Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (8 September 2024). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today celebrates Saint John Chrysostom (407), Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher of the Faith.
Later today, I am catching a flight from Luton to Belfast. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 6: 39-42 (NRSVA):
39 He also told them a parable: ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 42 Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye”, when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.’
The Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos has the skull of Saint John Chrysostom (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Today’s Reflection:
Today’s Gospel reading continues reading from the ‘Sermon on the Level Place’, Saint Luke’s equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, which we began reading on Wednesday with Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (Luke 6: 20-26) and continued reading yesterday.
Today’s reading shoukd prompt me to reflect on my own actions with the sort of introspection I find in the prayers of Saint John Chrysostom, who is remembered in the Church Calendar today (13 September):
1. O Lord, deprive me not of your heavenly blessings.
2. O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment.
3. O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive me.
4. O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of heart.
5. O Lord, deliver me from every temptation.
6. O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires.
7. O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; I ask you, being God, to forgive me in your loving kindness, for you know the weakness of my soul.
8. O Lord, send down your grace to help me, that I may glorify your holy Name.
9. O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, your servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end.
10. O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in your sight, yet grant me, according to your grace, that I may make a start in doing good.
11. O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of your grace.
12. O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, your sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in your Kingdom.
13. O Lord, receive me in repentance.
14. O Lord, leave me not.
15. O Lord, save me from temptation.
16. O Lord, grant me pure thoughts.
17. O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace.
18. O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins.
19. O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience.
20. O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness.
21. O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of you in my heart.
22. O Lord, grant that I may love you with all my heart and soul, and that in all things I may obey your will.
23. O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters.
24. O Lord, who knows your creation and what you have willed for it; may your will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for you art blessed for evermore. Amen.
These are prayers that I handed out each year to students taking the elective on Patristics I offered on the MTh course in the Church of Ireland Theological College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin.
The rediscovery of Patristic texts and writings in the 15th and 16th centuries, following the exodus of Greek scholars with the fall of Byzantium is a major factor in understanding the Reformations, in particular the Anglican Reformation. Thomas Cranmer introduced the ‘Prayer of Saint Chrysostom’ to Anglicanism:
‘Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfil now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.’
Today’s Prayers (Friday 13 September 2024):
Each year, on 14 September, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Cross, known as ‘Holy Cross Day’ throughout the majority of the Anglican Communion. The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘What does the holy cross mean to you?’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 13 September 2024) invites us to pray:
Give us strength Lord, that we may take up our cross and follow you.
The Collect:
God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Holy Cross Day:
Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
An icon of Saint John Chrysostom … commemorated in the Church Calendar on 13 SeptemberScripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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