The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Psalm
119.105-112
Lucerna pedibus meis
105. THY word
is a lantern unto my feet : and a light unto my paths.
106. I have
sworn, and am stedfastly purposed : to keep thy righteous judgements.
107. I am
troubled above measure : quicken me, O Lord, according to thy word.
108. Let the
free-will offerings of my mouth please thee, O Lord : and teach me thy
judgements.
109. My soul
is always in my hand : yet do I not forget thy law.
110. The
ungodly have laid a snare for me : but yet I swerved not from thy commandments.
111. Thy
testimonies have I claimed as mine heritage for ever : and why? they are the
very joy of my heart.
112. I have
applied my heart to fulfil thy statutes alway : even unto the end.
The Collect.
ALMIGHTY
and
everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and,
that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which
thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Old
Testament Reading: Micah 6.1-8
Psalter:
Psalm 84, 85 | 74
Epistle
Reading: Galatians 5.16-24
Gospel
Reading: St. Luke 17.11-19
Toon: “Here the assembled people of God make two
large requests of their heavenly Father. First of all, presuming that they
have, at least in small measure, the basic Christian virtues in their souls,
they pray for the increase of them, of their quality and scope. Give unto us
the increase of faith, hope and charity. In the second place, because they
long to receive what God has promised to his faithful people, both now and in
the age to come, they ask that especially the virtue of love/charity [caritas,
agape] grows in them so that they begin truly to love each day and with
consistency what God commands.
It has been said that the theological virtues of
faith, hope and love/charity are the right relation of the reason, the
imagination, and the will, to the spiritual world presented in divine
Revelation and called things invisible in the Nicene Creed. Faith is in
the convictions of the understanding; Hope pictures the promised future by an
exercise of the imagination, and Love is a preference for the true good and
seated in the will.
Faith, hope and charity/love also have a certain
correspondence to past, present and future. In large part Faith looks back to
the revelation of God in word and in deed, and especially in the Incarnate Son,
recorded in Holy Scripture and witnessed by tradition. But faith propels us
into the future for it is the substance of things hoped for, the things God has
promised in, through and with Christ. So faith is joined to Hope in and by
which we truly look forward in humble confidence to the fulfilment of God’s
purposes and will for us and for the universe. But we do not live merely in
memories of the past and anticipations of the future, there is Love. We are to
love our neighbour as ourselves, to love on another as Christ loved us, and to
fulfil all the commands of the law by loving God and man.
Faith is well illustrated and presented in the
Gospel for this week and in the Epistle the virtues as fruit of the indwelling
Spirit are contrasted with the works of the flesh.
These extensive and profound requests can &
should be made because they are address to the Almighty and the Everlasting GOD
and furthermore they rise to Him in the Name and Person of the High Priest and Mediator,
the Lord Jesus Christ” (http://www.pbs.org.uk/the-bcp/fourteenth-sunday-after-trinity)!
For the Feast of Saint Matthew, see here: http://orderofcenturions.org/documents/matthew.html
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