Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Remigius (c. 438-533), Bishop of Rheims, Apostle to the Franks (source):

O God, who by the teaching of thy faithful servant and bishop Remigius didst turn the nation of the Franks from vain idolatry to the worship of thee, the true and living God, in the fullness of the catholic faith; Grant that we who glory in the name of Christian may show forth our faith in worthy deeds; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. John 14:3-7

Remigius was consecrated bishop of Rheims at age 22. The pagan Clovis I, who had married the Christian princess Clothilde, began his reign as king of the Franks about 20 years later, in 481.

Before entering combat against German tribes at Tolbiac, Clovis prayed to “Clothilde’s God” for victory. His soldiers won the battle, and Clothilde asked Remigius to teach the king about Christianity. Clovis was amazed by the story of “this unarmed God who was not of the race of Thor or Odin”. In the words of Remigius, the king came “to adore what he had burnt and to burn what he had adored”.

In 496, Remigius baptised Clovis in a public ceremony at Rheims Cathedral. Three thousand Franks also became Christians. Under the king’s protection, Remigius was able to spread the gospel and build churches throughout Gaul.

Artwork: François Louis Dejuinne, Baptism of Clovis by Remegius, 2nd quarter 19th century. National Museum of the Castles of Versailles and Trianon, Versailles.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Jerome (c. 342-420), Priest, Monk, Translator of the Scriptures, Doctor of the Church (source):

O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant Jerome, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 3:14-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 24:44-48

One of the most scholarly and learned early church fathers, St. Jerome devoted much of his life to accurately translating the Holy Bible from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek into Latin.

Born near Aquileia, northeast Italy, of Christian parents, Jerome travelled widely. He received a classical education at Rome and travelled to Gaul where he became a monk. He later moved to Palestine, spending five years as an ascetic in the Syrian desert. In 374, he was ordained a priest in Antioch. He then pursued biblical studies at Constantinople under Gregory Nazianzus and translated works by Eusebius, Origen, and others.

Travelling to Rome in 382, Jerome became secretary to the aged Pope Damasus. By the time the pope died three years later, Jerome had become involved in theological controversies in which he antagonised many church leaders and theologians. He left Rome under a cloud, returning to Palestine where he lived as a monk in Bethlehem for the rest of his life.

Over several decades, Jerome wrote biblical commentaries and works promoting monasticism and asceticism. Most importantly, he produced fresh Latin translations of most of the Old and New Testaments, based on the original biblical languages. This work formed the basis of the Vulgate, which remained the standard Scriptural text of the western church for over a millennium.

Artwork: Domenico Ghirlandaio, St. Jerome in his Study, 1480. Fresco, Ognissanti, Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 16 May 2010.

“Michael and his angels fought against the dragon”

“Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress … In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo” (T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock). Michelangelo? The ninja turtle? No, the great Renaissance artist. Or is this simply all a digression? The name, Michelangelo, derives from The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels’ which marks the closing down of September, on the one hand, and the beginning of the School Term, on the other hand, especially at Oxford and Cambridge and the schools which derive their traditions of education from them.

Turtles and angels do have something in common. They are both part of the created order. They both belong to our reflections upon the world as intelligible. Angels remind us of some very important features of our humanity. They remind us that we are spiritual creatures by virtue of our thinking and our loving. When we think and love we are in the company of angels.

Michaelmas speaks about the things which belong to our intellectual and spiritual life. One of the wonderful thing about angels is that you can’t see them. You can only think them! For some that seems crazy. If you can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist; it isn’t real, some may think. Well, to the contrary, there are lots of things which we can’t see but nonetheless respect and recognise: our thoughts and feelings for one thing as well as lots of things in particle physics such as quarks, neutrinos, and nuons or in math with such things as numbers and shapes – these are not sense perceptible things. They are realities grasped by our minds through our thinking. Like the angels, we can only think them.

Angels belong to a long and profound tradition of poetic and philosophical reflection, to the ways in which the world is intelligible. They are the invisible reasons for the visible things of the world, intellectual principles which are intermediate, in some form or other, between God and man. We can only think the angels and, in some sense, when we are thinking we are in the company of angels.

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The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 12:7-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-10

The name Michael is a variation of Micah, and means in Hebrew “Who is like God?”

The archangel Michael first appears in the Book of Daniel, where he is described as “one of the chief princes” and as the special protector of Israel. In the New Testament epistle of Jude (v. 9), Michael, in a dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, says, “The Lord rebuke you“. Michael appears also in Revelation (12:7-9) as the leader of the angels in the great battle in Heaven that ended with Satan and the hosts of evil being thrown down to earth. There are many other references to the archangel Michael in Jewish and Christian traditions.

Following these scriptural passages, Christian tradition has given St. Michael four duties: (1) To continue to wage battle against Satan and the other fallen angels; (2) to save the souls of the faithful from the power of Satan especially at the hour of death; (3) to protect the People of God, both the Jews of the Old Covenant and the Christians of the New Covenant; and (4) finally to lead the souls of the departed from this life and present them to our Lord for judgment. For these reasons, Christian iconography depicts St. Michael as a knight-warrior, wearing battle armor, and wielding a sword or spear, while standing triumphantly on a serpent or other representation of Satan. Sometimes he is depicted holding the scales of justice or the Book of Life, both symbols of the last judgment.

