Fourteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Custódi, Dómine, quǽsumus, Ecclésiam tuam propitiatióne perpétua: et quia sine te lábitur humána mortálitas; tuis semper auxíliis et abstrahátur a nóxiis et ad salutária dirigátur. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

Keep, we beſeech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and becauſe the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable for our ſalvation; through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Divine Guidance

Unless God keeps the city, the watchman wakes in vain. Like water, human consciousness forever seeks its own level. It  can never transcend its limitations or rise above its imperfections. It is only the pressure of divine life which can bring human life to higher levels.

We will infallibly be self-deluded unless we have an external standard of rightness. We will unconsciously justify that which we desire and condone that into which we have lapsed. Our judgement of ourselves soon becomes vitiated if we have no example by which to measure ourselves.

Man can no more rise higher than himself than water can rise higher than its source. It is only when we make contact with the Divine that we are lifted above the endless circle of the humans. God's love, manifested to us by His Son and His saints, shows us the way out of this vicious circle; in humility we open our hearts to that ever-flowing love, and it pours into us with newness of life and we rise up out of our finite human concepts to the heights when love comes.

God's love is an active, not a passive thing. It is the great reconciler. Jesus Christ was the expression of that love, and ever it goes forth, like a shepherd seeking that which is lost. It presses into human consciousness wherever the door stands ajar. None who hunger and thirst after righteousness need go empty away. If we allow the human qualities of kindliness and gentleness to find expression through us, they will open the door to divine love, and our Lord will come in and sup with us.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

The Fairies' Lost Command

Actually, this follows on quite nicely from last week's post.

Thirteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, da nobis fídei, spei et caritátis augméntum: et, ut mereámur asséqui quod promíttis, fac nos amáre quod prǽcipis. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

Almighty and everlaſting God, give unto us the increaſe of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou do ſt promiſe, make us to love that which thou doſt command, through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: The Love of God's Law

It is not enough that we should obey God's law from fear of the consequences of disobedience. Unless we realise the beauty of its harmony we do not obey it with the inward man. Only when we realise that God's law is the music of the spheres, that it sweetly rules and governs all things, bringing forth the Mazzaroth in his season and guiding Arcturus with his sons — only when we realise that harmony is its basis and perfection its design can we joyfully give ourselves up with perfect security to its governing. Then do we know why the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

It is our finite separateness and selfishness which keeps us from this realisation. Because we wish to keep back part of the price, to retain something for our private use, we fear to leap into the ocean of the cosmic life where we can swim freely and where there is an abundant sufficiency for all our needs.

It is only as we develop the vision of the higher self — the faith which perceives the substance of things unseen, the hope which in confidence awaits the manifestation of the hidden laws, and the love which fails not is kind to all things, which seeks not its own, and therefore possesses all things — that we can rise into realisation of the oneness of all existence and love God's law because it maintains infinite unity in eternal harmony.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

Bury St Edmunds

Where the rude buttress totters to its fall,
And ivy mantles o'er the crumbling wall;
Where e'en the skilful eve can scarcely trace
The once high altar's lowly resting place -
Let patriotic fancy muse awhile
Amid the ruins of this ancient pile.
Six weary centuries have past away;
Palace and abbey moulder in decay -
Cold death enshrouds the learned and the brave -
Langton - Fitz Walter - slumber in the grave.
But still we read in deathless records how
The high-soul'd priest confirm'd the barons vow;
And Freedom, unforgetful still recites
This second birth-place of our native rights.

Twelfth Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens et miséricors Deus, de cuius múnere venit, ut tibi a fidélibus tuis digne et laudabíliter serviátur: tríbue, quǽsumus, nobis; ut ad promissiónes tuas sine offensióne currámus. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

ALMIGHTY, and merciful God, of whoſe only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable ſervice: Grant, we beſeech thee, that we may ſo faithfully ſerve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promiſes, through the merits of Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Fidelity and Understanding

Two things are needed for God's service: one is an unfaltering fidelity, and the other is a right understanding of what is required of us.

If we look back through history, we see many examples of an unfaltering fidelity to God's service which to us seem to go hand in hand with a misunderstanding of God's requirements of us. We cannot now believe that God would require us to massacre the little children of those who believed wrongly, yet men have been found, not once but many times, to do this in a spirit of unfaltering fidelity.

How are we to avoid making like errors? How are we to judge righteous judgement? We cannot do it by the light of human reason and expediency; we must be able to stand outside our mundane problems if we are to see in them their spiritual significance and judge them accordingly.

It is only by God's grace that we can hope to do this. And what is that grace? It is the uplifting of heart that comes when we lift up our eyes to the highest ideal we can conceive - the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the friend of the heart Whose influence changes our outlook. When we have been alone with Him for a little while, we find that we are judging very differently to the way we judged when we were in the midst of our problems. Guided by the divine counsellor, we shall know how to do God true and laudable service, and shall not be misled by our human errors, fears, and prejudices.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

The Odda Stone

Eleventh Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui, abundántia pietátis tuæ, et mérita súpplicum excédis et vota: effúnde super nos misericórdiam tuam; ut dimíttas quæ consciéntia métuit, et adícias quod orátio non præsúmit. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

ALMIGHTY and everlaſting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we deſire, or deſerve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us thoſe things whereof our conſcience is afraid, and giving us thoſe good things which we are not worthy to aſk, but through the merits and mediation of Jeſus Chriſt thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Beyond Our Grasp

If our aspirations were limited by our apprehensions we should be "of all men the most miserable", but our hearts reach out beyond our minds, and God hears the unspoken desire and answers it.

Our lower selves, clinging desperately to their material security and their personal desires, are not able to formulate the bold and noble prayers that call down the power of God. It is our higher selves, silent and hidden in the deepest recesses of our nature, which pray for spiritual things and are answered, often to the confusion and distress of the lower self.

And all the time the life and the love and the might and the wisdom of the Logos consciousness are around us like the air we breathe, pressing for admission to our self-limited natures, and we are afraid to open ourselves to them lest our small securities be swept away in the great tides of cosmic life.

Then it is the higher self rises up and prays, "Give us more than we dare to ask." We open ourselves freely to the great tides of spirit, come what may. And God "who is ever more ready to hear than we are to pray", pours down upon us "more than we can ask or think", and the problems, which appeared insuperable to our darkened eyes, are swept away in the great rushing tides of life and love, and the memory of then is not kept in mind.

Let us, therefore, dare to trust ourselves into God's hands, for He is indeed the creator and sustainer of life, and will not suffer us to be lost, and bring us, by His mercy, into the fullness of life.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

Tenth Sunday after Whitsun

Deus, qui omnipoténtiam tuam parcéndo máxime et miserándo maniféstas: multíplica super nos misericórdiam tuam; ut, ad tua promíssa curréntes, cœléstium bonórum fácias esse consórtes. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

O God, who declareſt thy almighty power moſt chiefly in ſhewing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us ſuch a meaſure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promiſes, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treaſure; through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Attainment through Obedience

God's commandments are not the arbitrary orders of a despot, any more than natural laws are the arbitrary commands of scientists. Men who understood nature have told us the result of innumerable observations and experiments expressed in a few words as formulas, and these formulas are called natural laws. But it is not these laws which determine the workings of nature; nature worked long before there were scientists to observe her. It is nature which determines the laws, not the laws which determine nature.

So it is which spiritual laws, sometimes, according to the personalizing habit of thought of the ancients, spoken of as God's commands. Men who knew the nature of God have told us things concerning His nature, and have formulated the divine principles as God's laws.

It is God's nature which determines the nature of His universe. As God is in spirit, so is His manifestation in form. As above, so below; the divine nature is expressed in all that He created and sustains.

It was Christ Jesus who "showed us the Father". If "that mind is in you which was also in Christ Jesus", you will obey the commandments of God spontaneously because it was your nature to; and just as you will be healthy if you live according to the "the laws of nature", so will you be harmonious if you live according to "God's commandments" and will be "made partakers of the heavenly treasure".

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]