When everybody is occupied, we only speak when we have something to say; but when we are doing nothing, we are compelled to be always talking; and of all torments, that is the most annoying and the most dangerous.
…And yet these great talkers do not at all speak from their having anything to say, as every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking.
Mary of Bethany on the other hand, though of a poor background, living at home with her brother and sister, maligned by those around her, rejected by others because she was not married and criticised by her sister because she wanted to spend time with Jesus, is the one who in our story today shows by her generosity true nobility. A humble nobility to which all of us wealthy or hard-pressed, Well-educated or not able to complete schooling may aspire.
By indulging in healthy thoughts you attract to yourself everything necessary to your well-being happiness, health, strength, and friends.
We receive and give unconsciously, but we attract to ourselves only that which in some sense belongs to us. The magnet may pass through many substances, but it gathers and holds only the metal for which it has a mysterious affinity.
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean we say,
and what we would we know!
It is good to be in love, but to love is better.
Love is an efflux. It is the outpouring of our very being into the being which is dear to us. Yet we are not left impoverished, but enriched beyond the dreams of spiritual avarice.
We must always be giving each other bread, or money, or jewels, or books, or counsel; and then we think we have accomplished something. But love is the real gift, no other can take its place; but it can take the place of all the rest.
Better to love than be beloved,
Though lonely all the day;
Better the fountain in the heart
Than the fountain by the way.
Suffolk Vicar 