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Week of The First Sunday After Epiphany

"The Consecrated Life"

"Better is it that thou hadst not vowed than thou shouldest vow and not pay."

A Prayer for the Week

Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto Thee. And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto Thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service.

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Saturday. 1st after Epiphany.

The Consecrated Life.

Called to be saints.--1 Cor. i. 2.

What offering, what transcendent monument
Shall our sincerity to Thee present?
--Not work of hands; but trophies that may reach
To highest Heaven--the labour of the Soul!
That builds, as Thy unerring precepts teach,
Upon the internal conquests made by each,
Her hope of lasting glory for the whole!
Wordsworth.

Bring thine all, thy choicest treasure,
   Heap it high and hide it deep!
Thou shalt win o'erflowing measure,
   Thou shalt climb where skies are steep.
For as Heaven's true only light
Quickens all those forms so bright,
So where Bounty never faints
There the Lord is with His saints.
Keble.

Who shall dare make common or unclean
What once has on the Holy Altar been?
Newman.

Know that His might is yours, Whose breathing seal'd your vows!
Keble.

Teach me, my God and King,
   In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
   To do it as for Thee!
All may of Thee partake,
   Nothing can be so mean,
Which with this tincture (for Thy sake)
   Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
   Makes drudgery divine!
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
   Makes that and th' action fine.
Herbert

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