The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's homily for November 1, 2020

 For those who are ready for in-person worship, The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield will lead Christ Episcopal Church, Saint Joseph, at 10am in Holy Eucharist, November 1, 2020.

Canon John's homily:

All Saints A Sermon 110120

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22

1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

This is All Saints Sunday, the middle day of the three day remembrance of those who have gone before us.  That is: All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween); All Saints Day; and All Souls Day, which is November 2nd.  In recent years, we have sort of folded All Souls into All Saints and have largely done away with the separate Monday liturgy.  But whether you talk about All Souls or All Saints day, you are talking about the same basic thing – The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.  Remembering the departed – particularly those whom we love but see no longer, is an important thing for human beings.

For my wife, Donna, my children and me, this is a particularly tender All Saints Day.  Donna’s mom died in February, and my dad died on Wednesday — both of Covid-19.  So our family is particularly attuned to remembrances this year.  And it is a good thing to remember those who have gone on before.

At this time of the year, we often get a little misty-eyed when we think back to other times and places when our loved ones were here with us.  But today we do not just think about missing the loved ones who have passed on.  We also pray for these folks because (as our Book of Common Prayer puts it), “(W)e still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is.”

There is something very comforting in that statement.  For one thing, it assumes that our loved ones have gone to be with God.  And although there is a huge exegetical and theological discussion we could have about this, in this sermon I will refer to that as heaven.  Now I know that for most of our relatives, their being in heaven is a given.  But face it: you have one or two whose arrival at the pearly gates is not a done deal (at least not in your mind).  And that brings me to a serious question.  Who is going to be in heaven when you get there?

There is an old joke that goes:

A man arrived at the gates of heaven.  St. Peter asked, “What is your denomination?”  The man said, “Methodist.”  St. Peter looked down his list, and said, “Go to mansion number 24, but be very quiet as you pass mansion 8.”

Another man arrives at the gates of heaven.  “Denomination?”

“Lutheran.”

“Go to mansion 18, but be very quiet as you pass mansion 8.”

A third man arrived at the gates. “Denomination?”

"Episcopalian."

“Go to mansion 11, but be very quiet as you pass number 8.”

The man, being an Episcopalian, couldn’t help but ask a question.  He said, “I can understand there being different places for different denominations, but why do I have to be quiet when I pass mansion number 8?”

St. Peter said, “Well the Baptists are in mansion number 8, and they think they're the only ones here.”

Obviously, that joke will work for every denomination – just some more accurately than others.  And that is because we do not really know much of anything about heaven, not in a scientific proof sort of knowledge anyway.  Unless you are someone who has had a near-death experience and have come back to write a book, you almost certainly have no firsthand experience about what heaven is like, or who its inhabitants are.  But fortunately for us, we have St. John and his famous Revelation to fill in some blanks.

The Revelation of John is apocalyptic literature, meaning that it was written to a group of people who suffered from extreme oppression and was intended to give them hope of the future, even in the midst of that suffering.  And in doing so, John used cryptic and vivid images to tell his readers what the end of time and what heaven would be like.  In what we just heard, he says that he, “[L]ooked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”  One thing that John’s revelation told him, and something he is trying to tell us, is that we cannot begin to imagine how many people will be living with God.  And perhaps more importantly, we cannot say who those people will be.

Think for just a minute about who you believe might not be in heaven.  Maybe it is old uncle Merle, who is the meanest member of the family – the one no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving.  Perhaps you were taught that the majority of people whose skin color differs from your own will never be in heaven.  Or is it those “other people” across the world who do not subscribe to our beliefs?  Maybe it is the people whose sexuality, or political or social doctrines, are opposite from your “correct” views?  No.  Wait.  I know.  It’s those lazy, shiftless, poor people who have such a sense of entitlement.  Those people cannot possibly have earned their way into the same heaven as us, right?  The answer to all of those questions is an emphatic “No!” at least if we believe what the Apostle John tells us.  We are not the judges of anyone else’s fitness for eternal life.  Jesus died and rose again – one time for all.  Jesus’ sacrifice was wholly sufficient to wipe away the sins of the entire world, thereby making eternal life a real hope for us all.  When John said all nations, tribes, people and languages, that was a completely and totally inclusive statement, meant to exclude absolutely no one.

There is a poem that made its way around the Facebook world a while back.  It is called Heaven’s Surprise, and I believe it was written by a man named Rod Hemphill.  It goes like this:

I was shocked, confused, bewildered as I entered Heaven's door, 

Not by the beauty of it all, nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven who made me sputter and gasp-- 

The thieves, the liars, the sinners, the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade who swiped my lunch money twice. 

Next to him was my old neighbor who never said anything nice.

Herb, who I always thought was rotting away in hell,

Was sitting pretty on cloud nine, looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, 'What's the deal? I would love to hear your take. 

How'd all these sinners get up here? God must've made a mistake.

'And why's everyone so quiet, so somber - give me a clue.'

'Hush, child,' He said, 'they're all in shock. No one thought they'd be seeing you.'

As we remember and pray for all of our beloved relatives who have gone on to the nearer presence of God, let us take some time to pray for all those whom we never thought would get to heaven.  And then let us pray that those people are praying for us.

Amen.

Father Riley's homily for October 25, 2020

PROPER XXV - A- 20 - Lev. 19.1-2, 15-18, 1 Thess 2.1-8, Matt. 22. 34-46

I have been fortunate enough to travel to the Holy Land on two separate occasions. No trip to the Holy City of Jerusalem is complete without a visit to the Wailing Wall.

Near the wall and to the west are a series of alcoves, some of which house libraries containing ancient texts. I discovered them quite by accident as I walked around the sacred site.

Rabbinical students and local elders gather there on a daily basis to debate the various writings and commentaries on scripture by ancient rabbis. As I observed, some participants become quite animated as they argue against their counterpart’s point of view.

In the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had found 613 commandments in the scriptures and often debated about which one was central. In today’s gospel reading from Matthew, a lawyer, who is also a Pharisee, asks Jesus in order to test him, which one of the commandments was the greatest.

The answer he received was both a touch of the familiar and the new. The Pharisee simply wanted to engage Jesus in a debate about which of the 613 commandments of the law were “great” and which were of lesser consequence. It was not an uncommon topic among the rabbis of the day.

Jesus responds by quoting Deut. 6.5 and Lev. 19.18. Both of which are familiar to us, as we all learned in our catechism class they constitute the Summary of the Law, as Christ says, “on these two hang all the law and the prophets.”

Every Jew knew and recited the first one on a daily basis. It is called the “Shema,” for the first word in Hebrew is “hear.” Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one…The second one, however, the love of neighbor, was and still is often misunderstood. In his response, Jesus creates a new understanding of love of neighbor as an expression of love of God.

The second commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” means to love your neighbor “as being yourself,” not as some interpret as saying “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” That is to destroy the force of the statement. How much we love ourselves is not the standard by which Christ is calling us to love others.

Think about it, some people do not love themselves, and there are others who love themselves to the exclusion of all. Then, there are those people in the world who by their words and actions we find most difficult to say that we “love” them. Could it mean that there are those who find us just as difficult to love as well?

Perhaps, but does that mean God does not love them or us? Certainly not. God loves us all in spite of ourselves. God’s love for all mankind was manifested on the cross. If that were not true, none of us would be able to obtain the promise of life eternal, which is ours through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are called to love our neighbor as being of the same nature as we ourselves are, as being created in God’s image and likeness just as we are. As we heard Jesus in last week’s gospel telling those who came to test him with the question about taxes, that we bear the image of God, and therefore we are to render ourselves unto God, for we belong to Him.

Some of the early church fathers taught, that we find our true self in loving our neighbor. The greatest commandment, therefore, is really two: love God and love one another. Everything else depends upon these two. For as Jesus commanded in another place, “love one another as I have loved you.”

Christ is speaking of divine love, the love God has for each of us, and not what often passes as “love” in the world as we know it. Remember the scene on the beach following the resurrection where Christ draws Peter aside and asks him “do you love me more than these”? Jesus was referring to the other disciples.

