kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Help us to show his love

This Sunday, the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity, is a very rare Sunday, so rare, in fact, that it doesn’t even have its own Collects and Post-Communion Prayer. The Collect quoted below is the correct one for this Sunday, but it is actually the Additional Collect for the Third Sunday before Lent. The reason for this rather strange anomaly is because Lent and Easter were so very early this year, which I wrote about way back at the beginning of February.

“Help us to show his love” — “love” (again), a subject talked about a lot on this blog. But how can we “show” God’s love to the world?

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). I think that’s how we demonstrate the Father’s love for us; we show it in the way we love each other, those around us, and throughout the rest of the world.

Angel, one of the people who left a comment on my post for the Blog Action Day earlier this week, wrote a very moving post himself for Blog Action Day. In it he wrote:

So, how did I escape from poverty? I did not sell my soul and honor, as I strongly believe that it this will only bring me to a more pitiable life, in the long run. Although the escape was gradual and the road was stiff, I was determined that I will be able to make it. No, I did not get rich, but at least I am having a good fight.

Actually, there was no secret or magic. It only began from a single word – family.

I was raised with a broken family so basically, I did not have one. When I realized that, I thought why not treat every person I meet as my family? Maybe, I will be inspired to make plans to escape poverty. Maybe, they will be kind enough to help me not by giving me fish but teaching me how to catch them. And surprisingly, it did help a lot. But the biggest help I got is the lesson I learned, that is to study harder, not about academics but how to observe life.

“Family”, if we, too, can treat everyone we meet as family, then perhaps we, too, can help to lift others from poverty, or be lifted from it ourselves. And in that transformation of our lives, we’ll be showing others how God loves them, and us.

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
     into the image of Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

Serve thee with a quiet mind

Today is the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, just another Sunday towards the end of Ordinary Time in the Church’s liturgical calendar. But for those of us lay people who lead a Book of Common Prayer Evensong on a regular basis, the main Collect for the day is very familiar, and, certainly in my case, much loved. It’s the prayer a lay person uses in place of the absolution, because we’re not able to absolve people of their sins as we’re not Priests.

The instruction in the Book of Common Prayers reads:

If no priest be present the person saying the Service shall read the Collect for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, that person and the people still kneeling.

It’s the only place in the official service where what I’m able to differs from what an ordained Priest does. At Godmanchester we traditionally end the service with a blessing, and so I pray for a blessing for all of us, rather than blessing the congregation; just a small difference in the wording used, which makes a big difference to what is actually happening.

Evensong is the only service I lead on a regular basis where I’m able to do things so completely. Perhaps it’s, therefore, no wonder it’s the service I find most fulfilling as far as my upfront public ministry is concerned.

The prayer comes originally from the Gelasian Sacramentary, an ancient Catholic liturgy. Cranmer changed the original “indulgence” to “pardon” because of the medieval abuse associated with the prior term.

The Collect asks for pardon and peace, with the incomparable result of “a quiet mind”. Freedom from the heavy dead hand of the past, and past misdeeds, produces the opposite of anxiety. It produces tranquillity.

As someone who allows anxiety to take a hold of him all too readily, perhaps I should remember this prayer more often than when I’m leading corporate worship.

Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord,
to thy faithful people pardon and peace,
that they may be cleansed from their sins
and serve thee with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect for The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity
from the Book of Common Prayer

Incidentally, had my health been better at the moment, we would have heard this prayer twice this evening at Godmanchester, as I was due to lead Evensong today. The first time when I prayed it after the corporate confession, and then again when I sang it as the first of the three Collects.