Br. Luke Ditewig

Thomas Traherne

Today we remember Thomas Traherne, a priest from the Welsh countryside known only after his death for his great quantity and quality of spiritual writing. He died at age 37 and his treasures kept being found and published.

Traherne saw and pointed to God in all creation. “Suppose a river or a drop of water, an apple or a sand, an ear of corn, or an herb; God knoweth infinite excellencies in it more than we. . . . O, what a treasure is every sand when truly understood! Who can love any thing that God hath made too much? [God’s] infinite goodness and wisdom and power and glory are in it.”[1]

As you pray, what wonder of creation catches your attention? Stop, stay, and gaze at it. Behold this treasure, like you, created good.

Traherne wrote about how God is revealed in scripture. Traherne wrote of the psalmist for Psalm 105 and 106, “celebrateth the ways of God in former ages with as much vehemency, zeal and pleasure as if they were new things, as if [the psalmist] were present with them seeing their beauty and tasting their delight that very moment.”[2]

As you pray, remember how God has saved, healed, protected, formed you.   Recall God’s faithfulness. Retell your story. Recall our story as in Psalms 105 and 106. Feel again the zeal and pleasure of being found, the delight of seeing God act.

Traherne was a theologian in poetry and prose, expressing God is infinite and beyond as well as intimate in flesh as shown in this prayer:

“O eternal wisdom instruct me,

Blessed Thomas Traherne whom we remember today.

[1] Landscapes of Glory: Daily Readings with Thomas Traherne, introduced and edited A. M. Alchin (London, 1989), 41 (from Centuries of Meditations, 2.67).

[2] Ibid., 46 (from Centuries of Meditations, 3.92).

[3] Ibid., 60 (from Bodleian MS, The Church’s Yearbook, 112).