Tenth Sunday after Trinity

This guide is drawn from the Scriptures the Church appoints for the day.

Opening Prayer

ALMIGHTY God, who dost visit thy people in mercy, and art nigh unto all such as call upon thee faithfully: open thy holy Word to us this hour, and open our hearts to receive it. Grant that we may not let thy visitation pass unregarded, but may hear thy voice and know the things which belong unto our peace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gathering

Before anyone opens a Bible, go around the room with a plain question: when has something important been happening right in front of you, and you only understood what it was long after it had passed?

The Reading

On this Tenth Sunday after Trinity the Church sets before us the moment our Lord comes over the last hill and sees Jerusalem, and we sit with it because He does two things in that hour that we do not usually expect from the same man.

Gospel · St. Luke 19:41-47a

AND when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves. And he taught daily in the temple.

Anyone who wishes to read further will find the other appointed texts for the day at Joshua 24:14-24, Psalm 145, and 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.

Talking It Through

1. Before our Lord says a word, He does something. What does Saint Luke tell us He does, and where is He standing when He does it?
2. He says the things that belong to her peace are now hid from her eyes, and He gives a reason: she knew not the time of her visitation. What does that phrase, the time of thy visitation, seem to mean here?
3. The weeping over the city and the driving out of the sellers come one right after another in Luke’s telling. What do you make of the same Lord doing both within the hour?
4. He says His house is the house of prayer, and that they had made it a den of thieves. What does it take for a house of prayer to become something else, when no one ever sat down and decided that it should?
5. The Collect for today asks that God would make us to ask such things as shall please Him. Having read of a city that did not know what belonged to her peace, how does that petition sound to you now?
6. Jerusalem was visited and did not know it. What would it look like, in an ordinary week, to know the time of our own visitation?

Bringing It Home

One might take the Collect itself into the week, praying it each morning and letting it work on what we are asking for, rather than only on whether we get it. There is also an old practice of sitting quietly on Saturday evening with the coming Sunday in mind, so that we arrive at the altar knowing what we have come for, and consider whether that would change how Sunday morning meets you.

Closing Prayer

GO with us, O Lord, into the days before us, and let what we have heard this hour take root and bear fruit in due season. Keep us watchful, that we may not be strangers to thy coming, but may know thee in the hour of thy visiting. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.