As Lent rolls on, I draw your attention again to that wonderfully useful devotional tool for keeping us safely pointed in the right spiritual direction as we observe a Holy Lent.
Last time we looked at THE LITANY (BCP, p31. There is also a version in the BAS, p138). After praying for God’s mercy, that He will spare us from the consequences of our — and our forebear’s — offences and deliver us from an exhaustive list of perils, we then prayerfully recite another list of the things that The Father has done to deliver us, including;
By thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; by thy sending of the Holy Spirit (p31).
This is the Holy Spirit who was sent to help us and fill us with all the fullness of God, as He teaches and reminds us of Jesus and as He helps and empowers us to be faithful, effective witnesses of the Resurrection. The Holy Spirit was sent by The Father and so are we. On the next page of THE LITANY we also pray:
To send forth labourers into thy harvest; to prosper their work by thy Holy Spirit; to make thy saving health known unto all nations; and to hasten thy kingdom, We beseech thee, good Lord (BCP, p32).
Be honest. Who still prays that regularly? Yet Jesus Himself exhorts His disciples to pray it and to pray it earnestly (Mt 9.37, Lk 10.2). There is work to be done and a key component of that work is to pray a prayer that Jesus specifically called His disciples to pray. The faithful, regular and frequent use of such tools for prayer provided by the Prayer Books as THE LITANY is a good way of getting the job done.
And if we pray what Jesus asks us to pray in this way, will our Heavenly Father not give the Holy Spirit to prosper our work, make His saving health and faith known to the nations and hasten the coming of His kingdom (Lk 11.13)?
The good news is that LORD promises not to leave us helpless orphans in this endeavour. To that end, THE LITANY also invokes God’s good grace:
To give to all thy people increase of grace, to hear meekly thy Word, and to receive it with pure affection, and to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, We beseech thee, good Lord (BCP, p33).
“Thy people” is us. God’s Church.
God’s grace, says James Ryle, is His empowering presence to be who He made us to be and to do what He calls us to do.
Dallas Willard writes that God’s grace enables us to do things that we are not able to do on our own — things like pray and read the Scriptures every day, to hear them with the ears of our hearts, receive them with that pure affection (a lovely prayer book phrase), and to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5.22) — surely the very best way to make the Father’s saving health known to all nations and to hasten the coming of His kingdom!
As THE LITANY draws to a close, we ask The LORD to forgive those who wish us harm and,
To give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligence, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy holy Word. We beseech thee, good Lord (BCP, p34).
Sin, negligence and ignorances — not much can escape that matrix. More grace. More Holy Spirit. To amend our lives according to God’s living-and-active (Heb 4.12), not-going-back-to-Him-empty, accomplishing-His-purpose, succeeding-in-the-things-for-which-He-sent-it (Isa 55.11), and holy, Word.
What we’re praying for in all the above is for the Holy Spirit to be made manifest — made obvious, demonstrated — as the faithful are sanctified; as all come to know that the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father; as the work of the harvest labourers prospers; and as the fruit of the Spirit and grace abound.
And all for building up the church (1 Cor 14.12). Amen.
