5 October 08

THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

5 OCTOBER 08

LECTIONARY READINGS

Morning Prayer: Psalms 11, 12; Malachi 2:14-end; St. Matthew 19:3-9a, 13-15

Holy Eucharist: Ephesians 5:15-21; St. Matthew 22:1-14

Evening Prayer: Psalm 145; Jeremiah 31:31-37; St. John 13:31-35

REFLECTION

The theme for this Sunday is cheerful obedience and service to God. The Epistle today exhorts us to spiritual joyfulness: “be filled with the Spirit...singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” This Christian joy is one of the great sources of spiritual strength and progress. The Christian life is not one of downcast eyes but of cheerfulness. The connection between this Epistle and the Collect is clear, the petition of the Collect echoing the teachings of the Epistle. We pray to be kept from all hurtful things which hinder us from cheerful service and, as the Epistle warns, from the carelessness, laziness and self-indulgence with which we are all so often tempted. The Collect concludes that, thus guarded and guided, we may cheerfully accomplish the things which God would have us do, in the joyful spirit described in the Epistle.
The Collect also takes its meaning from the Gospel reading which is the parable of the Marriage Feast of the King’s Son. This parable sets forth the privileges to which we are invited, and the danger of being too much absorbed in the cares and anxieties of the world. The invited guests refused the invitation and went their separate ways. We thus pray in the Collect that we will not be like the guests in the parable who refused to accept the invitation, but that we will accept the invitation of Jesus Christ to come to him and receive his salvation: “that we, being ready in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done.”
The second part of the Gospel reading, in which the man “not having a wedding-garment” is thrown out of the feast, teaches that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Each time we come to Holy Communion we are taught by our Prayer Book that we must prepare ourselves to come to the Communion with our hearts clothed with holiness, love and spiritual joyfulness: “...so that ye may come holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast in the marriage-garment required by God in holy Scripture, and be received as worthy partakers of that holy Table” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 90). God invites us to his holy Table to receive the Body and Blood of his Son so that “our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body and our souls washed through his most precious Blood.” We dare not refuse that invitation, but let us come with cheerful and loving hearts. Many are invited to the feast. May today’s Collect be our fervent prayer, that we may be “ready both in body and soul” to serve him and “cheerfully accomplish those things that wouldest have done.”

***COMMON PRAYER: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary Volume 5: Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity to Twenty Sixth Sunday after Trinity St. Peter Publications Inc. Charlottetown, PEI, Canada Reprinted with permission of the publisher.***

THE COLLECT FOR THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

O almighty and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all th ings that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully ccomplish those things which thou commandest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SAINT OF THE DAY

St. Placidus and his companions, Martyrs (6th century)

Placid (6th century), Benedictine monk. As a young boy he was entrusted to Benedict at Subiaco to be educated and to become a monk. He once fell into the lake there and was rescued by Maurus, according to Gregory's Dialogues. A forgery of Peter the Deacon of Monte Cassino made him a martyr in Sicily with thirty companions, who in fact suffered before he was born—they were alleged to have been killed at Messina by Saracen pirates from Spain at a time long before the Moors had even reached Spain. However, this fantasy was ‘confirmed’ by the discovery of a deed of gift, purporting to be from Tertullus (Placid's father) to St. Benedict, giving him lands in Sicily; in 1588 relics were found at Messina which were believed to be those of the martyred Placid and companions. This led to the feast of Placid on 5 October being celebrated very widely and in particular by Benedictine monasteries, who regarded him as the patron of novices and customarily assigned this day to them as that on which they performed the liturgical functions usually reserved to the professed. In 1915, however, the Benedictine liturgical commission proposed to suppress this feast and to celebrate the boy Placid with Maurus. This, however, was refused until the next revision which took place about forty years later when the combined feast of Maurus and Placid was authorized for 5 October. Among the medieval calendars that of Abingdon kept Placid as ‘abbot and martyr’.

***from http://www.answers.com/topic/saint-placidus***

THE COLLECT FOR ST. PLACIDUS AND HIS COMPANIONS

O God, who vouchsafest unto us to keep the heavenly birthday of blessed Placidus and his companions, thy holy Martyrs : grant, we beseech thee ; that we may rejoice in the perpetual felicity of their fellowship in heaven. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.