Peter responded that he did, but in his response he used the Greek word for brotherly love, “philia.” However,  Christ was asking him using the Greek word for divine love, “agape.” In other words, Christ was asking Peter “do you love me, as I love you?"

God is love, as St. John writes, and we love because He first loved us, and it is for the love of God that we are called to love one another. Lest we forget, the love of God in Christ is a sacrificial love.

We cannot know it or begin to understand it, much less put it into action, unless we know Christ. To love as God loves us means we are to look past the human flaws we all possess and see in the face of friend and stranger the divine image we all bare.

The Jews of Jesus’ day thought they knew what the commandment to love their neighbor meant. However, their understanding was limited to their fellow Jews. St. Luke has given us the story of the “Good Samaritan” that demonstrates their flawed thinking.

Many today as well think they know what the commandment means, but in practice limit their “love” to those they choose to give it to the exclusion of others.

Jesus, however, expands the meaning to include all, Gentiles and Jews alike. If we are to follow Him, we must learn to love as Christ loves us. God gives us the gift of grace to love as He loves.

However, in order to do so, we must learn to sacrifice our own self-interests, our pride and prejudices and our frail human understanding of what love is in exchange for the divine love we are called in Christ to put into practice in loving our neighbor as our self.

With that said, let us pray that God will fill the space we create in our hearts by sacrificing those very things with the gifts of Faith, Hope, and Love, so that we may live into the new life which we have been called in this world, and obtain the promise of eternal life in the next, by loving what God commands. AMEN+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Father Riley's homily for October 18, 2020

PROPER XXIV - A - 20 - Is. 45. 1-7, 1 Thess 1. 1-10, Matt, 22. 15-22

Ever since his arrival in Jerusalem, to shouts of Hosanna, Jesus has been confronted and challenged by the Pharisees, elders and scribes. His fame and popularity have preceded him. They challenged his authority after he cleansed the Temple and they refused to answer his question concerning John Baptist’ mission for fear it would incriminate them.

They squirmed as he told the parable of the vineyard and of the unjust stewards knowing he was pointing a finger at them. They listened intently as he related the parable of the wedding feast in last week’s gospel without making a comment. Now they plot to entrap him but they do not wish to be confronted and challenged by him again in front of the people.

Thus, they send their allies, the Herodians, who were pro-Roman and supporters of the Jewish puppet king, Herod to trap Jesus into making a political miscue concerning the paying of taxes. They ask him, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not? “ A ‘yes’ from Jesus would turn the Jewish people against him as being pro-Roman, while a ‘no’ would bring charges of treason by the Romans.

Christ’ answer defeats their cunning and shows that a believer can render the state its due while serving God. Jesus asks for a coin. The coin bears the image of the emperor and is properly paid to him, so each person bears the image of God and therefore belongs to God.

Conflict arises only when the state demands that which is contrary to God, or conflicts with our Christian responsibility to God. Some would argue that is the case today in regards to the restrictions being placed on worship by the state in view of the pandemic and in the name of public safety.

Christ remarks ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,’ leaves his would be accusers unable to declare him a political rebel as much as they would like to, especially in light of his triumphal entry into the holy city.

No where in the gospels is Jesus interested in a crafty escape from the hands of his foes. He is not preoccupied with self but with the life of his listeners. He is forever waiting and watching for those moments of grace when through his words and actions he can return us to our rightful relationship with our God.

“Show me the money for the tax,” he says to his challengers. Jesus is not telling us what we already know, namely that our taxes ought to be paid. He is not telling us that the payment to God is due. Rather, he is revealing to us who we are, what we are.

The “coin” is what we work for, and some even slave for. Many have come to believe that the coin is the measure of their value, the symbol of their worth. However, the true measure of our value has to do with the likeness and inscription borne on our bodies and our souls.

God has cast each of us in His own image. Our vocation as Christians is to remain faithful to our allegiance to God through our witness to Christ. At baptism, we said “yes” to God’s invitation to turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as our Savior, to put our whole trust in his grace and love, and promised to follow and obey Him as our Lord.

