Collect for Trinity 2
Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you. Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.
2 Corinthians 4: 13 – 5: 1
Mark 3: 20 – 35
Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (Prayer for Peace)
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
When we hear and see the reports of conflict – daily – it would seem that no matter how fervent our prayer, we will see no end to violence – we cannot really imagine that the world, its leaders and its people will ever change. It feels as if evil is winning. The old song – “Last night I had the Strangest Dream” – appears in truth to be exactly that; a dream only. If we just give in and believe that there is nothing we can do to bring about such a change, the dream will never come true. So let’s not.
Whatever we do, how small it may seem, we can abide with St Francis’ prayer. And every time we do, evil is weakened. It can often be hard – to sow love; to pardon; to have faith: to hope; to bring light; to live joyfully; to console, to understand, to give; to pardon; to love.
These actions cost us. They demand us to put ourselves last, not just behind the brothers and sisters we love, but those we don’t love as well. We shall have to reach out to those we would rather not know. We may be ridiculed – we may even be humiliated. We will have to be prepared to forgive, no matter what the hurt. There will be times of disappointment; times when we will even be near to despair. But those are the moments when are at our most powerful – we look at the cross, and trusting in Him alone, we face the battle.
And we prevail, and the Lord wins the war.
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As Christians, may we never regard mercy and compassion towards others as weakness, naivety or gullibility, but display the traits which demonstrate that we follow a Saviour who came to rescue those left behind.
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The song by Mary Black, ‘Bless the Road’, while written as from a parent whose child is leaving home alone for the first time – maybe first day at primary school, going to college, beginning an independent life – always puts me in mind of the thoughts and blessing of Jesus as He prays for His disciples before His Ascension.
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‘Peace I give to you… do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.’
His peace is not remote and only there at the end of things – His Peace is with us now.
Praying Together 18th May 2025
So the commandment is a challenge. To love those who betray you. Those who jeer. Those who wield the whips embedded with flint, hammer in the nails, pierce your side.