The Latin phrase “Ave Crux, Spes Unica!” means “Hail Cross, Only Hope!” In September of 1939, Edith Stein wrote a short article on this exclamation. Earlier that month, war had broken out across Europe, and Stein repeatedly writes in her article “the world is in flames.” I hear her anguish and wonder why she chose to write about this phrase. It is thought to come, I discovered, from a verse of a tenth century Latin hymn that says,
 
O hail the cross, our only hope
in this passiontide,
grant increase of grace to believers,
and remove the sins of the guilty.
 
Stein had a deep sense that her enclosed life, which she described as a life of prayer and “living penitentially,” was on behalf of the anguished world. While I am not living penitentially in the way Stein and many others have lived, I have a new sense that my small act of giving up something for Lent is not just for me but is on behalf our deeply anguished world. May you, in your journey through these final weeks of Lent, find your sense of prayer and penance also embracing our deeply tormented world.
 
Brian Holliday
Anam Cara 
​21 March 2023
 
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In the early church, the human person was seen as unique in creation, because humans formed a bridge that connected all the visible creation with that of the invisible. This bridge connecting the visible world with the invisible is seen, for example, in the Communion, or the Eucharist. “Eucharist” means thanksgiving, and in The Hidden Life Edith Stein beautifully describes how in celebrating it we
 
call all creation together to unite once more in praising the Lord:
mountains and hills, streams and rivers,
seas and lands and all that inhabit them,
clouds and winds, rain and snow,
all peoples of the earth, every class and race of people,
and finally also the inhabitants of heaven, the angels and the saints.
 
What a vision! God’s great love for us and all creation is expressed in the Eucharist where we join our own thanksgiving with all creation’s praise to God. Edith Stein calls it “the great Eucharist of creation.” As you journey through Lent this week, may you be aware of creation’s praise of God surrounding you, and may you pause and join in giving thanks to God for God’s great love expressed to us through Jesus.
 
Brian Holliday
Anam Cara 
 7 March 2023

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This week, as I prepare for my journey through Lent, I have started reading Edith Stein’s The Hidden Life, a collection of her essays and meditations. Edith Stein was a Discalced Carmelite sister and, along with all the Carmelites, she followed the tradition of Elijah, the Old Testament prophet who was most associated with Mount Carmel in Israel. They saw Elijah as an example of gospel poverty, and an authentic prototype of the Saviour.
 
In the first mention of Elijah in the Old Testament, he names himself as one who stands before God. Edith Stein describes this thought as foundational to the Discalced Carmelite sisters whose vocation is also
 
To stand before the face of the living God...
 
But it is the way Edith describes Elijah’s stance that speaks to me most deeply of her own inner desire, for she says of Elijah,
 
He stood before God's face because this was the eternal treasure for whose sake, 
he gave up all earthly goods.
 
She goes on to say,
 
Elijah stands before God's face because all his love belongs to the Lord.
 
I do not pretend to know the depth of what Edith describes, but I hear her soul’s passion to be constantly in the loving presence of the living God. It refocusses me on what is most important in life and calls me to be still and pay attention to the One who loves me so deeply. May you, as Lent begins this week, take time to “stand before the face of the living God” and give all your love to the One who loves you so deeply.
 
Brian Holliday
Anam Cara 
​22 February 2023
 
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The Transfiguration is celebrated at different times throughout the Christian Calendar. One of those times is on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. It reminds us that Jesus told his disciples to keep his transfiguration, the manifestation of his glory, a secret as he set himself to go to his death. Jesus often did that, revealing himself through a miracle, for example, then asking for secrecy.
 
