LORD, we pray thee, that thy grace may always prevent and follow us; and make us continually to be given to all good works, through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.
Keynote: The Grace of God
When the grace of God illumines the soul, the whole life shines with an inner light. What do we mean by "the grace of God"? It means that we are conspicuously in touch with God, that we live our lives in His presence. We shall never understand this statement, however, if we think of God as a person in the sense in which we apply the word personality to ourselves. We may be said to be in the presence of God when consciousness apprehends some aspect of the Divine Nature, and when our characters show forth the God-qualities.
But how can we know what those God-qualities are when the personality of God is admittedly inapprehensible by the unaided human faculties? "No man has seen the Father at any time," but "whosoever has seen Me, has seen the Father," said our Lord, for He showed forth in their fullest human manifestation the God-qualities. It is, therefore, "through Jesus Christ our Lord" that we purify and uplift our natures till they meet the grace of God; and when the grace of God is with them, they flow out as spontaneously in good works as the sun gives light.
How different is the quality of the "good works" thus engendered! The God-qualities flowing through us to our fellow-men are life-giving, regenerating, for we are showing them God in our small way, even as our Lord showed us the Father." We are showing them God when we are loving, for God is Love; we are showing then God when we are true, for God is truth, the Light in whom there is no darkness. Human souls can only know God when He is thus shown to them by the manifesting of the God-qualities in human lives. It is this which distinguishes the good works done in the name of God; the God-qualities we have done in our own name are channels for the power of God to manifest itself to men, and good works undertaken under such a Divine impulse operate upon more planes than one, and when we feed the hungry because God loves His children through us, we feed not only the body, but the immortal soul.
[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]
*Interestingly enough, this prayer does look very much as if it is modelled on, or at least inspired by, the very ancient Actiones Nostras prayer.
Actiones nostras, quaesumus Domine, aspirando praeveni et adiuvando prosequere: ut cuncta nostra oratio et operatioa te semper incipiat, et per te coepta finiatur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
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