Friday, August 20, 1999
Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153
Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890

And now be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate the heavenly bread to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, nor that humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master... But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not. Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge, and take no thought for the rest... For he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you have not.

... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), The Life and Times of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, A.D. 1091-1153, James Cotter Morison, London: Macmillan, 1889, p. 203 (see the book; see also 2 Cor. 8:12; Ps. 51:16-17; Matt. 25:14-26; Acts 20:35; more at Duty, Giving, Obedience, Offering, Service, Talent, Vanity, Work)

 
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
        with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.

Last updated: 08/13/21

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