Christ Church

The fifth Sunday in Lent is commonly called Passion Sunday. It marks the beginning of what we might call ‘deep Lent,’ where our thoughts and hearts are more intensely concentrated upon one of the most significant features of the Christian faith, the Passion of Christ.

All is decked in purple hue, the cross is veiled. There is an unmistakable seriousness about Passiontide, even a somber mood. This is, perhaps, difficult and challenging for our culture and age. There are so many fearful things that we confront in the culture and the community, in the global world and in our souls. Why add to that? Well, we aren’t.

Passiontide provides us with strong ways of thinking about the hardest things. Suffering and death, sin and evil, are the deeper concepts that lurk in the corridors of our hearts of fear. Passiontide recognizes how much is hidden from the understanding of ourselves and the hardships or trials or struggles that we all endure, whether self-inflicted or put upon us by the thoughts and actions of others. One of the more poignant aspects of that form of unknowing is captured in the Gospel for Passion Sunday. Jesus says that we do not know for what we are asking. It is a powerful statement about the nature of sinfulness, about our ignorance and our arrogance.

We go into the Passion of Christ so that we may suffer with the one whom we will see suffer on the Cross. Passion is about suffering. Passiontide is about the sufferings of Christ for us and our desire to suffer with him. The suffering and the death are about our sinfulness and evil. It is what Passiontide will ultimately unveil and what Christ will overcome.

Quiet Day
Saturday, March 19th
(9:00-4:45pm)

“A Lenten Pilgrimage: Meditations on Bonaventure’s Journey of the Soul into God”
(sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island)

9:00am Mattins – Hensley Memorial Chapel
9:20am-9:40am – Registration & Refreshments in Convocation Hall
9:45am First Address – Convocation Hall
Silence

11:15am Holy Communion – Hensley Memorial Chapel
St. Joseph (BCP – p. 319 & p. 113)

12:00 Lunch – Stanfield Hall (School Dining Room)

1:30pm Second Address – Convocation Hall
Silence

3:00pm Third Address – Convocation Hall
Silence

4:15pm Evensong – Hensley Memorial Chapel
4:30-4:45 Departure

A Quiet Day is a time for prayer and study and reflection, a part of the Lenten discipline, a part of the spiritual journey of Christian Faith.

The cost for the day is $ 10.00 which includes lunch. Payment can be made on the day itself. If you are interested in attending, all or some of the day, please contact Fr. David Curry.

“Then Herod … sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem”

There is no greater challenge to the cultural celebration of Christmas than the Feast of the Holy Innocents. We like to think that Christmas is for children and for the child in all of us. We might want to think again. God “madest infants to glorify [him] by their deaths.” Now, there is a show-stopper! A real shocker. Try marketing that!

And yet, this is inescapably part of the Christmas story, albeit a part of the story we easily overlook. It recalls us to the inescapable political occasion for the nativity of Christ in Bethlehem – a census for taxation purposes – and then ups the ante in terms of the real-politique of power and domination. Herod embarks upon a policy of infanticide, killing all the little children in Bethlehem. Why? Out of fear for a rival king, the child King of Bethlehem, as he has heard from the Magi. He embarks upon a human scorched earth policy to destroy a potential rival to his power.

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“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

There can be no greater affirmation of the central mystery of the Christian Faith than this Epistle reading from The First Letter of St. John. It echoes, of course, the great Christmas Gospel proclaimed at the Mass of Christmas Night. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … And the Word was made flesh.”

And that is precisely the point which John is driving home in his Epistle. He is arguing for the absolute and tangible reality of the Incarnation. This man Jesus Christ is “Very God of Very God.”

“That which was from the beginning – heard, seen, looked upon, and handled by our hands is the Word of life.” He bears witness to the divinum mysterium of Christmas. The Word and Son of the Father who is Light and Life is Incarnate; the God made Man is Jesus Christ.

And he is telling us that this is no passing knowledge – a matter for a moment, a mere factoid of idle information – but rather a truth that reveals “eternal life,” the truth upon which our lives ultimately depend for their truth and meaning.

