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Reverend Dr Thomas Bray (1656 - 15 February 1730)

The Reverend Dr Thomas Bray (1656 - 15 February 1730) was an English clergyman born in Marton, Shropshire in 1656. He was educated at Oswestry School and All Souls College, Oxford University.
After leaving the university he was appointed vicar of Over Whitacre, and rector of Sheldon in Warwickshire, where he wrote his famous Catechetical Lectures. Henry Compton, Bishop of London, appointed him in 1696 as his commissary to organize the Church of England in Maryland, and he was in that colony in 1699-1700. He took a great interest in colonial missions, especially among the American Indians, and it is to his exertions that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (founded 1701) owes its existence.
He also projected a successful scheme for establishing parish libraries in England and America, out of which grew the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1699). Bray envisioned a library for each parish in America, funded by booksellers and stocked with books donated by authors. These libraries were meant to encourage the spread of the Anglican church in Britain's colonies, and as such were primarily composed of theological works. It was a major endeavour, as at the time the only other public libraries in the American colonies were at a small number of universities. From 1706 until his death in February 1730 he was rector of St Botolph's, Aldgate, London, being unceasingly engaged in philanthropic and literary pursuits

Prayers

LORD JESUS, we humbly pray You to give us all a great reverence and respect for Your most holy name. Forgive us for ever having used the name of Jesus in vain, or without due respect.

Help us remember how reverently and lovingly Your Mother Mary used the name of Jesus, and how humbly Saint Joseph called You and spoke to You by name.

Your name, dear Jesus, is above every other name in heaven or on earth, because You are the Jesus, the Savior of all men. You have saved us, and You have told us to ask God anything in Your name, and it would be granted.

We ask You, humbly and confidently, to bless us and our work, and give us the rich treasures of Your divine grace, without which we cannot even so much as pronounce the name of Jesus. Amen.
 

From 'Prayers' by Michael Quoist
As if there were dead people!
There are no dead people, Lord,
There are only the living, on earth and beyond.
Death exists, Lord,
But it’s only for a moment,
A second, a step.
The step from provisional to permanent,
From temporal to eternal.
As in the death of the child the adolescent is born,
from the caterpillar emerges the butterfly,
from the grain the full-blown sheath.