Christ Church

He searches out the abyss, and the hearts of men,
and considers their crafty devices.
For the Most High knows all that may be known.

The rubric or direction on the bottom of page 258 (BCP, Cdn.) explains today’s readings. Sometimes the Trinity Season runs beyond twenty-four Sundays, sometimes less, so what happens when it runs over? It is a question about the distribution of the Sundays and about the appointment of the readings. There is a wonderful logic to the way in which the Trinity Season and the Epiphany Season complement one another, the one longer or shorter as the case may be. This year the Trinity Season runs to twenty-five Sundays. In the New Year, Epiphany Season will run to five Sundays. Note that from the rubric, what is read today are the readings appointed for The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Thus there will be no duplication just a marvellous liturgical and scriptural sensitivity through which time is continually gathered into eternity.

These provisions are a post-Cranmerian development. They belong to the work of John Cosin, the Bishop of Durham, who in the middle of the 17th century undertook to make provisions for what was missing for certain Sundays in some years in the lectio divina, the divine reading of Scripture at Mass on Sundays. He appointed readings for the 5th and the 6th Sundays after Epiphany, a season which like the Trinity Season is variable in length owing to the movable date of Easter, which would also serve as the readings for the 25th and 26th Sundays after Trinity when needed. In other words, they do double duty. And, taking his cue from Cranmer, he composed the Collects as based on the Scriptural texts chosen for those Sundays. You can see how this morning’s Collect draws explicitly upon the Epistle and the Gospel. All this offers a wonderful theological insight into the reason for our reading the passages appointed for The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany on The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. They bring us to next Sunday, The Sunday Next Before Advent.

How appropriate because we hear in the Gospel reading that “they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.” That signals an Advent theme captured in the Advent Hymn, “Lo, he comes with clouds descending” (Hymn # 60).

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Monday, November 19th
4:45-5:15 World Religions Class KES

Tuesday, November 20th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell and It All Turns on Affection by Wendell Berry

Wednesday, November 21st
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, November 23rd
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, November 25th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Sunday, December 2nd
4:00pm Advent Lessons & Carols with KES (Gr. 7-11)

Wednesday, December 19th
7:00pm Capella Regalis Concert ($15.00 – concert; $ 20.00, pulled-pork supper & concert).

The collect for today, the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 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: Jan Provoost, Last Judgment, 1525. Oil on panel, Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Hilda (614-680), Abbess of Whitby (source):

O eternal God,
who madest the abbess Hilda to shine as a jewel in England
and through her holiness and leadership
didst bless thy Church with newness of life and unity:
so assist us by thy grace
that we, like her, may yearn for the gospel of Christ
and bring reconciliation to those who are divided;
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: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 19:27-29

Artwork: St. Hilda, stained glass, St. Augustine Kilburn, London. Photograph taken by admin, 26 September 2015.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Margaret (1046-1093), Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church (source):

O God, the ruler of all,
who didst call thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gavest to her both zeal for thy Church and love for thy people,
that she might advance thy heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints;
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 Lesson: Proverbs 31:10-11, 20, 26, 28
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:44-52

St. Margaret was born in Hungary to a Saxon noble family in exile. In 1057, she and her family were able to return to England, but they were forced to move to Scotland following William the Conqueror’s invasion in 1066. A few years later, the princess Margaret married Malcolm Canmore, King of the Scots, in Dunfermline.

Queen Margaret was married to Malcolm for almost twenty-five years; her death followed his by only a few days. She bore six sons and two daughters. Three sons ruled as kings of Scotland—Edgar, Alexander I, and David I (later saint)—while a daughter, Matilda, became the queen of Henry I of England.

Margaret, an inspirational monarch of great Christian devotion, undertook many works of charity. She protected orphans, provided for the poor, visited prisoners in her husband’s dungeons, cleansed the sores of lepers, and washed the feet of beggars. She encouraged and enabled the founding of monasteries, churches, and hostels. Her excellent education served Scotland well, for under her influence the Scottish court became known as a place of culture and learning.

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The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Hugh (1135-1200), Bishop of Lincoln (source):

O God,
who didst endow thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and didst teach him to commend to earthly rulers
the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Titus 2:7-8,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Artwork: Vincenzo Carducci, Appearance of Angel Musicians to St. Hugh of Lincoln, 1632. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid. (Originally at Santa Maria de El Paular Monastery, Rascafría, Madrid.)

Law and the Ethics of Compassion

Two outstanding passages in the whole of the Scriptures, Jewish and Christian, were read in Chapel this week: the one, the Ten Commandments; the other, the parable of the Good Samaritan. They complement each other and lay out in a very intense way the ethical principles upon which our lives radically depend.

