Bulletins

May 29, 2022

For first must we pray for grace to know the way, and so say unto God with the Church: ‘From blindness of heart, deliver us, O Lord.’ And with the prophet also thus: ‘Teach me to fulfil thy will, and shew me, O Lord, thy ways, and thoroughly instruct me in thy paths.’ And secondly ought we heartily to wish, that in the fragrant odour of thy sweet savours, O God, and in the most pleasant breath of thy Holy Spirit, we may most joyfully run after thee. And if we misfortune to faint by the way (as God wot seldom do we otherwise) and like slothful losels scantly come after him a great way behind, let us forthwith say unto God: ‘Take me by the right hand and lead me in thy way.’ Now if we grow so feeble that we wax loath to go forth any further, and of sloth and niceness begin to stagger and to stand still, then let us make our prayer to God to draw us forward whether we will or no.

And in conclusion if after fair handling we draw still stubbornly backward and, clean contrary to God’s gracious pleasure and contrary to our own wealth, continue yet unreasonably stiffnecked, like a horse and mule which have no manner of understanding, here ought we in most humble wise to beseech almighty God, with the words of the prophet well serving for this purpose: ‘With a snaffle and a bridle hold hard my jaws, O God, when I do not approach towards thee.’ But of truth for as much as when we once fall to slothfulness, no virtuous disposition sooner goeth from us than doth our good devotion to pray, and that loath in our prayer are we to sue for those things, be they never so behovable, that we be unwilling to receive, long before must we, even while we be well disposed, earnestly take heed, that ere ever we fall into those dangerous diseases that the unquiet mind is cumbered withal, we devoutly call upon God’s help by prayer, and in most lowly wise beseech him, that if it mishap us at any time afterward, either through any lewd lust of the flesh, or through any deceitful desire of worldly things, or through the wily trains of the devil, so to be overcome that we require anything against our own wealth, he would give no care to our such requests, but keep those things that we so pray for, very far from us, and again grant us plenty of those that he foreseeth shall be profitable unto us, make we never so much labour for the contrary.

Lord, give us the grace to love you as you deserve!

Rev. Christopher J. Pollard

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