and there
He enters in to rest.

When mighty sea-winds madly blow,
And tear the scattered waves,
Peaceful as summer woods, below
Lie darkling ocean caves:
The wind of words may toss my heart,
But what is that to met
‘Tis but a surface storm—Thou art
My deep, still, resting sea.

—George MacDonald.

Character Builders

We are building, every day,
In a good or evil way;
And the structure, as it grows,
Will our inmost self disclose.
All are architects of fate,
Working in these walls of time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme;
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

—Henry W. Longfellow.

Alternate Reading: James 5: 7-12.

The Apostles Make Report

When the Apostles came back to Jesus, they told him all that they had done and all that they had taught.

“Come by yourselves privately to some lonely spot,” he said, “and rest for a while”—for there were so many people coming and going that they had not time even to eat. So they set off privately in their boat for a lonely spot. And many people saw them going, and recognized them, and from all the towns they flocked together to the place on foot, and got there before them. On getting out of the boat, Jesus saw a great crowd, and his heart was moved at the sight of them, because they were “like sheep without a shepherd”; and he began to teach them many things.

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand by the Lake of Galilee

When it grew late, his disciples came up to him, and said:

“This is a lonely spot, and it is already late. Send the people away, so that they may go to the farms and villages around and buy themselves something to eat.”

But Jesus answered: “It is for you to give them something to eat.”

“Are we to go and buy twenty pounds’ worth of bread,” they asked, “to give them to eat?”

“How many loaves have you?” he asked; “go and see.” When they had found out, they told him: “Five, and two fishes.” Jesus directed them to make all the people take their seats on the green grass, in parties; and they sat down in groups—in hundreds, and in fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fishes, Jesus looked up to Heaven, and said the blessing; he broke the loaves into pieces, and gave them to his disciples for them to serve out to the people, and he divided the two fishes also among them all. Every one had sufficient to eat; and they picked up enough broken pieces to fill twelve baskets, as well as some of the fish. The men who ate the bread were five thousand in number.

—Mark.

The Bread of Life

Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,
As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea,
Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord;
My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word!

—Mary A. Lathbury.

Invincible Truth

Get the truth once uttered, and ’tis like
A star newborn that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.

—James Russell Lowell.

The Swan’s Song

You think that upon the score of foreknowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.

—Socrates.

The Way to be Happy

How pleasant it is, at the end of the day,
No follies to have to repent,
But reflect on the past, and be able to say:
My time has been properly spent!

When I’ve finished my task with all patience and care,
And been good, and obliging, and kind,
I lie on my pillow and sleep away there
With a happy and peaceable mind.

Instead of all this, if it must be confest
That I careless and idle have been,
I lie down as usual, and go to my rest,
But feel discontented within.

Then, as I dislike all the trouble I’ve had,
In future I’ll try to prevent it,
For I never am naughty without being sad,
Or good without being contented.

—Jane Taylor.

Alternate Reading: James 1: 2-18.