Very early in church history, St. Michael became associated with the care of the sick. The cult of Michael developed first in Eastern Christendom, where healing waters and hot springs at many locations in Greece and Asia Minor were dedicated to him. Michael is supposed to have appeared three times on Monte Gargano, southern Italy, in the 5th century. The local townspeople believed that Michael’s intercession gave them victory in battle over their enemies. These apparitions restored his biblical role as a strong protector of God’s people, and were also the basis for spreading his cult in the West.

The Feast of St. Michael & All Angels is also known as Michaelmas. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates today as the Feast of Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels.

Artwork: Claudio Coello, Saint Michael the Archangel Vanquishing the Devil, 1665-1670. Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

“Thou shalt love …with all thy mind”

There is something wonderfully reflective about the Scripture readings in the late part of the Trinity season that is particularly necessary in our rather unreflective age, however challenging we may find it. Here we are being told to love with the whole of our being including “with all thy mind”. Something inescapably intellectual belongs to the spiritual realities of our life in Christ.

We are presented with an imperative, something commanded, not a maybe or a might be but a must be. Here are strong words that challenge all our assumptions about what we think is love. Strong words, too, that are voiced in the context of controversy, a controversy between Jesus and the questioning scribes, one of which, at least, “answered intelligently” by recognizing the significance of the Jewish Shema, what is sometimes called the Summary of the Law, as being “better than all the burnt offerings and the sacrifices.”

But it is a curious thing. Jesus’ answer to the question “which commandment is the first of all” is to relate the Summary of the Law. Love here is about the orientation and direction of the inner activity of our being. Love is commanded. It means loving God with the whole of our being – “with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” With the exception of “all thy mind”, this is simply to quote Deuteronomy, though the addition is really only an explication of what is implicit in the Hebrew parallelism of “all thy heart” and “all thy soul.” Much has sometimes been made of the absence of “all thy mind” in Deuteronomy and its presence in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Certainly it reflects a new and important focus on the logos of God, the Word of God, as apprehended by our minds in the Christian understanding of things. And certainly, the word here for mind is the term which Plato uses as the highest form of human intellectual activity, διανοια.

But Jesus doesn’t stop with just that passage from Deuteronomy; he goes on to say that “the second is like it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” to which he also adds “There is none other commandment greater than these.” And, at least one of the scribes responds positively recognizing that the Summary of the Law is a complete statement. It comprehends the true meaning of the Law of Israel. The Law is love. We are commanded to love.

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Monday, September 26th
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, September 27th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Wednesday, September 28th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, September 29th, St. Michael & All Angels
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, September 30th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, October 2nd, Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Octave of Michaelmas)
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events and Changes to the Tentative Schedule:

Saturday, October 8th
7:00-9:00pm Newfoundland & Country Music Evening

‘Phantom of the Pipes’ concert scheduled for October 28th: cancelled

Tuesday, December 20th
7:00pm Capella Regalis Concert, “To Bethlehem with Kings”.

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

LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 12:28-37

Artwork: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Harbour Scene with Christ Preaching, 1597. Oil on panel, Private collection.

“Follow me”

Today’s epistle appointed for The Feast of St. Matthew reminds us that “we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake”. The focus is entirely on Christ. The call of Matthew is altogether about the resurrection of Christ in us and about our being with Christ; in short, the commemoration of St. Matthew illumines the very nature of salvation for us. We are called to follow him who comes to us and who is raised up for us.

It begins with Jesus passing by, the Jesus who is always passing by. “As Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man called Matthew”. It all seems so casual, so accidental, so incidental but, to the contrary, Jesus’ passing by is not casual; it is essential. That is to say, it belongs to the very principle of God who is life itself, who is always active, and never static, and whose activity is always purposeful and therefore, always requires a response. We are always in his sight.

His passing by is not without consequence. Something happens. He glances upon us. “Salvation begins by our being seen by Jesus, by his turning toward us his compassionate eyes”. Here Jesus “saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom”, at the tax collector’s bench. Everything unfolds from that glance of Jesus.

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

O ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist: Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 9:9-13

Artwork: Tobie de Lelis, St. Matthew, 1643. Cathedral of St. Michael & St. Gudula, Brussels. Photograph taken by admin, 14 October 2014.

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Coleridge Patteson (1827-71), Missionary, First Bishop of Melanesia, Martyr (source):

O God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who didst call thy servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear thy call to service
and to respond with trust and joy
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:34-38

John Coleridge Patteson was a curate in Devon when Bishop of New Zealand George A. Selwyn persuaded him to go out to the South Pacific as a missionary. In 1856 he journeyed to Melanesia. He encouraged boys to study at a school Selwyn had founded in New Zealand and later set up a school in Melanesia. He was very proficient in languages and eventually learned twenty-three different languages and dialects spoken in Melanesia and Polynesia.

In 1861 Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia; he travelled across his diocese constantly, preaching, teaching, confirming, building churches, and living among the people. On the main island of Mota most of the population were converted.

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