Lectionary Devotions by Father Gethin

The twenty-third Sunday after Trinity marks the official finale of this long green season, which has served to guide our passage out of our fallen, worldly, confusions and predicaments, and into the marvellous light and life our resurrected Lord and Saviour…

The feast of All Saints crowns the Christian year with a renewed vision of our heavenly life and calling, tried and purified by our faithful passage through the story of this Trinity season…

As we make our way through this troubled and troublesome world, and as we struggle to persevere in our faith, confronting the temptations and darkness which constantly test our spiritual resolve, it can often seem that we must wait for heaven to have any sense of our blessing…

Our common calling as the followers and disciples of Jesus is to grow up into our Christian maturity, so that our spiritual identity as the citizens of heaven and the members of Christ’s body becomes continually stronger and more clear.

Luke would have us see clearly the order and pattern of our Lord’s life, and following from that story, he carries on in Acts with a history of that order and goodness working itself out in the first years of the Church.

The further we make our way along the pilgrimage of this Trinity season, the clearer becomes the vision of our faith, just as the nearer we draw toward the object of our desire, the better able we are to perceive its attributes…

As we approach the culmination and fulfillment of the Trinity season in these its final weeks, our lections guide our thoughts and prayers toward a new and heavenly mandate for living…

And through the offering of our praise and thanksgiving we discover the unfolding joy that accompanies our growth into the knowledge of the love of God, “That in every thing [we] are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge.”

This week’s readings follow the lessons for last Sunday just as the commandment to love our neighbour follows the commandment to love God. Paul tells us to, “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.”

Our lessons today call us toward and into the final stage of our Christian faith, our free and unhindered communion and fellowship with the life of God…