Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Nicholas (d. c. 326), Bishop of Myra (source):

Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who didst choose thy servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of thy grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
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: 1 St. John 4:7-14
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:13-16

Artwork: Ilya Repin, Saint Nicolas Saves Three Inocents From Death, 1888. Oil on canvas, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 155-c. 215), Priest, Apologist, Doctor (source):

O God of unsearchable mystery, who didst lead Clement of Alexandria to find in ancient philosophy a path to knowledge of thy Word: Grant that thy Church may recognize true wisdom, wherever it is found, knowing that wisdom cometh forth from thee and leadeth back to thee; through our Teacher Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Colossians 1:11-20
The Gospel: St. John 6:57-63

“I waited patiently for the Lord, / and he inclined unto me
and heard my calling” (Ps. 40.1)

Pondus meum amor meus. My love is my weight. A powerful phrase from Augustine, it has shaped the medieval and reformation churches’ understanding of human redemption. The question is about what weight of meaning it might have for the contemporary church in all of our confusions and disarray. Augustine’s image captures a significant theological theme which, on the one hand, counters and, on the other hand, complements the inarticulate loneliness of a culture which has abandoned God. Yet it is there for us to think again.

Mary in Advent is Mary in Holy Waiting. The image relates to the Augustinian phrase. What defines Mary is her waiting upon the will of God. Far from a kind of passive acquiescence, Mary’s waiting is an holy activity, a kind of attentiveness to the pageant of God’s Word revealed in the Law and the Prophets and now, on Angel’s wings, it seems, opening us out to the wonder and the marvel of God’s coming to us through her. To what extent are we in her? For Mary, to use Irenaeus’ poignant and potent phrase is the pure womb which gives birth to that purity which Christ himself has made pure: “that pure one opening purely that pure womb which regenerates men unto God and which he himself made pure.”

It is impossible to think of Mary apart from Christ and so it is of interest the way in which she quietly and patiently intrudes her presence upon our meditations and thoughts. Mary is an inescapable feature of the landscape of Advent. She plays a critical and crucial role in our understanding of Christ’s coming to us, our Emmanuel, God with us. Through Mary we begin to discover how our humanity is totally and inescapably bound up with the will of God towards us; in short, his advent.

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“The night is far spent”

There are degrees of darkness. There is the literal darkness of the night in the twilight of the year. There is the metaphorical darkness of civilisations and cultures in their decay and disarray. There is the social and economic darkness of communities and families in their distress and dismay. There is the darkness of institutions when they betray their foundational and governing principles. There is the darkness of souls in psychological confusion – distraught, anxious, angry and fearful. There is the darkness of the fear of death. The “far spent night” is the hour of deepest darkness.

In one way or another, these darknesses are all forms of spiritual darkness. They all belong to the darkness of sin and doubt, the darkness of death and dying, the darkness of despair. The darkness of despair is the deepest darkness, the darkness of the “far spent night” of the soul, the darkness of darkness itself, as it were. Why? Because it is the darkness of denial. Despair is the denial of desire. It signals the rejection of the possibilities of light, of faith; the rejection of the possibilities of hope, of what is looked for; and the rejection of the possibilities of love, of what is embraced in the knowing delight of what is good and true, of what is holy and beautiful.

In the oldest literary work known to our humanity, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero, Gilgamesh, is changed in his soul and outward aspect by the loss of his friend, Enkidu. He sets out on a search for everlasting life; it is really a quest for wisdom, for he knows, and we know, that is his destiny is not everlasting life but kingship. He is mortal and has to come to terms with his mortality. Wisdom is found in the embrace of the limits of our knowing.

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Monday, December 2nd
4:45-5:15pm World Religions/Inquirer’s Class, Rm. 206 KES
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks in Parish Hall

Tuesday, December 3rd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme I: ‘Advent: Mary in Holy Waiting’

Thursday, December 5th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, December 8th, Second Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Christmas Service of the Deaf
4:30pm Advent & Christmas Lessons & Carols with KES (Gr. 7-11) – Christ Church
7:00pm Advent & Christmas Lessons & Carols with KES (Gr. 12) – Hensley Memorial Chapel, KES

Upcoming Event:

Friday, December 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series II, Capella Regalis presents “To Bethlehem with Kings”.  $10.00. Pulled Pork Supper & Concert (5:30-6:30, concert at 7:00) $15.00. (Supper only – $10.00)

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Advent, being the Fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 13:8-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 21:1-13

Artwork: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Entry into Jerusalem, 1308-11. Tempera on wood, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

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

ALMIGHTY God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay: Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 10:8-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:18-22

A native of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee, Andrew was a fisherman, the son of the fisherman John, and the brother of the fisherman Simon Peter. He was at first, along with John the Evangelist, a disciple of John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Christ led the two to follow Jesus. Andrew then took his brother Simon Peter to meet Jesus. In Eastern Orthodox tradition, St. Andrew is called the Protokletos (the First Called) because he is named as the first disciple summoned by Jesus into his service.

