Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Feast of St. James & Eighth Sunday after Trinity.

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem”

Providentially, The Eighth Sunday after Trinity coincides this year with The Feast of St. James the Apostle. The connecting link is the idea of the Resurrection and the forms of our participation in the redemptive work and life of Christ as the pilgrimage of our souls. The Saints remind us that glorification is intimately intertwined with the concepts of justification and sanctification. St. James, in particular, reminds us of our life in pilgrimage. He is the great saint of pilgrimage which, simply put, is about going up to Jerusalem.

St. James, too, is a Maritime saint. There are so many, many churches in the Maritimes dedicated to the honour and memory of St. James, sometimes more than one in the same community! St. James is one of the disciples whom Jesus calls from fishing to become a fisher of men, as we heard on The Fifth Sunday after Trinity. St. James speaks to our Maritime sea-faring traditions. The Collect alludes to his calling even as the Lesson from Acts points to its radical cost. James is put to death by Herod the king. The Gospel teaches the meaning of that calling. It has altogether to do with our going up to Jerusalem with Jesus. We know this from Quinquagesima Sunday in the preparation for Lent in the Gospel reading, there from Matthew and now here from Mark. It points to the radical meaning of Christian pilgrimage as a form of witness or martyrdom, highlighting the connection between justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Going up to Jerusalem, as Jesus explains, means his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. The Saints show that this means our participation in Christ’s redemption of our humanity: drinking of the cup of which Christ drinks; being baptized into Christ’s baptism. We are consecrated to God by virtue of our incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ. Suffering and glory are all part of that story.  As Paul tells us in the Epistle for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, “we have received a spirit of sonship.” We are “the children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.” But only “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.” The martyr saints remind us of the suffering and the glory.

To be a martyr means to bear witness. The Saints are more than heroes and more than mere role models. What defines them and what is meant to define us is the calling or vocation which we share with them. What moves in them is the redemptive life of Christ made visible in them. They have found their wills in the will of Christ. It is “not I but Christ who lives in me;” that has to be the constant theme and struggle of Christian witness. It cannot be about calling attention to ourselves. It is not “look at me looking at you looking at me,” the culture of narcissistic self-obsession. It is “look to Jesus.” See Jesus and see yourself in him. This is the point of the liturgy – seeing ourselves and one another in Christ and being with one another in Christ.

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Sunday, August 1st, Ninth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

The collect for today, the Feast of St. James the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle Saint James, leaving his father and all that he had, without delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him; so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow thy holy commandments; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 11:27-12:3a
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:32-40

Artwork: Jan Boeckhorst, Martyrdom of St. James the Greater, 17th century. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, France.

The collect for today, the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 8:12-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 7:15-21

Artwork: Fra Angelico, Sermon on the Mount, 1442, Fresco, Museo di San Marco, Florence.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whose blessed Son did sanctify Mary Magdalene, and call her to be a witness to his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by thy grace we may be healed of all our infirmities, and always serve thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 13:27-31
The Gospel: St John 20:11-18

Artwork: Paolo Veronese, The Conversion of Mary Magdalene, c. 1548. Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London.

The collect for a Virgin or Matron, on the Feast of Saint Margaret of Antioch (289-304), Virgin and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, the creator of all mankind, we bless thy holy Name for the virtue and grace which thou hast given unto holy women in all ages, especially thy servant Margaret of Antioch; and we pray that the example of her faith and purity, and courage unto death, may inspire many souls in this generation to look unto thee, and to follow thy blessed Son Jesus Christ our Saviour; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 9:36-42
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:38-42

Artwork: Giuseppe Cesari (Cavaliere d’Arpino), Martyrdom of St. Margaret, c. 1608-11. Oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity.

“I have compassion on the multitude”

It must seem strange in the sultry heat of the quiet summer and in the lush richness of nature’s bounty in the beauty of the valley, to hear about sin and death and about being in the wilderness with nothing to eat, even given the endless shadows of COVID-19 and the sense of outrage in the culture against the churches.

But this is to lose sight of the guiding wisdom of the Spirit in the Scripture readings in terms of the balance and interplay between the theological themes of justification and sanctification which ultimately speak profoundly to our current distresses.

Sanctification is about our taking ahold of the redemptive work of Christ’s justifying grace; it is the active reception of what has been given. This Sunday’s readings highlight this idea in terms of our lives sacramentally which is nothing less than our living in the love of God.

They open out to us things that we need to hear, things which have to do with a larger, more complete, and more honest view of human life  and in its relation to the natural world of which we are an integral part. Ultimately, it is about life with God in Jesus Christ, something of lasting worth and meaning in which we participate here and now. To put it more simply, there is a spiritual and scriptural wisdom here which challenges the complacencies and certainties of our ordinary lives. Ours is the culture, to some extent, of full bellies and empty souls, notwithstanding the grotesque inequalities of wealth in the global world where famine and poverty still rule. The greater question is about what it means to be human. The spiritual and biblical view of orthodox Christianity suggests that it has altogether to do with the dynamic of our life with God. And that is wonderfully illustrated for us in the Collect, Epistle and Gospel for today.

“The free gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ,” St. Paul tells us. “I have compassion on the multitude,” Jesus says. These are the strong positives of our spiritual life that speak to the human condition, “in times of adversity and prosperity,” we might say (echoing the marriage service). They are profoundly suggestive of the dynamic of that spiritual life expressed sacramentally in terms of baptism, on the one hand, and holy communion, on the other hand. Baptism is about nothing less than our personal and individual incorporation into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “being made free from sin and become servants to God” and to what further end? That we may have our “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” This we cannot earn and do not deserve. It is not something to which we are entitled. It is, precisely, “the free gift of God.” Yet, it is meant to be lived. If we have the beginning of our spiritual life personally and individually in baptism, then we have the continuation and growth of that spiritual life in us through holy communion and by its extension into our lives.

In a way, it is as simple as that. And as hard. Why? Because we have to think it and will it. We cannot take it for granted or assume that we deserve anything that is good.

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Sunday, July 25th, St. James the Apostle/Eighth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion