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Book of Common Prayer Sunday Eucharistic Lectionary Propers

Appointed for the Week of 

The Sunday Called Quinquagesima

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THE COLLECT.

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O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.  Amen.

 

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THE EPISTLE. 1 Corinthians 13. 1.

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THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.

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THE GOSPEL. St Luke 18. 31.

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THEN Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken. And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side begging: and hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight; thy faith hath saved thee. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

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Book of Common Prayer Sunday Eucharistic Lectionary Message

A Sermon for

The Sunday Called Quinquagesima

(15th February, 2026, Christ Church, Windsor, NS)

 

“If I have not charity, I am nothing

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“Love bade me welcome,: yet my soul drew back,/ Guiltie of dust and sinne,/ But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack/ From my first entrance in,/Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,/If I lack’d any thing”. Love (III)

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So begins the last poem in George Herbert’s remarkable set of poems, The Temple, published in 1633, the year of his death, by his friend Nicholas Ferrar, later of ‘Little Gidding’ fame, during what Helen Gardener calls “the great watershed of the Civil War” in England. Herbert’s poems offer, I think, a kind of English poetic summa of what has come to be called classical Anglicanism and provide a fitting complement and commentary on its embodiment in The Book of Common Prayer, the essence of classical Anglicanism, as it were.

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“Love bade me welcome” Welcome to what? To the kingdom of heaven, to the heavenly banquet or marriage feast in the language of the parables of the Gospels and to the form of such things eschatalogical as participated in by way of the Eucharist. The phrase speaks to the beginning and end of the pilgrimage of the soul and thus to the readings for Quinquagesima Sunday. Love invites us to love.

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Book of Common Prayer

Daily Office Lectionary

Appointed for the Week of 

The Sunday Called Quinquagesima

Holy Scripture Readings for Morning and Evening Prayer
as appointed by the 1962 Canadian Book of Common Prayer (BCP).

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