The blessing of the Lord is the reward of the pious,

   and quickly God causes his blessing to flourish. 

 Do not say, ‘What do I need,

   and what further benefit can be mine?’ 

 Do not say, ‘I have enough,

   and what harm can come to me now?’ 

 In the day of prosperity, adversity is forgotten,

   and in the day of adversity, prosperity is not remembered. 

 For it is easy for the Lord on the day of death

   to reward individuals according to their conduct. 

 An hour’s misery makes one forget past delights,

   and at the close of one’s life one’s deeds are revealed. 

 Call no one happy before his death;

   by how he ends, a person becomes known.  

 

 

 The Apostle says: The world is crucified to me and I to the world. Then wishing to make it clear that the death to which he is referring is death in this life, and a happy death too, he bids us, carry round the death of Jesus in our bodies; for whoever has the death of Jesus in his body, will have the life of the Lord Jesus too in his body. Death then must already be active in us if life too is to be active; and by life and happiness after death, we mean life and happiness after victory, when the battle is over, when the law of the flesh is no longer at variance with the law of the mind, when there is no longer a struggle between us and our mortal flesh, but victory over the body of this death, our fallen nature. I am not sure that this death is not a higher state than life, and we have the authority of the Apostle for this: Death works in us with life in you. Think of the vast number of people who owe their life to one man’s death. And so the Apostle teaches us that we must embrace Christ’s death while we are still alive in this world so that the splendour of his death may shine out in our body. This is the death which leads to happiness, by which our outer nature wastes away so that our inner nature may be renewed; our earthly habitation is pulled down so that the gates of our heavenly home may be unlocked. 

 

Metaphorically a man dies when he breaks away from the thralldom of the flesh and casts off its bonds, of which the Lord says to us by the Prophet Isaiah: Loose every bond of wickedness, dissolve unjust contracts, let the oppressed go free, break all dishonesty. The Lord allowed death to make its way into our world so that guilt should come to an end; but lest human nature should perish by death he ordained the resurrection of the dead. Thus by death guilt should have a end, by the resurrection human nature should endure forever.  Death in this sense is a pilgrimage, a lifetime’s pilgrimage which none must shirk, a pilgrimage from decay to imperishable life, from mortality to immortality, from anxiety to unruffled calm. Do not be afraid of the word death: rather rejoice in the blessings which follow a happy death. What is death after all but the burial of vice, the flowering of goodness? Hence the words of Scripture, Let my soul die with the souls of the just, that is, let it be buried with them and so slough off its own vice and be clothed in the grace of the saints who carry round the mortification of Christ in their own bodies and souls.

 

 

 

Father God, You know my every thought

And You know my ways, the path on which I walk

And You know me better than I know myself

And You've known me longer than anyone else

 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me

And I can't even understand it

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me

And I can't even comprehend it

 

But I know You see

Oh, this I know

You see

 

Oh, I could walk where men may never tread

Or plunge the depths where I could make my bed

But I never win hide-and-seek

You're so good at finding me

Only lost in the mystery

Of the depth of Your love for me

 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me

And I can't even understand it

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me

Oh, and I can't even comprehend it

 

But I know You see

Oh, this I know

You see

 

And even when

Even when my world is shaking, Lord

Your hand will hold me still

 

Even when

Even when my world is shaking, Lord

Your hand will hold me still

 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

I am fearfully and wonderfully made