Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Vincent of Saragossa (d. 304), Deacon and Martyr (source):

Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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

Vincent is the proto-Martyr (first known martyr) of Spain and the patron saint of Lisbon. He was deacon of Saragossa, Aragon, under Bishop Valerius. Both were arrested during the persecution instigated by edicts of Diocletian and Maximian. Because Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent testified to their faith in Christ, boldly and without fear.

Dacian, Roman governor of Spain, subjected Vincent to horrible tortures. The saint was thrown into prison and weakened by semi-starvation. After refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods, he was racked, burned, and kept in stocks. He died as a result of his sufferings.

St. Augustine of Hippo preached a sermon on Vincent’s martyrdom. Here is an excerpt:

“To you has been granted in Christ’s behalf not only that you should believe in him but also that you should suffer for him.” Vincent had received both these gifts and held them as his own. For how could he have them if he had not received them? And he displayed his faith in what he said, his endurance in what he suffered. No one ought to be confident in his own strength when he undergoes temptation. For whenever we endure evils courageously, our long-suffering comes from him Christ. He once said to his disciples: “In this world you will suffer persecution,” and then, to allay their fears, he added, “but rest assured, I have conquered the world.” There is no need to wonder then, my dearly beloved brothers, that Vincent conquered in him who conquered the world. It offers temptation to lead us astray; it strikes terror into us to break out spirit. Hence if our personal pleasures do not hold us captive, and if we are not frightened by brutality, then the world is overcome. At both of these approaches Christ rushes to our aid, and the Christian is not conquered.

Artwork: Master of Castelsardo, Saint Vincent on the Gridiron, 1500-10. Tempera, stucco reliefs and gold leaf on wood, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Agnes (c. 291-304), Virgin, Martyr at Rome (source):

Eternal God, Shepherd of thy sheep,
by whose grace thy child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness,
in her life and in her death,
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all thy saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that passeth all knowledge,
even 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: Song of Solomon 2:10-13
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-6

One of the most celebrated of the early Roman martyrs, Agnes was only twelve or thirteen when she was executed in the Piazza Navona for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. Several early Christian leaders praised her courage and exemplary faith, including Ambrose, Pope Damasus, Jerome, and Prudentius. Although her story was embellished during the Middle Ages, it is certain that Agnes was very young and died as a Christian virgin.

St. Ambrose extolled her in his De Virginibus, written in 377:

[St. Agnes’ death was] A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ.

Because her name resembles agnus (‘lamb’), she is generally depicted in art with a lamb in her arms or by her feet. On her feast at Rome, the wool of two lambs is blessed and then woven into pallia (stoles of white wool) for the pope and archbishops.

Two notable Roman churches have been erected at locations associated with St. Agnes. The church of Sant’Agnese in Agone now stands in the Piazza Navona, the place of her martyrdom. The Basilica of Sant’Agnesi fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) was built at her tomb in a family burial plot along the Via Nomentana, about two miles outside Rome.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls.

Artwork: Master Theodorik, St. Agnes of Rome, 1360-64. Oil on panel, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Karlštejn Castle, Karlštejn, Czechia.

There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee

This story, like the story of the boy Christ being found in the Temple teaching and learning, is essential to the meaning of the Epiphany, itself the season par excellence of teaching and learning. But teaching and learning what? About God and man but with a new and distinctive emphasis upon the divinity of Christ as revealed through the humanity of Christ.

This story, like the story of the boy Christ at the age of twelve, is an epiphany, a making known of the essential divinity of Christ. “Did ye know not,” he says in the Temple, rather challengingly, and we might think even rather abruptly to his mother, “that I must be about my Father’s business?” meaning, of course, the will of God. In relation to that exchange we are told that “his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.” It is a wonderful phrase that complements and builds upon the Shepherd’s Christmas where Mary is said to have “kept all these things and pondered them in heart.” What things? All the things that were said about the infant, the unspeaking child Jesus. But in the story of the boy Christ, “his mother,” Luke tells us, “kept all these sayings in her heart.” What sayings? All the things Jesus himself is saying. Wonderful. Mary keeps in her heart both what is said about Jesus and what Jesus says to us.

We are called to be Marian in the sense of attending to what is said about Jesus and what is said by Jesus and to let that define and dignify us in spite of our sins and follies. In so doing, we open ourselves to the miracle of God’s grace at work in our lives, not only perfecting and restoring our wounded humanity, but in signalling the joy of redemption, our joy in the things of God without which we are radically incomplete.

This brings us to the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, to one of the quintessential stories of the Epiphany, to the idea of miracles that teach as distinct from things that amuse and entertain. It is about attending to what Jesus does.

Miracles are an important aspect of the Christian Faith despite the long, long legacy of skepticism about miracles. They aren’t an article of faith so much as an aspect of our thinking about God in relation to us and our world, to what we might call the mystery of life itself; the miracle par excellence, we might say. We live in a world which desperately wants miracles and yet despairingly rejects the very idea of miracles. The great miracle is creation itself, our life as grounded in the Creator’s gift of life. Today’s Gospel helps us to appreciate the miracle of the gift of life, a miracle which challenges the destructive narcissisms of our culture and age.

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Monday, January 20th
4:35-5:15pm Confirmation Class – KES
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, January 21st
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth Century Muslim between Worlds (2006) by Natalie Zemon Davie, and Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity (2015, English trans. 2018) by Navid Kermani

Friday, January 24th, Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders/Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 26th, Third Sunday after the Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Holy Communion – KES

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, February 9th
Pot-Luck Luncheon & Annual Parish Meeting following the 10:30am service.

