Let us pray (in silence) [that we may allow God to steer our lives]
Pause
Lord, [or O God]
may your ceaseless mercy
cleanse and defend your church,
and, since it cannot stand firm without you,
guide and govern it always by your goodness;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The above prayer is used by Roman Catholics and Episcopalians/Anglicans but (except for those RCs using the Extraordinary Form) on different days. It has a long, shared history which you can find here: Ordinary 18, or below.
In the Anglican Church of Or, this Sunday is also one of the zero to three times a year that we can celebrate the Transfiguration!
Lectionary Readings Introduction
This site provides something different: many sites and books provide a brief summary of the reading – so that people read out or have in their pew sheet an outline of what they are about to hear. They are told beforehand what to expect. Does this not limit what they hear the Spirit address them? This site provides something different – often one cannot appreciate what is being read because there is no context provided. This site provides the context, the frame of the reading about to be heard. It could be used as an introduction, printed on a pew sheet (acknowledged, of course), or adapted in other ways.
Genesis 32:22-31
This story combines a “just so” story explaining why the people of Israel do not eat the hip muscle of any animal with a story of a river deity or spirit that comes out at night but flees at sunrise and the origin of the name-change from Jacob to Israel.
Isaiah 55:1-5
English retains the connection between eating and friendship/community in the word “companion” – one we eat (bread) with. In meals we are united with one another and with our host.
Romans 9:1-5
The “New Perspective on Paul” is a paradigm shift within New Testament scholarship since E. P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). There had been an unfair caricaturing of Palestinian Judaism as legalistic works focused. James Dunn and NT Wright have built on this to move Romans 9-11 from the backwaters of biblical studies and this new context no longer supports an oversimplification of a Catholic-Protestant divide into works contrasted with faith.
Matthew 14:13-21
Jumping from last Sunday’s Gospel reading to today’s may miss the context of today’s. Matthew Chapter 14 begins with a banquet hosted by King Herod. Today’s reading stands in stark contrast in environment, atmosphere, motivation, and result. The “deserted place” once again has Matthew alluding to another frame – Jesus the new Moses providing food in the desert.
Today’s readings online (link off this site)
Further resources (off this site):
TextWeek
Preaching resources Down Under
Reflection on the Collect
This is my rendering of the Latin Collect from the Gelasian Sacramentary (#1218), Gregorian supplement (#1174) for the sixteenth Sunday after (the) Pentecost (octave) – in other words where it remained in the Sarum Missal (Trinity 16) all the way through BCP (1928) and the Tridentine Missal into the Roman Catholic Extraordinary Form today. After Vatican II, for the Ordinary Form, it was moved to Monday 3rd week of Lent:
Ecclesiam tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata mundet et muniat: et quia sine te non potest salva consistere; tuo semper munere gubernetur.
This has much poetic sound – note the k, m, n sounds.
munus a service, office, post, employment, function, duty.
munio (muniat) to build a wall around, to defend with a wall, to fortify, defend; to guard, secure, strengthen, support (munio from moenia walls) also to open a road (viam munire).
consisto to stand still, stand, halt, stop, make a stop, taking a stand, consistency.
guberno is “to steer or pilot a ship”. Logically, it also means “to direct, manage, conduct, govern, guide”.
So, literally, something like:
Let Your continuous compassion, cleanse and defend Your Church, Lord, and because without you it cannot continue to stand, may it forever be governed by Your grace.
With allusions to boat images – the church as the boar…
Cranmer in 1549 had this as:
LORD, we beseche thee, let thy continual pitie clense and defende thy congregacion; and, because it cannot continue in safetie without thy succoure, preserve it evermore by thy helpe and goodnes; through Jesus Christ our Lorde.
1662 rendered congregation (ecclesia) as “Church” because of the Puritan understanding of “congregation”.
BCP (TEC) Proper 13:
Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church;
and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect
and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for
ever and ever. Amen.
ICEL (1973):
God of mercy,
free your Church from sin
and protect it from evil.
Guide us, for we cannot be saved without you.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
In the failed 1998 English Missal translation:
Lord God,
we pray that your endless mercy
may cleanse and protect your Church;
and, since it cannot stand firm without you, guide and govern it always by your grace.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.
ICEL (2011):
May your unfailing compassion, O Lord,
cleanse and protect your Church,
and, since without you she cannot stand secure,
may she be always governed by your grace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
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