Daily Devotion

This Daily Devotion is to help our members and others reflect on the understanding of Christian service to our Lord.

Devotion for Saturday, January 4, 2025

The Rt. Rev. Archimandrite, Msgr. George Appleyard

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

An Invitation to Prayer

They looked up and saw a star
shining in the East beyond them far.
-Let us walk with the Magi by its light.

Psalm 49/50:1-6

The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken
and summoned the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
From Zion, the splendor of his beauty,
God, our God, appears and speaks.
A fire burns before him,
and a tempest rages around him.
He summons the sky above and the earth
to the judgment of his people.
Gather his devout to him,
those who hade a covenant with him by sacrifice.
The heavens shall acclaim his justice
because God is the judge.

A reading adapted from Basil’s, Homily on Proverbs 1;1-5

The second verse states the purpose of the book, to appreciate wisdom and discipline. It is said that wisdom is the systematic knowledge of things human and divine, and their causes. So those who pursue theology successfully know wisdom, because the blessed Paul said we speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious and hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory.^{Cf. I Cor, 2:7} The one who considers the designer of the world’s structures truly comes to know God through the wisdom of the world, for from the creation of the world his invisible attributes have been perceived from the things created.^{Cf. Rom 1:20} It is this creation that quietly announces its maker and Lord, and thus through it you may go back to the notion of wisdom by itself.

A Prayer

Almighty and eternal God, author of all things visible and invisible, open the eyes of our minds and hearts to the implications of the world around us, to sense-through its array and complexity-something of your sovereign intelligence and also your love and creativity, your playfulness and sense of purpose. Let our encounter with the world around us speak to us that we might know you, and move us to protect the patrimony of this marvelous creation.
Amen!