Calvin Synod Herald, 1972 (72. évfolyam, 8-12. szám)

1972-12-01 / 12. szám

4

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD

Tidings of Great Joy

Hear! Today the hells . . . call you to the Christmas of mankind. For it has begun, and toe shall not falter nor turn back until every man and woman and child has a chance to live happily and to develop his mind and do the best of which he is capable.

Hear, oh, hear the Christmas bells! How they answer one another from end to end of the country, peal upon peal, chime upon chime! From every spire and tower they utter the good tidings of great joy, the tidings of the Great Change, the cry that no humane heart can resist: “Brotherhood! Brotherhood! Brotherhood!”

— Helen Keller

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How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Shakespeare

However much of Christmas giving, the real Christmas must be first in the heart.

Author Unknown

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As our hearts yield to the spirit of Christmas, may we discover that it is Thy Holy Spirit who comes — not a sentiment, but a power — to remind us of the only way . . . there may be peace on . . . earth and good will among men.

May we not spend Christmas, but keep it .. . through Him who emptied Himself in coming to us that we might be filled wdth peace and joy . . . Amen.

Peter Marshall

A GIFT FOR YOU

All the world is young at

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Christmastime. Author Unknown

True love’s the gift which God hath given to man alone beneath the heaven. The silver link, the silver tie, which heart to heart and mind to mind, in body and in soul can bind.

Sir Walter Scott

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Peace, peace on earth; for men shall love each other. Hosts shall go forth to bless and not destroy. For man shall see in man a brother, and peace on earth fulfill the angel’s joy.

Longfellow

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I have always thought of Christmas as a good time; a kind, forgiving, generous, pleasant time; a time when men and women seem to open their hearts freely, and so I say, God bless Christmas!

Charles Dickens

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The gift without the giver is bare; who gives of himself with his alms feeds three — himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.

James Russell Lowell

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We thank Thee, O God, for the return of the wondrous spell of this Christmas season that brings its own sweet joy into our . . . troubled hearts.

Forbid it, Lord, that we should celebrate without understanding what we celebrate, or, like our counterparts so long ago, fail to see the star or to hear the song of glorious promise.

The Holy Bible, King James Version. Basis of reference for Sunday Seminar Discussion, John Calvin Reformed Church, Perth Amboy, N. J., October 22, 1972.

John 4:5-14

In this upcoming Christmastide Season, may each and every one, who will only but partake, accept and acknowledge a gift that is available and extended unconditionally to all.

This present for YOU simply is there for the having, without even the asking, or the offering, — just the partaking of a continually existent and unending fluidity of etheral essence which is actually and vitally necessary to anyone’s wholesome wellbeing.

The gift is presented to you unembellished and unberibboned( with no strings attached!), — with only pure unabashed and unencumbered love. The compassion with which it is offered bespeaks for itself of depths unfathomable and unending, yet which in turn, if imbibed in, will be an ongoing source of envigorating and energizing potent power, not only for survival and sustenance but toward surging and soaring to greater subliminal gains of constructive endeavors.

In order to serve as a reminder at times, you might want to purposely take a taste of drinking water, and as it rolls down the throat, assuaging your thirst, think of what you feel you would still want even after your bodily needs all had been met and for which you’d yet be thirsting. — Would it not be, perhaps, ever-loving flow of ever-flowing Love???

— Madeline Takacs Barboe