We were signed with the cross on our foreheads and marked as Christ’ own forever and sealed by the Holy Spirit as such. That indelible cross we bear, however, is not visible to the world. It is by our words and actions that we make ourselves known as Christians to those around us.

As St. Paul wrote to the young Christians at Thessalonica, “we are to imitate Christ having received the word with joy and inspired by the Holy Spirit so as to become an example to all.”  

The vows and promises we made at the font of life were preceded by our renouncing anything and everything in this world that would destroy, corrupt, or draw us away from the love of God.

For some that can be the “coin,” the inordinate pursuit of wealth that becomes the focus of their life and draws them away from the love of God. For others it is the gaining of authority and the power that comes with it that corrupts them in their abuse of it as they weld it over those around them.

For many, however, it is simply the focus on self and self-interest at the expense of all.

None of the above, however, negates that indelible mark of the cross and the Christian responsibility that comes with it to fulfill our baptismal vows and promises we made to God.

To have both feet firmly planted in this secular world without any regard to the next, leaves us vulnerable to the very things we renounced. Lest we forget, none of us is able to fulfill our vows and promises to God without God’s help.

Throughout the gospels, whether Jesus is teaching, preaching or healing, he is inviting us to come and follow Him. By following Him, we find our true self. As Thomas Merton wrote in his “7 Story Mountain, “in order to be what I was created to be, I have to cease to be what I want to be. “

In Christ and through Christ we are shown the way to the One who has made us, whose image, we bear, and to whom we ultimately belong, the God and Father of all.

The question for us today and at anytime as Christians, is whether the kingdom of Caesar is more important to us than the kingdom of God for our answer to that question will determine where we spend eternity. AMEN+

Father Riley's sermon for October 11, 2020

PROPER XXIII - A - 20 - Is. 25. 1-9, Phil. 4. 1-9, Matt. 22 1-14

“Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables…” Like the preceding parables, this one proclaims the transfer of the kingdom from the faithless Jews to the Gentiles. The setting is a joyful wedding banquet.

The Old Testament lesson as well as the Psalm and the Gospel for the day all speak of God preparing a meal of celebration for those who have been invited. Isaiah speaks of a great feast that one day God will prepare for his people. On that day, those who have long awaited for God’s appearing will have a veil, as it were, lifted from their eyes so those seated at God’s table will recognize Him in their midst and rejoice in His salvation.

The Psalmist reminds us that God is always with us in good times as well as bad. Even in the presence of our enemies God is there anointing us and spreading a table before us. The scene of the wedding banquet, in today’s gospel is a symbol of the feast that has long been associated with the coming of the fullness of God’s kingdom.

Jesus is the bridegroom. The Church is the bride of Christ. All those who have been invited to the wedding feast and who have accepted God’s invitation will be seated as long as they are properly clothed. The parable is self-explanatory.

God has been planning this wedding feast for a long time. His invitation was sent first to Israel his chosen people. The prophets were his servants who delivered the initial invitation. Then came John the Baptist delivering the invitation to repentance and to prepare for the coming of the Promised One by confessing their sins and being baptized.

For his efforts, John was beheaded. Then Christ came reiterating John’s message of repentance and announcing that the kingdom has come. That God’s invitation was open to all who would believe in Him as the one sent from God. For his efforts, they crucified him.

Those invited first refused the invitation. Those later invited made excuses why they could not be there. Finally, in Jesus, all are invited, the good and the bad. However, in Jesus’ story, one showed up without the proper attire.

The King refuses to seat him; instead, he has him thrown out.

The parable of the wedding feast has to do with the final judgment, when the fullness of God’s kingdom will be realized when Christ comes again. All those who belong to him and have lived faithfully the new life to which they have been called in Christ will be seated at God’s table surrounded by the Holy Apostles and saints.

This is another one of those stories in which we hope we are not like the one rejected for improper attire, but rather that we are one of those whom God can say have lived our lives faithfully and are ushered to our seat at His table to enjoy the riches of the kingdom.