Describing the mysteries, or secrets, of the Kingdom of God, John S. Dunne writes in Reading the Gospel, that the mystery is eternity “showing itself and at the same time withdrawing.” He goes on to ask,
 
Why this hide-and-seek, this showing and withdrawing? It is perhaps the nature of a human relation with God, a relation in time with the Eternal. (66)
 
In this pattern of revealing and withdrawing of God, it is often in our times of loss that God seems to withdraw, and in our times of great joy that God feels so real and close. It is as though God’s presence makes everything more fully what they are, whether it is loss or joy. As Bruno Barnhart in The Good Wine: Reading John from the Centre, says,
 
glory is that which glows at the extremes of experience: at the height and depth of life. Everything in the world moves towards glory as its flowering, its coming to flame, its truth. (99)
 
May you, whether you are experiencing loss and God’s withdrawal, or joy and God’s blessing, have a sense of the Eternal’s glory which is flowering and coming to flame in your heart.
 
Brian Holliday
Anam Cara to the Dayspring Guiding Committee
                                            IMAGE: Apse under the Eastern Bell Tower of the Eastern Orthodox church on Mt Tabor.

Today is All Saints Day, and it reminds me how deeply aware, in his homilies on 1 John, Augustine was of the connectedness of this world with the world which is to come. God’s love, he explained, is drawing us into an unimaginable future, where we will be one with Jesus, and with all the family of God. Trying to describe the indescribable, Augustine told his congregation,
 
we are to see a certain vision, … a vision surpassing all earthly beautifulness, of gold, of silver, of groves and fields; the beautifulness of sea and air, the beautifulness of sun and moon, the beautifulness of the stars, the beautifulness of angels: surpassing all things: because from it are all things beautiful.
                                           
Yet in his fourth century congregation he must have been aware of many who lived with uninvited suffering and tragedy of their lives. For them, as well as for us, life at times could feel like a wilderness, a desert. However, said Augustine, what makes the suffering of this world bearable, and leads us to the joy of the world to come, is love.
 
That therefore which God promises us is ineffable sweetness and a good … But by temporal labours we are exercised, and by temptations of this present life are trained. Howbeit, if you would not die of thirst in this wilderness, drink love. It is the fountain which God has been pleased to place here that we faint not in the way: and we shall more abundantly drink thereof when we have come to our own land.
 
In the suffering and tragedy we see around us, love alone will quench the thirst of our souls, sustain us on our journey, and draw us into the deep, indescribable love of the One who is Love. May you this week, be aware of that love which alone will sustain you, quench the thirst of your soul, and draw you into the joy of the world which is to come.

Briany Holliday
Image by chiplanay from Pixabay

 In his younger days, Augustine mocked the seeming contradictions and inconsistencies in the Christian Scriptures. They were a great obstacle to him. But after his conversion, under the erudite preaching of Ambrose, everything seemed to change. In fact, as a preacher, it led to him seeking out knotty issues in the Scriptures and presenting them to his congregation! I admire his boldness and the way he analysed contradictions so eloquently. One such issue, which Augustine raised with his congregation, is from 1 John 4 which says that “perfect love casts out fear,” yet Psalm 19 says “the fear of the Lord is pure and lasts forever.” So he asked the question,
 
if two pipes filled by one breathing sound in unison,
can two tongues, filled with the Spirit or Breathing of God, make a dissonance?
 
He went on to elaborate that there are different kinds of fear in the Scriptures, the fear of punishment and the fear of being separated from the presence of God for whom we yearn. The fear which is not yet pure, he said,
 
comes not from the love of God, but from the fear of punishment:
but when you fear God lest His presence forsake you,
you embrace Him, you long to enjoy God Himself.
 
Augustine was a man who yearned after God, and as I reflect on his thoughts I am stirred in my yearning for God too. May your longing and love for God this week draw you into a unison “with the Spirit or the Breathing of God.”
 
​BRIAN HOLLIDAY
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

With the rise of the internet, the multiplicity of voices making claim and counter claim can be confusing for people who are searching after God. But this is not new. In the fourth century there were many voices talking about Christianity, and the claims and counter claims were a hot topic for many ordinary people. So I imagine that Augustine, being such a great orator, attracted many people to his congregation in Hippo. But rather than bask in that glory, Augustine had a warning for his listeners. He told them that as preachers,
 
we can admonish by the sound of our voice, but if there be not One within that shall teach, vain is the noise we make.
 
