I pray that you know this love that surpasses knowledge– that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:19 NIV)

The faithful prayer is enlightened through this prayer and grows in faith and trust. It does not doubt that God hears this prayer and hopes for fulfillment that is bigger and richer even than the initial request spelt out. That is why all praise is given to God alone. The love of Christ is worshiped and adored, because it by far surpasses all understanding and much higher than any reasoning powers. If the Ephesians receive this love, then they will not tire of the hard sufferings and trials the apostle goes through. Rather God will lift them to higher degrees and levels of understanding and compassion and the inner life and spirituality. Just as God alone came up with his profound and encompassing salvation for all people and the whole world, just as he alone carried it out successfully and victoriously in Jesus Christ our Lord and still continues to carry this gracious mission out through his Holy Spirit, so too he alone can grant proper insight to his Christians in his most holy mission actions by which he builds his one holy Church worldwide. He alone can strengthen and promote this insight that it becomes truly motivational and effective to gain our fruitful participation in his mission work. History is his doing and also his great gift of gracious workings. Most of us don’t reach levels of high influence and significance in this world and time, yet our God will see to it that there will always be those, who will pursue his mission and the growth of his holy Church and its expansion and outreach as their highest and dearest priority. Whoever knows that he is part of this living structure of the Church and appreciates the prophetic and apostolic foundation on which he is grounded, loves not only the one and main keystone Jesus Christ, but also the true kingdom of God here on earth: His one, holy Christian Church + His thoughts are with the Church by day and night. His prayers, his cares, passion, desire and hope are similar to those of the apostle – directed at the Church and her fulfillment here and forever.

Dear heavenly Father: We want to live in fellowship and communion with you and thus be edified by your gracious presence. Allow us to be living stones in your Church gifted to carry our burdens too. Make us all the more to living organs and limbs of the holy body of your son Jesus Christ. Grant that we will willingly sacrifice ourselves in your service. Permit that we will worship and serve you in priestly attire and fight valiantly for your cause. Make your people to a holy and dedicated communion that lives and serves by your most dear grace. Amen. (O.J. Mehl)

This is a rather free translation of Wilhelm Löhe’s devotion for Friday after the sixteenth Sunday after the high holiday and festival of the Holy Trinity. It is found on Pg. 332 in Lob sei Dir ewig, o Jesu!   (Eternal Praise to you o Jesus!) edited by A. Schuster and published in the Freimund Verlag, Neuendettelsau 1949.