At first Andrew and Simon Peter continued to carry on their fishing trade, but the Lord later called them to stay with him all the time. He promised to make them fishers of men and, this time, they left their nets for good.

The only other specific reference to Andrew in the New Testament is at St. Mark 13:3, where he is one of those asking the questions that lead our Lord into his great eschatological discourse.

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Christ Church is very pleased to announce that Capella Regalis Men & Boys Choir will return for another Christmas concert on Friday, December 20th, at 7pm. Last year’s concert was a wonderful success and we look forward to the choir’s repeat appearance.

Capella Regalis was founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia by Director Nick Halley in 2010. The choir comprises twelve men and fourteen boys (ages 7 – 14) and is modeled on the great Anglican tradition of men and boys church choirs. The choir rehearses and sings weekly Choral Evensongs at the University of King’s College Chapel in Halifax and performs concerts around Nova Scotia throughout the September – June season. Capella Regalis is a registered Society under the Societies Act of Nova Scotia and is an educational outreach programme of Musique Royale (www.musiqueroyale.com). Please visitwww.capellaregalis.com for more information.

This year, we are also offering the option of a pulled pork supper before the concert. Tickets are available at the door: the concert and supper cost $15; concert only, $10; supper only, $10. Advance tickets (concert only) may be purchased at Windsor Home Hardware.

Click here for a larger poster suitable for downloading and printing.

The collect for a virgin or matron, on the Feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria (4th century?), 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 Catherine; 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

The cult of Saint Catherine arose in the Eastern Church in the 8th or 9th century and spread to the West at the time of the Crusades. She is not mentioned in any early martyrologies. No reliable facts concerning her life or death have been established. She is now generally considered to be a mythical figure.

According to her legend, St. Catherine lived in Alexandria when Emperor Maxentius was persecuting the church. A noble and learned young Christian, Catherine prevailed in a public debate with philosophers who tried to convince her of the errors of Christianity. Maxentius had her scourged, imprisoned and condemned her to death. She was tied to a wheel embedded with razors, but this attempt to torture her to death failed when the machine (later a Catherine wheel) broke and onlookers were injured by flying fragments. Finally, she was beheaded.

St. Catherine is often portrayed holding a book, symbolic of her great learning. She is the patron saint of teachers and students.

Artwork: Bernaert van Orley, The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, early 16th century. Oil on wood, Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Kiev, Ukraine.

“Then Jesus turned”

As images go this one is particularly significant. The idea of turning is provocatively before us in the Lesson from Jeremiah, in the gradual psalm, in the Gospel reading from John, and most poignantly in the baptism of Kaitlyn Jacoba Marilyn this morning. The turning is twofold: there is God’s turning to us and there is our turning to God, the turning of our hearts and minds to God. “I will hearken what the Lord God will say:/ for he shall speak peace unto his people and to his saints, and unto them that turn their heart to him,” as the Psalmist puts it.

Today marks a turning point in the Church Year, a time of transition from one year to the next, a time at once of endings and beginnings. It is captured in the way this Sunday is designated, The Sunday Next Before Advent. Times of transition provide the opportunities and the occasions for renewal; they recall us to the radical nature of our spiritual beginnings, to the radical idea of God’s turning to us. “Turn thou us, O Lord, and so shall we be turned” is our prayer. In a way the whole pattern of the Church Year signaled in the readings of Scripture recall us to the idea of Revelation, God makes something known about himself and about us. Because of that we can begin again.

The lesson from the prophet Jeremiah recalls God’s turning to Israel in exile in Egypt and in Babylon, to the idea of God delivering Israel from bondage and captivity. “The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt” prompts the idea of a greater marvel in the eyes of the prophet, the idea of God delivering “the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them.” The prophet looks to God to redeem and restore Israel and “they shall dwell in their own land” rather than living as exiles. More than the obvious political overtones that have become such a troubling part of the long twentieth century, there is a profoundly spiritual principle at work here, namely the theme of God’s righteousness as providing the true basis for our dwelling safely as a community. The passage looks to God raising unto David, meaning the house of David, “a righteous Branch,” a King who shall reign and prosper. It is a prophecy about the Messiah, the coming of the anointed one, a prophecy which Christians interpret as fulfilled in Christ and in the inauguration of a new kingdom that is first and foremost spiritual, not political, the idea of dwelling with God in Christ.

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