Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures

    and meditate upon them day and night.

We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need,

    that we in turn may put its precepts into practice.

Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless,

    unless rooted in your graceful love.

So we ask that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page,

    but channels of grace into our hearts.

Origen, 185—254, Alexandrian Theologian

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Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.