Christ Church

Monday, September 21st, St Matthew
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, September 22nd
6:00pm “Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, September 24th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30pm Christ Church “Cinema Paradiso” – Movie Night: “Waking Ned Divine”

Friday, September 25th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, September 27th, Trinity XVI
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
Unveiling of Historic Plaques
(Municipal Heritage Designation)
2:00pm Old Parish Burying Ground
2:30pm West Hants Historical Museum
3:00pm Christ Church
(Reception at Christ Church Hall)
4:30pm Evening Prayer at King’s-Edgehill School

Note the two new programme initiatives: the Christ Church Book Club and the Christ Church “Cinema Paradiso” Movie Nights, the latter of which begins this Thursday evening at 6:30pm in the Parish Hall with the viewing of “Waking Ned Divine”.  All Welcome!

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

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18
The Gospel: St Matthew 6:24-34

The collect for today, the Feast of St Theodore of Tarsus (602-690), Archbishop of Canterbury (source):

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Theodore of Tarsus from Rome to the see of Canterbury, and didst give him gifts of grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been division, and order where there had been chaos: Create in thy Church, we pray, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-5,10
The Gospel: St Matthew 24:42-47

The collect for today, the Feast of St Ninian (d. c. 432), Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land,
heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom,
that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 49:1-6
The Gospel: St Matthew 28:16-20

The collect for today, the commemoration of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Poet, Spiritual Writer (source):

Almighty God, who didst move thy servant Dante Alighieri to portray in magificent poetry thy steadfast rejection of sin, thy loving correction of those who repent, and the joy of abiding in thy presence forever: Grant us the grace to acknowledge our sins and to see clearly the utter emptiness of life without thee, the grace to amend our lives and to embrace willingly the means whereby thou dost perfect us in holiness and love of thee, and the grace to abide in thy will and rejoice in thy presence both in this life and in the life to come; the which we ask through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

With the Lesson and Gospel for a Doctor of the Church, Poet, or Scholar
The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St Matthew 13:9-17

Artwork: Domenico di Michelino, Dante and the Three Kingdoms, 1465. Oil on canvas, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”

The Cross is the meeting place of lovers. That “strange and uncouth thing”, as the poet George Herbert calls it, reveals the incompleteness of our human loves and the all-sufficiency of divine love. It signals what might be called the erotic liturgy of The Book of Common Prayer, a liturgy which is shaped and governed by the Cross, the liturgy of eros redeemed, the liturgy of the redemption of desire. But what does it mean?

I have often been struck with the coincidence of the early beginning of Fall with the Feast of the Holy Cross (September 14^th) and especially with one of its early and associated titles, namely, the Invention of the Holy Cross. It speaks so profoundly and yet so paradoxically to the nature of the intellectual enterprise. Inventio crucis.

Invention? Yes, but not in the sense of something fabricated out of our fevered imaginations. The feast derives from the celebrated visit of Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, to Jerusalem and her so-called discovery of the Holy Cross in the early fourth century as well as the exposition or “Exaltation” of the supposed true cross in the seventh century. Inventio does not suggest fabrication and invention so much as discovery and disclosure.

In the Christian understanding of things, humility and sacrifice are de rigueur in the passionate search for understanding, the eros of intellectual life. The cross is the meeting place of such lovers, too.

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The collect for today, Holy Cross Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O BLESSED Saviour, who by thy cross and passion hast given life unto the world: Grant that we thy servants may be given grace to take up the cross and follow thee through life and death; whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship and glorify, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11
The Gospel: St John 12:31-36

Artwork: Adam Elsheimer, The Veneration of the Cross, c. 1607. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main.

Parish ‘Potluck’ Picnic, Rain or Shine, Sunday, September 20th, 1:00-3:00pm, at 220 Grey Mountain Road, Falmouth! Bring something to share. You may also want to bring a lawn chair or a blanket. Come for a family time of fellowship as we “kick-off” another season and year at Christ Church! Directions below.

(Directions: (Hwy 101) Exit 7 – Falmouth, turn right at stop sign onto Rt. 1, then immediately left onto the Falmouth Back Road at Pothier Motors, continue along through the stop sign at the Falmouth Kwik Way, bear right onto the Town Road (extension), which upon crossing the Payzant Bog Road becomes Grey Mountain Road. About a half kilometre on your right, just past the little bridge is 220. Call 798-2454 if lost or check your GPS! Click here for map.)

Contact: (Rev’d) David or Marilyn Curry, 798-2454.

“[He] fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks”

This is actually a thanksgiving gospel story. It appears twice in our Prayer Book; once as the Gospel for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (BCP, p. 240), and as the Gospel appointed for Thanksgiving Day (BCP, p. 308). For us in Canada, Thanksgiving day and Harvest Thanksgiving are often observed at the same time; thanksgiving for the fruits of creation and human labour, on the one hand, and thanksgiving for the rational and spiritual freedoms that we have politically, on the other hand. When thanksgiving for the harvest is being emphasized then readings for Harvest Thanksgiving are often used that focus on the harvest gathering of the fruits of creation. But it is instructive to realize that this Gospel plays such an important role in our learning a very hard and necessary thing; the hard and necessary activity of thanksgiving itself.

We learn from this gospel that being grateful is both healthy for you and it makes you whole! Here is the gospel story, we might say, that teaches us most fully about the spiritual nature of the activity of thanksgiving. And once again, it is a Samaritan who provides the telling illustration.

Last week, we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan, so-called, and we commented on how what makes it possible to “go and do likewise”, going and doing good works and reaching out and helping others, is really nothing less than the grace of Christ in us. The grace which comes from God to our humanity is the meaning of our life in the body of Christ; left to ourselves, it seems, we can only “look and pass by,” conflicted and implicated in all of the confusions of our broken and wounded world. The parable, in its context of the unity of the love of God and the love of neighbour, points us strongly to the grace of Christ in his Incarnation. He has “c[o]me to where [we] are”, and the grace of human redemption is signaled in the healing and care of the one whom we have come to call the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan, I suggested, is Christ and Christ in us.

Here, too, it is a Samaritan, the one out of the ten lepers, outcasts and rejects standing afar off as Jesus enters a certain village, who returned and gave thanks. What moved him? It is at once the highest freedom of the human soul and the grace of God in him. “When he saw that he was healed, [he] turned back” and then does a most remarkable thing, a strange and extravagant thing. “With a loud voice [he] glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks.” Only at this point does Luke add simply and pointedly, “and he was a Samaritan.” For us, hearing this story after last week’s gospel story of the Good Samaritan, there is a powerful echo effect. Once again, we are presented with the conjunction between the Samaritan, a kind of cultural outsider, and Christ, the God who is utterly other than us who has come near to us. And here, the context is about a further aspect of healing and salvation. It is found in the simple yet powerful activity of being thankful.

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Monday, September 14th, Holy Cross Day
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, September 15th
3:30pm Holy Communion -Windsor Elms
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30pm Registration for 2nd Windsor Brownies/Spark Group

Thursday, September 17th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, September 20th, Trinity XV
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Family Service – Holy Communion
1:00-3:00pm Parish Picnic (Potluck), 220 Grey Mountain Road, Falmouth. (Click here for map.)
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES