Thoughts for the Day

Faith without Works Is Dead

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Saints can come from any walk of life. Today we look at Elizabeth of Hungary who was Princess of Thuringia in the 13th century CE. Elizabeth was born in 1207, the daughter of the king of Hungary and was given in marriage to Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, with whom she had three children. Theirs was a happy marriage, but after four years her husband died of the plague. Elizabeth was driven from the court and settled in Marburg. There she had a confessor, Conrad of Marburg, whose domineering and almost sadistic ways exemplified one who had himself been a successful inquisitor of heretics. She suffered mental and physical abuse from him, in the name of religious austerity, but bore it all humbly. Elizabeth became a member of the Franciscan Third Order, which reflected her life of caring for the poor, even cooking and cleaning for them. Due to the severe regime under which she lived, her weakened body gave way under the pressure and she died on this day, just twenty-four years old, in the year 1231 CE. (Taken from 'Exciting Holiness')

Yesterday we looked at the healing of Bartimaeus in Jericho (Luke 18.35-43) and reminded ourselves that when we have faith we should also have trust. Trust shows itself in action, and today's scripture from James (written originally in Greek, probably in the 1st century CE), hammers this home even more strongly. Writing for a Jewish audience, James asks the question 'What good is it if you say you have faith, but do not have works?' Faith does not feed or clothe the poor. Faith alone is useless, he argues, without being acted upon it is dead!

Today I ask two questions of us all - how does our faith lead to action, and can we do more?

Collect

Lord God,
who taught Elizabeth of Hungary
to recognise and reverence Christ
in the poor of this world:
by her example,
strengthen us to love and serve the afflicted
and the needy,
and so to honour Your Son the servant King,
who is alive and reigns with You,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.