We have been exploring in Chapel the need for an ethical principle for our humanity. Thinking back to the compelling story of Cain and Abel, the story of the first murder, we have wrestled with the profound idea that left to our own devices we are in a world which, in Thomas Hobbes’s famous 17th century words, is “the warre of every man against every man.” Human life in the hypothetical state of nature, Hobbes argues, is “solitary, nasty, brutish and short.” This leads to his form of the modern state as a social contract. Out of the fear of death, we contract with the Sovereign for safety and peace in return for service to the State. The whole idea is a kind of commentary on the Genesis story of life after the Fall. Left to ourselves we are deadly or dead.

Rousseau in the 18th century will famously argue that it is society itself which constrains and binds. Man in the hypothetical state of nature is pure and innocent, the antithesis of Hobbes. It reflects a view of man before the Fall perhaps but argues that human life has to be brought under the General Will which seeks the good of all. All of these early modern considerations illustrate Scriptural insights into the human recognition of the need for an ethical principle. We have explored the biblical narrative in terms of the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and now we come to the Mosaic covenant as concentrated in the Ten Commandments.

Presented in Exodus and again in Deuteronomy, the Ten Commandments are the universal moral code for our humanity. They challenge us by making us think more deeply about the ethical principles which underlie law and order, regulation and restraint. They are a comprehensive set of ethical principles and while they appear to be given simply authoritatively (which in a Jewish view is important as a check upon human presumption), they are also known by human reason. John Chrysostom, in the late fourth and early fifth century, argued that nine out of the ten commandments were able to be known through natural reason. Maimonides, the great Medieval Jewish theologian writing in Arabic in Cairo in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, argues that the first two commandments – the existence of God and the unity of God – are known not just by prophetic authority but by natural reason.

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The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles Simeon (1759-1836), Priest, Evangelical Divine (source):

O eternal God,
who didst raise up Charles Simeon
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ
and inspire thy people in service and mission:
grant that we, with all thy Church, may worship the Saviour,
turn away in true repentance from our sins
and walk in the way of holiness;
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: Romans 10:8b-17
The Gospel: St. John 21:15-19

Charles Simeon served as vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, from 1782 until his death. His zealous evangelical preaching was bitterly opposed by parish leaders, but proved immensely popular and influential among Cambridge undergraduates. He supported the British and Foreign Bible Society and helped to found the Church Missionary Society. His curate Henry Martyn became chaplain of the East India Company and one of India’s best-known missionaries.

Historian Lord Macaulay wrote of him, “If you knew what his authority and influence were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners of England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was far greater than that of any primate.”

A meditation on the life of Charles Simeon, by John Piper, is posted here.

“I have called you friends”

It is one of the most extraordinary passages in the Scriptures and perhaps in the history of religious philosophy. It belongs especially, it seems to me, to the rich tradition of the literature of consolation. It teaches us something profound and wonderful about the real meaning of the ethical principle upon which our lives radically depend.

Against a utilitarian or consequentialist view of ethics which merely looks at the consequences real or imagined that arise from certain actions, the outcomes, as it were, we have with the words of Jesus the very principle that shapes and informs our actions. This passage is read on The Feast of St. Barnabas (BCP, p.227) who is sometimes called the son of consolation. Here is our real consolation and comfort in the face of the great evils of our world and day. Jesus’s words reveal to us the great ethic of sacrificial love as the real defining principle in our lives. It can only be about that principle in usas this passage makes clear. “Ye are my friends,” Jesus says, an outstanding claim. The very idea of a friendship between God and man is almost unthinkable for ancient philosophy and religion, the distance between God and man far too incommensurate. And yet, Jesus says, “I have called you friends.”

But only if we do whatsoever he commands us. Our friendship with God in Christ depends upon his Word being alive in us. And that means our knowing, each according to our own capacities, what God seeks for us in our lives. Somehow this passage strengthens us in the face of the great evils of the world, particularly the evils of war.

Today we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ending of the First World War. We are only beginning to begin to understand and to come to terms with the evil of our humanity. Remembrance Day marks the ending of the First World War; yet the significance of this is so great that it is on this day that we also remember the Second World War, itself an extension of the first, as well as remembering a multitude of other wars and their human cost. Somehow we remember them through this remembrance. We contemplate the dark horrors of the twentieth century unleashed by our humanity upon our humanity in unprecedented ways. We confront the deadly and destructive capacities of our technocratic world. That we try to remember, that we can remember at all, is the signal virtue of this day.

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Monday, November 12th
4:45-5:15 World Religions Class – KES

Tuesday, November 13th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, November 14th
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, November 16th
Preparation for Ham Supper

Saturday, November 17th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper – Parish Hall

Sunday, November 18th, Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Mass – KES

Upcoming Events:

Sunday, December 2nd
4:00pm Advent Lessons & Carols with KES (Gr. 7-11)

Wednesday, December 19th
7:00pm Capella Regalis Concert ($15.00 – concert; $ 20.00, pulled-pork supper & concert).