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First Sunday after Trinity
excerpt fromCOMMON PRAYER
Volume 4: Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity
Daily Reading on the Lectionary of the Book of
Common Prayer by W. J. Hankey, D. P. Curry, J.A. Matheson, B.L.
Craig, R. U. Smith, and G. W. ThorneRevised by D. P. Curry, P. W. Harris, and B. M. Large
St. Peter Publications
Inc. Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, 1999.Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
O God, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee:
Mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our
mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of
thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee both
in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Trinity season encourages us to consider how we might grow in holiness
and practically live out our Christian life daily. The theme of this
First Sunday after Trinity is that of the Love of God and the Love of man.
In our Epistle for today St. John shows that God’s own love for mankind
is the source and spring of all love towards him. This true love
of God issues in deeds of kindness to our fellow man. Today’s Gospel
reading speaks of the inevitable consequence of rejecting God’s Love and
ignoring the plight of our fellow man. Not only must we be born again
of the Spirit (last week’s Gospel reading), but we must allow the Spirit
to work within us throughout our life.
The Epistle makes it clear that God is the source of all Love:
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved
us...
This truth is echoed in our Collect in which we admit that “through the
weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee.”
But with God, and gazing at the love of God which was shown to us in Jesus
Christ, all things are possible, and so we continue to pray in our Collect:
“grant us the help of thy grace.” It is only when we receive
the grace and love of God that we can love one another.
In this week’s daily readings we continue to set before us the example
of our Lord’s life in our continuation of St. Mark’s Gospel; we continue
to see Job working out his trust in God’s providence in the light of his
personal tragedies; and we begin to read I Peter which, like the readings
from James last week, gives us instruction and practical advice for day
to day Christian living.
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