Christ Church

Monday, February 14th
4:45-5:15 Confirmation Class, Rm 204, KES

Tuesday, February 15th
3:30pm Holy Communion – Windsor Elms
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies in the Hall

Thursday, February 17th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30pm Christ Church ‘Cinema Paradiso’ Movie Night: “Casualties of War”

Sunday, February 20th, Septuagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming events:
Tuesday, March 8th
4:30-6:00pm Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper
Wednesday, March 9th
Ash Wednesday Services: 7:00am; 12noon; 2:30pm (at KES)
Saturday, March 19th
9:00am-5:00pm Lenten Quiet Day, King’s-Edgehill Chapel

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

O GOD, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life: Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:23-31

Artwork: Luca Signorelli, The Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist, 1499-1502. Fresco, Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

“Speak the word only”

The miracles of the Epiphany season are the miracles of the Divine Word. God is the poet-maker of all creation; the poet-maker, too, of our redemption. The Greek verb “to make” is ποιεω  from which we get the words poet and poetry.

God speaks the world into being. “Speak the word only”, says the Centurion to Jesus in one of the great Epiphany gospels. “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” And he is.

The Gospel story for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, read several weeks ago, opens us out to the miracle of God’s Word spoken and proclaimed. It is the Word which effects what it signifies. To grasp that, as the Centurion does, is itself a wonder, a miracle, which Jesus acknowledges. “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.”

Unlike those about whom it is said, “they hear and do not hear, they see and they do not see,” the Centurion hears and sees. The Word of Christ has its echoing resonance in him and that is a miracle, too. It is, we might say, an epiphany of the understanding in him and for us. “Speak the word only,” we might say, is the miracle of the Epiphany season.

We have lost, perhaps, our faith and confidence in words. We know only too well how words can be used to cheapen and betray and to hurt and destroy. We know only too well, perhaps, the limits and the shortcomings of words. We are skeptical and uncertain about the power of words to convey truth and understanding, about the power of words to create and redeem.

“Human speech”, as Gustave Flaubert avers, “is like a cracked pot on which we beat out rhythms for bears to dance to when we are striving to make music that will wring tears from the stars.” That view may or may not be exactly what Choir Directors and choristers want to hear, though it may be what they sometimes fear! Our words fall far short of our hopes and aspirations. We have, perhaps, despaired of the power of words to shape communities, especially communities of learning, “Worlds made by Words,” as the scholar, Anthony Grafton, puts it. It is to have despaired of God and his creative and redemptive Word. It is to have forgotten that the real miracle is God’s Word spoken and received.

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The collect for a Doctor of the Church, Poet, or Scholar, for the Feast of Saint Caedmon (d. 680), Monk of Whitby, first English poet, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Caedmon, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St Matthew 13:9-17

Read more about St. Caedmon here.

Photograph: Memorial to Caedmon, St Mary’s Churchyard, Whitby, North Yorkshire, Great Britain. The inscription reads, “To the glory of God and in memory of Caedmon the father of English Sacred Song. Fell asleep hard by, 680″. © Copyright RichTea and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

“Forbearing one another and forgiving one another”

Paul’s words speak to the quality of our life together in the body of Christ. He reminds us of the necessity of our mutual forebearance and forgiveness of one another. Not exactly himself the easiest person to get along with, Paul understands only too well how hard we can all be to get along with and how hard, too, we can be on ourselves. We are often our own worst enemies.

Today’s Epistle complements and illustrates the Gospel. Wheat and tares, meaning weeds, grow together in the field of the world. Wheat and weeds are there together, both the good and the bad. But who can be sure which is which? Which is the weed and which is the wheat? This is to recognize the limitations of our judgments. “Let them both grow together until harvest”, says the Sower. God is the gardener and God is the judge. Not you and not me. That is itself a great mercy.

This doesn’t simply mean the suspension of our judgment in the abdication of responsibilities. We have the moral obligation to try to discern right from wrong and, and, by God’s grace, to act accordingly. We are bidden to be God’s good wheat in a world of wheat and tares. But it does mean a check upon our judgmentalism. “Forbearing one another and forgiving one another” is the counter to our judgmentalism. Our judgmentalism is our presumption to know what we cannot and do not know about others and even about ourselves. Yet, in our judgmentalism, we would put ourselves in the place of God as judge. We would presume to have a total and absolute view when, in fact, our viewpoint is altogether restricted and limited. We see, at best, “through a glass darkly.” To know this is to be aware of the limits of our knowing. It is the beginning of wisdom. It frees us from the tyranny of ourselves.

We confront the limits of human judgment both with respect to ourselves and to one another. But is all this simply a cautionary tale? Are we being exhorted merely to a posture of skepticism? To a suspension of belief about the possibilities of knowing anything and, therefore, about doing anything? Quite the opposite. What we are presented with counters the cynical and false skepticism of our age which would deny any objective view about what is good and true while asserting as absolute its own relativism. And what we are presented with equally counters the religion of sentimentalism and self-righteousness which makes the Church such a parody of itself and of contemporary culture.

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Click here to download the Rector’s Annual Report for 2010 (pdf document).

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2009 can be accessed via this page.

Monday, February 7th
4:45-5:15pm Confirmation Class (Rm. 204, KES)

Tuesday, February 8th
6:00pm Prayers & Praises – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies Mtg – Parish Hall

Thursday, February 10th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
5:00pm Fr. Curry preaching at King’s College, Halifax (St. Caedmon)

Sunday, February 13th, Sixth Sunday after The Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming events:
Tuesday, March 8th
4:30-6:00pm Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper
Wednesday, March 9th
Ash Wednesday Services: 7:00am; 12noon; 2:30pm (at KES)
Saturday, March 19th
9:00am-5:00pm Lenten Quiet Day, King’s-Edgehill Chapel

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

O LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by thy mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Colossians 3;12-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:24-30

Artwork: Roger Wagner, The Harvest is the End of the World, and the Reapers are Angels [detail], 1984. Oil on canvas, private collection.

The collect for today, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin (also traditionally called Candlemas), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we humbly beseech thy Majesty, that, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts, by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Malachi 3:1-5
The Gospel: St Luke 2:22-40

Artwork: Ludovico Pogliaghi, The Presentation in the Temple, 1894-1908. Central Bronze door, Milan Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 2 May 2010.