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]