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17^th Century Anglican Marian Devotion: A meditation
upon the Conception of Mary

“Be it unto me according to thy word”

“Until they are good Marians, they shall never be good Christians” avowed Anthony Stafford in 1637, words which apply to every age of Christianity. We meet to honour the female glory of Mary, Virgin and Mother, through whom “salvation to all that will is nigh,” as the poet John Donne puts it, Christ being that “immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,” his conception the immediate consequence of her Annunciation. Yet her annunciation stands upon the necessity of her conception. We meet on the eve of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the week of the Second Sunday in Advent.

There is a certain paradox in this commemoration. On the week which is governed by the pageant of God’s Word Written in the form of the Scriptures we find this minor Holy Day which commemorates a completely non-biblical event, namely Mary’s conception. Yet, this minor commemoration has been in The Book of Common Prayer since 1549 and connects with an older doctrinal and devotional tradition of reflection about the role and place of Mary in the understanding of human redemption.

On one level, we could say it is all rather prosaic. For Mary to exist she had to be conceived. But that only heightens the question. Why the conception? Whether with or without the equally perplexing adjective of immaculate, meaning pure or spotless? Is this not all a bit much and whole lot removed from the biblical perspective? Well, it is outside the Scriptures but it belongs to a form of theological reasoning upon the Scriptures which, after all, have to be thought upon. They are given for our learning. The Conception of Mary belongs to the theological reflection upon the meaning of Christ’s Incarnation. This feast is part of a wonderful Anglican tradition of Marian devotion, but one that is governed by a clearly defined theological understanding.

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The Great ‘O’ Antiphons of Advent

December 16: O Sapientia

O Wisdom, which comes out of the mouth of the Most High, and reaches from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordereing all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

December 17: O Adonai

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the law in Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

December 18: O Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, which stands for an ensign of the people, at whom the kings shall shut their mouths, unto whom the Gentiles shall seek: Come and deliver us, and tarry not.

December 19: O Clavis David

O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel; that opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens: Come and bring the prisoners out of the prison-house, them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 20: O Oriens

O Dayspring, Brightness of the Light Everlasting, and Sun of Righteousness: Come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 21: O Rex Gentium

O King of Nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone who makes both one: Came and save mankind, whom thou didst make of clay.

December 22: O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all ‚nations and their salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

December 23: O Virgo Virginum

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any seen like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? The thing which ye behold is divine.

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

O COME, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that morns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
R: Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,
to thee shall come Emmanuel!

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high, (O Sapientia)
and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. R.

O come, o come, Thou Lord of might, (O Adonai)
who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe. R.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse’s stem, (O Jesse Virgula)
from ev’ry foe deliver them
that trust Thy mighty power to save,
and give them vict’ry o’er the grave. R.

O come, Thou Key of David, come, (O Clavis Davidica)
and open wide our heav’nly home,
make safe the way that leads on high,
that we no more have cause to sigh. R.

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high, (O Oriens)
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death’s dark shadow put to flight. R.

O come, Desire of the nations, bind (O Rex Gentium)
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven’s peace. R.

The initial words of the antiphons in reverse of their original order form an acrostic: O Emmanuel, O Rex, O Oriens, O Clavis, O Radix (“virgula” in the hymn), O Adonai, O Sapientia. ERO CRAS can be loosely translated as “I will be there tomorrow”.

Advent Prose

Rorate Caeli

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Be not so very angry, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever: thy holy cities are a wilderness, Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation: our holy and our beautiful house, wherein our fathers praised thee.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing, and we all do fade away as a leaf: and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away; thou hast hid thy face from us: and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know me and believe me: I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour: and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, my salvation shall not tarry: I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions: Fear not, for I will save thee: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

“Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life,
let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom”

Times of transition signal occasions for renewal. We come to the ending of the Church Year and so to the beginning of yet another. The times of endings return us to our beginnings. Advent marks a new beginning.

But what does it mean, these endings which bring us back to our beginnings? What does it mean to begin again? Are we simply trapped in a never-ending cycle, like squirrels on an endless fly-wheel? Is the cycle of the Church Year another dreary round of the same old things in the same old places with the same old faces? Or is it the dance of God’s grace and glory in human lives?

