On St Matthias Day

O the promise of God’s presence

spurned as greed led to contempt

and to the great revocation

and to death.

One made God his chosen portion,

to do God’s will his daily bread.

Full of delight in all God’s people

he will not be held by death.

O the horror of being hurled away,

whirled round and round, thrust down,

vocation taken away.

Despair cuts out a tomb –

or is cut off on the holy hill,

pegged to the uncorrupt one

who fastened to the cross

draws all people to himself.

“The promise is for you,

for your children, and for all who are far away.”

It is for the fullness of God’s people,

as Matthias testifies today.

With Jesus from the beginning,

twice he saw him taken away,

now a witness of the resurrection,

and of the great re-vocation.

Called to abide in God’s presence,

called to remain faithful to the end,

called to be friends of Jesus,

and called to bear fruit that will last.

1 Samuel 2.27-35; Acts 2.37-47; Psalm 16; Isaiah 22.15-25; Psalm 15; Acts 1.15-26; John 15.9-17

A Profession

They were quite unable to understand each other on this subject. In Sir Lionel's view of the matter, a profession was--a profession. The word was understood well enough throughout the known world. It signified a calling by which a gentleman, not born to the inheritance of a gentleman's allowance of good things, might ingeniously obtain the same by some exercise of his abilities. The more of these good things that might be obtained, the better the profession; the easier the labour also, the better the profession; the less restriction that might be laid on a man in his pleasurable enjoyment of the world, the better the profession. This was Sir Lionel's view of a profession, and it must be acknowledged that, though his view was commonplace, it was also common sense; that he looked at the matter as a great many people look at it; and that his ideas were at any rate sufficiently intelligible. But George Bertram's view was different, and much less easy of explanation. He had an idea that in choosing a profession he should consider, not so much how he should get the means of spending his life, but how he should in fact spend it. He would have, in making this choice, to select the pursuit to which he would devote that amount of power and that amount of life which God should allot to him. Fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, guardians and grandfathers, was not this a singular view for a young man to take in looking at such a subject?

From The Bertrams, a novel by Anthony Trollope