Nevertheless, we are sometimes like those who have received the invitation but act as if we have never opened it. We go on with life as usual, and make excuses of everyday concerns, which are not in themselves sinful, but when allowed to absorb all of our thoughts and energy they can very effectively stand between us and the full acceptance of the joys of the kingdom.

As Christians, we have all been invited to the party and at our baptisms, we said “yes” to God’s invitation. For us to say, “Yes” to God’s invitation means being willing to put on the mind of Christ and to follow his mode of behavior. Actions have consequences, moral choices matter.

Real human life is not like a game of chess where even if we do badly the pieces get put back into the box at the end of the day and we can start again tomorrow. Too many Christians today, as well as many non-believers, think they can live life as they choose and all will be well in the end.

That is not what the story tells us today. We want to hear a nice story about God throwing a party and all are invited. We don’t want to know or think about final judgment, or about demanding standards of holiness without which no one will see God, or the weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is not the lesson we want to learn. It is not the scene we wish to envision.

Often people dislike this parable because of what it does teach. There is a difference between the wide-open invitation and the message so many want to hear today. We want to hear that everyone is ok exactly as they are: that God loves us as we are and doesn’t want us to change.

People often say this when they want to justify a particular type of behavior, but that argument does not work. Jesus encountered the blind, lepers, cripples, prostitutes and extorioners as he preached and taught kingdom concepts on his way to Jerusalem and the cross.

Jesus did not say, “You are ok just like you are.” His love reached them where they were, but his love refused to let them stay as they were. Love wants the best for the beloved. Their lives were transformed, healed, and changed.

God hates what they are doing and the effect it has on everyone else and on themselves as well. If they do not change, they cannot remain forever in the party. That is the point of the end of the story. Other wise it leaves us puzzled.

God’s kingdom is one in which love and justice, truth and mercy and holiness reign unhindered. They are the clothes one needs to wear now for they are the proper attire for the wedding feast when Christ and those who belong to Him are united forever. Until that day comes, as Christians, we have the Eucharist to remind us of God’s invitation. It is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

In the Eucharist we are fed from God’ altar with the bread of heaven, the Body and Blood of Christ. Our faith helps us to realize that our celebration is authentic. Through the eyes of faith, we recognize God in our midst in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.

Having been fed and nourished with the sacrament, we are sent back out into the world to love and serve as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord until the Day of His coming again. On that day, the fullness of the kingdom will be realized by all, as the presence of God in Christ will be recognized by all.

Moreover, we who have been judged faithful will be ushered in to take our place at God’s table surrounded by the Holy Apostles and Saints and in the presence of Him who has made us His own, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN+

 

 

 

Father Riley's homily for October 4, 2020 and news

The Rev. Canon Gregg Riley will lead the congregation of Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, in Holy Eucharist Sunday at 10am October 4 and 18, 2020.

Beginning in November 2020, Father Riley will no longer serve as Priest in Residence at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph.  Information regarding our plans for November and beyond will be made available as soon as possible.

Online Morning Prayer services Sundays at 10am are available from Bishop Jake Owensby on the diocesan Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/epiwla/

 11am Sunday Morning Prayer services and daily 6pm Evening Prayer services (Mon-Sat) are available from The Rev. Garrett Boyte, Church of the Holy Cross, Shreveport on their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/holycrossdowntown/

PROPER XXII - A - 20 - Is. 5:1-7, Phil. 3: 4b-14, Matt. 21: 33-46

“Almighty and Everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve…” Today’s collect is one of my favorites as it reminds me, and should remind all of us, of God’s gracious goodness, love, and mercy. We have all been blessed beyond anything we might imagine that we deserve.

Our gospel reading and that of the Old Testament go hand in hand with the collect to illustrate God’s goodness, mercy, and love. Israel was God’s chosen people. They were the blessed of God. Throughout the Old Testament, they are often referred to as God’s vineyard.

They were given a mission to be “the light of the world.” Yet, we see and hear through the eyes and mouths of God’s prophets that Israel had failed in her purpose. Again and again, the prophets had called her to turn back to God, to renew the mission God had given her, to be what God had called her to be.

But, they were a stubborn people, stiff-necked, and hardhearted. However, God’s expectations of them never changed. As His vineyard, they were to produce “good fruit” but we see in today’s first lesson this was not the case. Instead of yielding grapes, his vineyard (Israel) yielded wild grapes.

 “God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.”

By the time of Jesus, not much has changed. Jesus has the attention of the chief priests and Pharisees in today’s passage, which picks up where last week’s left off, and delivers yet another parable that is pointed directly at them. It too is an allegory of Israel as the vineyard, and themselves as the tenants and God’s expectations of them.

An interesting aside is the fact that during the time of Jesus there was embossed above the gates of the Temple a vine full of grapes; a symbol of Israel’s status in the eyes of God. They saw themselves as God’s vineyard, but the grapes they were producing were not what God expected of them.

The indications of Jesus’ parable is obvious: Israel’s role as the people of God has not been faithfully discharged, indeed God’s servants, the prophets, have been rejected by Israel, which will soon reject God’s son, the cornerstone of God’s new building Jesus alludes to in today’s passage.

God had blessed Israel more than she deserved. God had been patient with her, compassionate and merciful. The Kingdom of God should have been realized in the Jewish people and God’s rule manifested to the world. But as was in the time of Isaiah, so it is in the time of Jesus, Israel had failed.

Jesus delivers his parable and concludes with a question of his audience; a question to which, unlike the one he previously posed, concerning John, which they refused to give and answer, this time they give the right answer.

Their right answer, however, brought with it their condemnation. “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” When the chief priests and Pharisees heard this, they knew that Jesus was speaking about them.

God’s expectations of his people do not change. In both cases, injustice and violence are hardhearted responses to God’s overtures of care and love. Both the Old Testament and Gospel lessons are teaching us about the hardness of heart and ingratitude to God.

When we read and hear lessons like these, we do not like to see ourselves in them. Yet we are there. The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is a single story of God having revealed himself to man and man’s response to that revelation. Within scripture, we have examples of those men and women who did respond to God and produced the “fruit” God expected of them.

We also have examples of those who chose not to respond in the manner in which God expected. Yet, God holds out his compassion, and mercy to all in the hopes that those who have rejected him will one day turn and accept him.

The prophets of the Old Testament had one mission that of proclaiming God’s desire for Israel to return to him; to turn their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and to produce the fruits of righteousness and justice.

To get, as the Ezekiel said in last week’s lesson, a new heart and a new spirit. Jesus’ mission was the same. His teaching about the kingdom and God the Father was meant to turn the hearts and minds of the people (Israel) back to God, the compassionate one who longed for their return.

The new building that Jesus is speaking of in today’s parable of which he is the chief cornerstone, is the Church. The Church and we are church, have been given that same mission that was given to Israel. We are to proclaim the kingdom and the King, and to live our lives as faithful servants of the One who has invited us to inherit the riches of the kingdom alongside him.

Jesus longs for us to be as compassionate as God is. Why do we find it so difficult? Why are our immediate responses to often selfish and hostile? Perhaps it is because being compassionate is dangerous. It can change our lives, our relationships.

It will affect our outlook on life. We will see things differently, as God sees things, and that may require a conversion of our hearts. Compassion is not weak. It takes strength. Compassion keeps us human.

Today’s gospel story is about that and more. It tells us how Jesus has now come to Jerusalem to confront the tenant farmers with God’s demand for repentance, for Israel to be at last what it was called to be, the light of the world.

And if we dare see ourselves in this story, we see Jesus coming into our lives to confront us, to challenge us to turn our hearts of stone into flesh, to see as God sees and to be what God has called us, and expects us to be, compassionate, and faithful witnesses of Christ producing the fruits of justice and righteousness.

To know Christ, then, and the power of His resurrection, as St. Paul says, is to know God, who is always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve, and not through any merits of our own, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior, to Him be the glory now and forever. AMEN+