We come to the end of a year of grace and take stock of our lives in the light of God’s grace. It marks a kind of harvest-time for our souls, as it were, a gathering up of the fruits of the past year’s grace in our lives. But it means too, that we are returned to our beginning, to Him who is the foundation and meaning of our lives. The grace is God’s Word revealed.

’In the greyness of the year, comes Christ the King’ (with apologies to T.S. Eliot). Christ strides across the barren fields of humanity to gather us into the barn of his righteousness and truth. We are returned to him who is “the Lord our Righteousness,” our Judge and King, the Shepherd and the Healer of all mankind, the Alpha and the Omega of all creation. Our endings and our beginnings all meet in him. Basil the Great shows us something of what this means:

As all the fruits of the season come to us in their proper time, flowers in spring, corn in summer and apples in autumn, so the fruit for winter is talk.

Talk, you may protest, thank you very much, but we have had enough talk, too much talk in fact, especially, no doubt, preachers’ talk! But talk about what, you might ask? What is the talk in the times of endings, the fruit for winter’s evenings, the talk which marks the occasions for renewed beginnings?

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The Blessing of the Advent Wreath

Father: Our Help is in the Name of the Lord.
(or Head of Household)

Family: Who has made Heaven and Earth.

Father: Let us pray:

O God, by whose Word all things are sanctified, pour forth your blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from you the abundant graces of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Family: Amen

Then follows the next prayer, which is also said throughout the first week before the evening meal, beginning with Sunday Evening.

The Week of the First Sunday in Advent

Father: Let us pray:

O Lord, stir up your power and come, that by the protection of your grace we may be rescued from the threatening dangers of our sins and be saved by your deliverance; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Family: Amen

One Candle is lit and left burning during the evening meal each night of this week.

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“Michael and his angels fought against the dragon;
and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not.”

Angels. What are they? Angels are messengers. A good messenger is an evangelist –angel is in the word. Evangelist is the Greek word for the Gospel – the good news, the good message. There is, then, an inescapable connection between Angels and the Gospel.

Angels are a feature of many religions. They are certainly a big part of the biblical landscape. They are a feature of the spiritual landscape of the Jewish or Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians know as the Old Testament, as well as being an integral part of the spiritual landscape of the Christian New Testament. They are also an important feature of the Islamic Qu’ran.

Whether or not one believes in Angels exactly, they are undeniably part of the religious world of Jews, Christians and Muslims. While not a matter of creedal doctrine for Christians, belief in angels is a defining feature of Islam. More importantly, though, is the role and place of angels intellectually or theologically speaking in the three monotheistic faiths. To put it simply, angels belong to the thought-world of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; in short, to the thinking that belongs to these revealed religions. There is a branch of theology that is devoted to angels – angelology. To put it in another way, angels are about our thinking God’s thoughts, the thoughts which come to us from God and our Godward thoughts which are carried on angels’ wings to God.

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“It is good to be here”

“It is good to be here,” Peter says to James and John and to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and he goes on to suggest, “let us make three tents”, three tabernacles to mark the special nature of the occasion, showing, however, that he has completely misunderstood the meaning and the nature of Christ’s transfiguration! Poor Peter, so right and yet so wrong.

The vision on the mountain top, it is true, has included the Old Testament figures of Moses and Elijah, witnesses to the Law and the Prophets respectively. But Christ’s Transfiguration is not simply another addition to the Covenant between God and Man; it signals its radical transformation and completion and implies the realization of the meaning of the Old Covenant encapsulated for Israel in the Law and the Prophets. The Church remembers and celebrates the Transfiguration on August 6^th.

Something seen and something heard. Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John, and, unlike the transfiguration of the face of Moses on Mount Sinai, too bright for the people of Israel to behold him, Jesus is seen: “his face did shine as the sun and his garment was white as the light.” There is something of a different order to Christ’s transfiguration and to its meaning for our humanity. And there is something heard; a voice is heard out of the bright cloud that overshadows them: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” words which were also said at the occasion of Christ’s baptism in Jordan. But there is this difference here. The voice of the Father speaking out of the bright cloud of divine majesty and glory also bids us: “Hear ye him.”

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