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2014/09/19

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (and Feast of St. Matthew) - 2014


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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