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The Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity
Intent: Spiritual Progress
THE COLLECT
To Thee we turn, God manifest in all the powers that surround us; to Thee O God who art ever beyond all our wonderings and imaginings. Grant, we pray Thee that we may so serve Thy holy will that our lives and works will not be directed toward the mere mastery of outer things but toward the great glorious joint redemption of the divine in man and the human in the divine. Allow us to fulfill ourselves in Thee, even as we implore Thee to fulfill Thyself in us.
Amen.
THE LESSON
The lesson is taken from the words of Hermes, the Thrice Great Lord:
Now man is a godlike creature, and the true man is even above the gods, or at least equal in power with them. For no one of the celestials will ever come down to dwell in earth, forsaking the boundaries of heaven, but man goes up to heaven, and measures it, and accurately understands it; and more than all, he comes to be on high without even leaving the earth! Such is the greatness of his ecstasy. O how much more happily blended is the nature of man than others. It is linked with the gods by kindred divinity. He looks down upon that part of him which is earthly within himself; he binds to himself with a bond of love all the rest with which he has learned that he is connected; he looks up to heaven, he tends the earth. Without such beings God did not wish the universe to be complete.
THE GOSPEL
The gospel is taken from the Gospel according to St. Thomas:
A woman from the multitude said to Him: Blessed is the womb which bore Thee and the breasts which nourished Thee. He said to her: Blessed are those who have heard the word of the Father and have kept it in truth. For there will be days when you will say: Blessed is the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not suckled. Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found the body, and whoever has the body, of him the world is not worthy. Jesus said: Let him who has become rich become king, and let him who has power renounce it. Jesus said: whoever is near to me is near to the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the Kingdom.
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