The Fourth Sunday
after Trinity.
Psalm 73
Quam bonus Israel!
( . . . )
24. Whom have I in heaven but thee : and there is
none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee.
25. My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is the
strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
26. For lo, they that forsake thee shall perish :
thou hast destroyed all them that commit fornication against thee.
27. But it is good for me to hold me fast by God,
to put my trust in the Lord God : and to speak of all thy works in the gates of
the daughter of Sion.
The Collect.
O GOD,
the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong,
nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our
ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose
not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake
our Lord. Amen.
Old
Testament Reading: Lamentations 3.22-33
Psalter:
Psalm 19, 20 | 24, 25
Epistle
Reading: Romans 8.18-23
Gospel
Reading: St. Luke 6.36-42
C.S. Lewis: “Not long ago
when I was using the collect for the fourth Sunday after Trinity in my private
prayers I found that I had made a slip of the tongue. I had meant to pray that
I might so pass through things temporal that I finally lost not the things
eternal; I found I had prayed so to pass through things eternal that I finally
lost not the things temporal. Of course, I don't think that a slip of the
tongue is a sin. I am not sure that I am even a strict enough Freudian to
believe that all such slips, without exception, are deeply significant. But I
think some of them are significant, and I thought this was one of that sort. I
thought that what I had inadvertently said very nearly expressed something I
had really wished. Very nearly; not, of course, precisely. I had never been
quite stupid enough to think that the eternal could, strictly, be ‘passed
through.’ What I had wanted to pass through without prejudice to my things
temporal was those hours or moments in which I attended to the eternal, in
which I exposed myself to it. I mean this sort of thing. I say my prayers, I
read my book of devotion, I prepare for, or receive, the Sacrament. But while I
do these things, there is, so to speak, a voice inside me that urges caution.
It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go to far, not to burn my
boats. I come into the presence of God with a great fear lest anything should
happen to me within that presence which will prove too intolerably inconvenient
when I have come out again into my “ordinary” life. I don’t want to be carried
away into any resolution which I shall afterwards regret” (“A Slip of the
Tongue,” The Weight of Glory, 184-6)
Saint John Baptist’s
Day
24 June
The Collect
Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant John
Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of they Son our
Saviour, by preaching of repentance: Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy
life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching, and after his
example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer
for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Old
Testament Reading: Isaiah 40.1-11
Gospel
Reading: St. Luke 1.57-80
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