18 April 2021

It is beyond doubt...

...one of my all time favorite collects of the entire year. The collect for this Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, Misericordias Domini:

God, who by the humiliation of Thy Son didst raise up the fallen world, grant unto Thy faithful ones perpetual gladness, and those whom Thou hast delivered from the danger of everlasting death do Thou make partakers of eternal joys; though Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord...

What a bold thing to ask of God: perpetual gladness and eternal joys! And yet these are what He is eager to give to us. Neither of those is “happiness” (so dependent upon “happenings”) but both are rooted far deeper: they flow from the Cross of Christ and what it has won for us. And that gives you reason to be perpetually glad and to hasten often to made a partaker of the eternal joys that flow from His presence.

“In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16 (Conserva Me, Domine)

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