Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint George (d. c. 304), Soldier, Martyr, Patron of England (source):

O God of hosts,
who didst so kindle the flame of love
in the heart of thy servant George
that he bore witness to the risen Lord
by his life and by his death:
grant us the same faith and power of love
that we, who rejoice in his triumphs,
may come to share with him the fullness of the resurrection;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 St. Timothy 2:8-10, 3:10-12
The Gospel: St. John 15:1-7

Artwork: Fortunino Matania, St. George Slays the Dragon, 1962. Oil on board, Original cover artwork from Look and Learn no. 15 (28 April 1962).

“Because I go to the Father”

How do we know what is wanted to be known? More to the point, how do we know what God wants us to know? The Easter Season presents us with some remarkable lessons about who we are in Christ. They are the teachings of Christ about the nature of our radical life with God and in God without which we have no life. At the heart of that teaching is the Resurrection.

We find our healing and our wholeness in Christ. All of the stories of the Resurrection reveal ourselves in ourselves as the community of the broken hearted. Only in facing our brokenness and recognizing our unknowing can we begin to be taught and come to understand what God seeks for us, namely, our wholeness. It happens in the face of our brokenness and not in spite of it or in denial of it. Only so can we begin to be made whole. The education here concerns the whole person; in short, matters of character.

Sorrow and grief, loss and suffering, dying and death are not denied. They provide the necessary occasion in which our wholeness is proclaimed and realized. This is a recurring feature of the Easter Season. The last three Sundays of the Easter Season present us with Gospel readings from what is sometimes known as “the farewell discourse of Jesus” in John’s Gospel, particularly John 16, in which there is the repeated refrain of the Easter season. It is the phrase “because I go to the Father.” Jesus is the teacher who prepares the disciples here for what is to come in terms of his death and resurrection. He speaks directly about suffering and sorrow and about joy. “Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”

What is our sorrow? Our sense of separation from Christ: “a little while and ye shall not see me; and again a little while and ye shall see me,” Jesus says. This puzzles the disciples and us but reading these passages now in the light of Easter we see exactly what they mean. Sorrow is turned into joy through the triumph of life over death. Jesus uses an image, the image of childbirth, to convey the radical meaning of the Resurrection.

“A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered, she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a child is born into the world.” There will be sorrow and suffering “but your sorrow shall be turned to joy.”

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Monday April 23rd
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, April 24th, Eve of St. Mark
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Wednesday, April 25th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Friday, April 27th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, April 28th
Fr. Curry at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Charlottetown, for Prayer Book Study on “The BCP: Past, Present and Future”
7:00-9:00pm Nfld & Country Evening of Musical Entertainment – Parish Hall

Sunday, April 29th, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, May 12th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Lobster Supper – Parish Hall

Wednesday, May 23rd
3:00pm KES Cadet Corps Church Parade

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22

Artwork: Jaume Huguet, Last Supper, c. 1470. Tempera on panel, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona.

The collect for today, the Feast of St Anselm (1033-1109), Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, Theologian (source):

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in thine eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide thy Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: Romans 5:1-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:25-30

Artwork: St. Anselm, stained glass, St. Augustine Kilburn, London. Photograph taken by admin, 26 September 2015.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Alphege (c. 953-1012), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

O merciful God,
who didst raise up thy servant Alphege
to be a pastor of thy people
and gavest him grace to suffer for justice and true religion:
grant that we who celebrate his martyrdom
may know the power of the risen Christ in our hearts
and share his peace in lives offered to thy service;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 7:13-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:4-12

Artwork: Martyrdom of St Alphege, carved painting, Canterbury Cathedral.

Did not our heart burn within us?

Our readings in Chapel this week take us from the company of the broken hearted to those whose hearts are on fire with love and joy. And all, in part, because of the breaking of the bread. That action consolidates the teaching and brings it home in the minds of the disciples. It is not just that seeing is believing. It is rather the breakthrough of the understanding, seeing as understanding, seeing things in a radically new way. That is what happens on the road to Emmaus, the story which we read in two installments; one last week, the other this week.

“He was known of them in the breaking of the bread.” Christ’s actions at the Last Supper on the night of his betrayal are now seen and remembered in the light of his passion and resurrection. He opens our understanding by opening the Scriptures, showing us that our wholeness, our wellness and health, if you will, are found in the face of our brokenness and not in spite of our broken hearts. But the opening of the Scriptures to our understanding is not all; what brings the teaching home to the heart is an action related to our being together at a meal.

Food plays an important role in the accounts of the Resurrection because of the body. Immediately after the conclusion of the story of the Road to Emmaus, Luke tells of another appearance of Jesus to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, it seems, where he proclaims peace and shows them his hands, and feet, saying, “it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones and you see that I have.” And yet, “they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered,” Luke tells us. It is in that context that Jesus then asks what might seem to be an utterly bizarre question. “Have you anything here to eat?” “They gave him a piece of broiled fish” which he took and ate. Nothing confirms the reality of the body more, it seems, than eating. Something powerful is made known through our being together at a meal. Through something as ordinary as a piece of broiled fish comes something extraordinary and powerful.

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“For ye were as sheep going astray;
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls”

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,” Isaiah remarks in a powerful passage that belongs to our Good Friday considerations and indeed to the General Confession in the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer: “we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.” But as Good Friday also makes clear “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The idea of sheep and shepherd takes on a whole new meaning and complexity in the image of Christ as the Lamb of God. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” as John the Baptist says in John’s Gospel. And in an even profounder image, John the Divine in his Revelation proclaims that “worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing,” a passage that serves as the Eastertide Offertory sentence.

The liturgy underscores the image of lamb in the Agnus Dei , which means “lamb of God,” as part of our communion devotion, recalling us to Christ as the “Lamb of God,” “that takest away the sin of the world” whose mercy and peace we seek in the receiving of the sacrament of Holy Communion. The point, too, is taken up in the repeated refrains for mercy in the Gloria which emphasizes Christ as the “Lord, the only-begotten Son,” “the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, that takest away the sin of the world” and who “sittest at the right hand of God the Father.”

All of these Scriptural references that inform our liturgy contribute to our understanding of one of the most familiar of all Christian images, the image of Christ the Good Shepherd. The deeper point is that the Good Shepherd is also the lamb of God, the Son of God who is for us “both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life,” as today’s Collect puts it. Something has been done for us and something happens in us that revolve around the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd “who giveth his life for the sheep.” We are the sheep, lost and astray, “but [we] are returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls” by Christ the Lamb of God whose sacrifice “takes away the sin of the world.”

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Monday April 16th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, April 17th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-800pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Madeline Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, and Bandi, The Accusation

Wednesday, April 18th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, April 19th
2:00pm Service – Windsor Elms

Friday, April 20th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, April 22nd, Third Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, April 28th
7:00-9:00pm Newfoundland & Country Music Evening

Saturday, May 12th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Lobster Supper – Parish Hall

The collect for today, The Second Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St .Peter 2:19-25
The Gospel: St. John 10:11-16

Artwork: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Good Shepherd, 1922. Oil on canvas, Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.