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Artwork: Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, Marriage at Cana, 1530. Oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Unum necessarium

“One thing is needful,” Jesus says to Martha, “and Mary has chosen the better part.” What is that “better part”,  “the one thing needful”? Perhaps it is another Mary, the Mary of the Christmas story, who shows us best what is most needed. She is, in the Christian understanding, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God, who embodies the highest dignity and truth of our humanity, “most highly favoured lady” as a carol puts it.

The Christmas story in all of its richness carries over into Epiphany. For Orthodox Christians following the Old Calendar, the Julian calendar, as Stanislav, a student from the Ukraine reminded me the other day, January 7th was Christmas. January 19th will be their Epiphany. The shepherds journey to Bethlehem to “see this thing that has come to pass,” literally, this saying that has happened; in short, “the word made flesh.” The shepherds “make known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child,” awakening wonder in all that heard it. “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” The one thing needful is to ponder the wonder of God.

Sometimes one story throws light upon another. The Christmas scene, quite frankly, is all a confusion of images, a great cluster of things seen and heard. At best we can only dance around it, looking in upon what is there and thinking about its meaning. In the story of Martha and Mary, sisters in Bethany, Jesus is a guest. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, “listening to his word.” Martha, on the other hand, is “distracted by much serving” and gets annoyed at Mary and complains to Jesus. Jesus’ response is a profound but gentle rebuke and one which speaks to the confusions and the busyness of our world and day. “Martha, Martha; thou art anxious and troubled about a multitude of things; one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen the better part.”

We so easily lose ourselves in our busyness as if being busy was the most important thing, as if we could justify ourselves by busyness alone. The problem is not that there aren’t things that have to be done, mouths to be fed, children and others to be cared for, and so on. No. It is more about our preoccupation with our busyness at the expense of the one thing needful. It is a question about ends and priorities. After all, our busyness can often be a form of sloth. Usually we think of sloth as being lazy but it is also about avoiding doing what is needed to be done, using our busyness as an excuse to avoid papers and assignments, studying and reading, for example. Jesus reminds us that contemplation, a kind of serious and thoughtful attention to what is wanted to be known and learned is the one thing needful. The Martha syndrome checked by the Mary solution.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilary (c. 315-368), Bishop of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church (source):

Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed thy Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:18-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:8-12

Hilary was born in Poitiers, Gaul, of wealthy pagan parents. After receiving a thorough education in Latin classics, he became an orator. He also married and had a daughter. At the age of about 35, he rejected his former paganism and became a Christian through a long process of study and thought. Robert Louis Wilken describes his path to conversion in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (p. 86):

[Hilary] found himself turning to more spiritual pursuits. In his words he wished to pursue a life that was “worthy of the understanding that had been given us by God.” Like Justin [Martyr] he began to read the Bible, and one passage that touched his soul was Exodus 3:14, where God the creator, “testifying about himself,” said, “I am who I am.” For Hilary this brief utterance penetrated more deeply into the mystery of the divine nature than anything he had heard or read from the philosophers. Shortly thereafter he was baptized and received into the church.

Around 353 he was chosen bishop of Poitiers and became an outspoken champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. St. Augustine praised him as “the illustrious teacher of the churches”. St. Jerome wrote that Hilary was “a most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians”. Hilary became known as “Athanasius of the West”.

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They found him in the temple

“They found him in the temple,” Luke tells us. The only question for us and for our world is “will we?” Nothing highlights better the symbolic significance of Epiphany than the story of Christ as a boy of twelve being found in the Temple. Doing what? You might ask. Asking and answering questions, teaching and learning, we might say. Nothing counters more completely the anti-intellectualism of our contemporary age. If anything we are in flight from thought and its demands. Epiphany suggests otherwise.

The Magoi of Anatolia, “wise men from the East”, as Matthew tells us, show us something of the universal desire for truth. They reveal the eros to know as Plato and Aristotle suggest about the desire to know truth in accord with each of our capacities to know. At issue is whether those capacities are alive in us or not.

Luke’s account is the only story of the boyhood of Jesus in the canonical Gospels. There are various stories invented much later that seek to fill in the gaps between the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke and the stories of the ministry of Christ as an adult, stories which, in my view, diminish and distort both the humanity and the divinity of Christ presented in the Gospels. Only Luke gives us this rich and powerful story of Christ as a boy of twelve. It is, we might say, his bar mitzvah. It marks the transition from boyhood to manhood, to the responsibilities of adulthood and conveys to us the idea of maturing in faith.

But even more, it highlights the important Epiphany theme of teaching, of the idea of things being made known to us about the nature of God through the humanity of Jesus. Here Jesus is found in the company of the learned doctors of the Jewish Law, the Law or Torah of our humanity, we might say, at least in terms of its concentrated form in the Ten Commandments, something given and yet given for thought, known and grasped as belonging to universal reason. Christ is placed with the doctors of the Law in the temple of Jerusalem, a place dedicated to the honour, the glory, and the truth of God. There is a rich significance to these allusions. That Christ is found in the temple amidst the doctors of the Law is not accidental.

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Monday, January 13th
4:35-5:15pm Confirmation Class – KES
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, January 14th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, January 16th
3:30pm Service – Windsor Elms

Friday, January 17th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders/Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 19th, Second Sunday after the Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Holy Communion – KES

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, February 9th
Pot-Luck Luncheon & Annual Parish Meeting following the 10:30am service.

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

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people which call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:1-5
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:41-52

Artwork: Giotto di Bondone, Christ Among the Doctors in the Temple, 1304-06. Fresco, Capella Scrovegni, Padua, Italy.