May 1
Color: White or Red
The COLLECT
We thank thee, Lord of Light, for the holy presence of the Apostles Philip and James, and we pray that those to whom their wondrous power has descended may ever be filled with Thy love and wisdom, that under their hierophantic guidance thy Ecclesia may ever serve the one and true Gnosis for evermore. Amen.
The LESSON
The Lesson is taken from the general Epistle of St. James:
My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
The GOSPEL
The Gospel is taken from the Gospel according to St. Philip:
A blind man and one who sees, when they are in the darkness the two do not differ from one another. But when the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness. The Lord said: Blessed is he who is before he came into being. For he who is, both was and shall be.