“The One within” who teaches us is the Spirit of God, so that the voice of our heart and the voice of God become one. Later in the same homily, speaking of the gaze of God’s Spirit, Augustine says, our
 
witness is that eye which penetrates the heart, where others cannot look.
 
Again, the eye of our heart and the eye of God become one. It is by hearing with the ear of the heart, and seeing with the eye of the heart that we can have confidence in our relationship with God, ourselves, and others. May you this week, amongst the multiplicity of voices you hear, take time to be aware of “the One within,” who gently whispers in your soul and lovingly gazes upon you.
 
Brian Holliday
Photo by Reign Abarintos on Unsplash

Winter is a season which always catches my attention and surprises me. It has not been the cold and the rain, as I expect those in winter, but it has been the crisp, clear days, and the red hues of sunsets. In our neighbourhood, it has also been the fragrance of the flowering wattle, and the vibrant bottlebrush which has been starting to bloom again. It makes me wonder as I write, how can those sunsets, fragrances, and colours ever be described in words?
 
Augustine, in his homily in 1 John, describes the world and its beauty as the gold ring the bridegroom gives the bride as a pledge, an earnest, not just of his love but of his own self. Augustine says:
 
For this, the bridegroom gives an earnest,
that in his earnest he may himself be loved.
Well then, God gave you all these things:
love Him that made them.
There is more that He would give you, that is,
His very Self that made these things.
 
Now, while out walking, as I enjoy the surprises which catch my attention, I seek to hear in them the whispers of God’s deep, self-giving love for me. Such surprises of love from a Lover call my soul to love God in return. May you, as you enjoy creation’s surprises around you, also hear in them the whispers of God’s deep love for you.
 
Brian Holliday
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Reading the Homilies on the First Epistle of John, I feel as if I am sitting in Augustine’s congregation in Hippo. His sermons are simple, and, like any good preacher, he illuminates his points with simple, everyday illustrations.
In his fourth homily on the first few verses of 1 John 3, he tackles the issue of how we love God whom we cannot see. Our work, our duty as Christians, Augustine explains to those listening, is to cultivate and grow our desire for God. He tells us,
 
because you cannot at present see, let your part and duty be in desire.
The whole life of a good Christian is an holy desire.
 
He goes on to illustrate what he means by talking about the stretching of a bag, or a skin, so it can hold more contents. The hope we have as Christians is deferred, he says, and so it stretches us and increases our desire, our longing for God.
 
This is our life, that by longing we should be exercised.
But holy longing exercises us just so much as we prune off our longings from the love of the world.
 
To me, this stretching of longing is a long, slow work. It is seeking to regularly give my attention to those things that connect me to the loving presence of God, and so expand my inner longing and “holy desire.” May you, this week, find your heart stretched by hope and filled with a deeper longing for the loving presence of the unseen God.
 
Brian Holliday
Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

Reading Augustine’s Homilies on the First Epistle of John, I get a strong sense of the love he has for the congregation at Hippo. In the fifth homily on 1 John 3:9-18 he explains at length how the one commandment we have as Christians is to love one another. Then he makes the following statement which I found startling when I first read it:
 
You may say to me, I have not seen God: can you say to me, I have not seen human beings? Love your brother and sister. For if you love your brother and sister whom you see, at the same time you shall see God also; because you shall see Love itself, and within dwells God. (adapted)
 
As I have pondered this statement, I have been drawn to noticing how I show love those around me, and how they in turn show love me. I have realized how feeble my love is, and how harshly I criticize myself. Yet I have sought to act kindly and look with love on those around me, believing that these small, everyday connections also connect me to the loving heartbeat of God. May you, in the small acts of loving kindness you experience and give this week, be aware of seeing and hearing in them the loving heartbeat of God for you.
 
Brian Holliday
Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash