January 10

Be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing. — 1 Pet 3:8-9

Shall I hold on with both hands to every paltry possession? All I have teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades.
— G.K. Chesterton.

Prayer

God of justice, may I pause to remember that while I may do a mean act and keep it hidden from others, I cannot keep it hidden from myself, nor from thee. Help me to have a nobler sense of the quality of life, and less anxiety for the quantity, that I may avoid harshness and selfishness, and be given to tenderness and justice. Amen.