may find the way to divine knowledge
and so come to see the hidden things of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
A reading from the Book of Tobit.
I performed many acts of charity to my kindred, those of my tribe: I would give my food to the hungry and my clothing to the naked; and if I saw the dead body of any of my people thrown out behind the wall of Nineveh, I would bury it. I also buried any whom the king put to death when he came fleeing from Judea in those days of judgement that the king of heaven executed upon him because of his blasphemies. For in his anger he put to death many Israelites; but I would secretly remove the bodies and bury them.
This is the word of the Lord.
Tobit 1.16b–18a
Responsorial Psalm
R: The free gift of God is eternal life
[for the Lord redeems his people].
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits. R
Who forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;
Who redeems your life from the Pit
and crowns you with faithful love and compassion. R
Who satisfies you with good things,
so that your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
The Lord executes righteousness
and judgement for all who are oppressed. R
From Psalm 103
A reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans.
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is the word of the Lord.
Romans 6.20–end
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
Jesus said to the crowds, ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Luke 11.33–36
Post Communion
God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with William Law
to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
10 April
William of Ockham
Friar, Philosopher, Teacher of the Faith
England: Commemoration
If celebrated otherwise, Common of Teachers
Born at Ockham in Surrey in about the year 1285, William entered the Franciscan Order and, as a friar, studied and then taught at Oxford. His writings were ever the subject of close scrutiny, this being a time when heresy was suspected everywhere, it seemed, but he never received any formal condemnation. Later in life, he entered the controversy between the rival popes and had to flee for his life. His much-used principle of economy – often referred to as ‘Occam’s Razor’ – stated that only individual things exist and that they are directly understood by the thinking mind and that this intuitive knowledge is caused naturally. His doctrine of God led him to destroy the thirteenth-century concept of the relationship between theology and philosophy and took the study of the philosophy of religion onto a new level. He died on this day in the year 1347.
11 April
George Augustus Selwyn
first Bishop of New Zealand
England, Scotland: Commemoration – Wales: V
If celebrated otherwise, Common of Bishops
George Augustus Selwyn was born in 1809, educated at Cambridge and ordained as curate of Windsor. In 1841 he was made the first Bishop of New Zealand and remained there for twenty-seven years, during the first years travelling when few roads or bridges existed. In the wars between colonists and Maoris he stood out heroically for Maori rights, at the cost of fierce attacks from both sides and grave personal danger in his efforts to part the warriors, until later he was revered as one of the founders of New Zealand as well as of its Church. He taught himself to navigate and gathered congregations in the Melanesian Islands. His constitution for the New Zealand Church influenced the churches of the Anglican Communion and he was a chief founder of the Lambeth Conferences of bishops. In 1868 he was persuaded to become the Bishop of Lichfield in England and died there on this day in 1878.
Collect (Wales)
Jesus, incarnate God,
good news for all who have ears to hear and eyes to see:
we thank you for George [Augustus Selwyn]
and for all who bring the gospel to New Zealand and Melanesia:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
and hasten the time when the earth is filled with your glory;
for with the Father and the Holy Spirit
you
