Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Fourth Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15

William Kurelek, When Evening CameArtwork: William Kurelek, When Evening Came (from The Passion of Christ series), 1960-63. Gouache on paper, Niagara Falls Art Gallery, Niagara Falls, Ontario.

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Prayers and liturgy

Athanasius, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Church (source):

Ever-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:5-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:23-28

Sopocani Monastery, St. AthanasiusSaint Athanasius is one of the most inspirational leaders of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.

Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under the orthodox Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.

Athanasius became bishop in 328 at age 33 and spent the next five decades fighting for Nicene orthodoxy. For his troubles, he was deposed and exiled five times, spending a total of seventeen years in flight and hiding, often shielded by the people of Alexandria. Six years of exile were spent in Rome, where he gained the strong support of the Western church, and another six years were spent under the protection of monks in the Egyptian desert.

He was finally able to return to Alexandria in 365 and spent the final years of his life bolstering orthodoxy, which ultimately triumphed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

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Theology

Who Are the Fathers?

Who are the Fathers?

Even within (or despite) the narrowing confines of the “age of political correctness”, the term “the Fathers” (Patres) retains an unmistakable, almost magical hold on our imaginations. It evokes a larger world, a universe of doctrine, at once authoritative and compelling in spite of its strangeness, mystical in its remoteness and yet, like all things mystical, near. Very near.

The Fathers are very much with us. If we are strangers to them, it is only because we have estranged ourselves from the “consensus patrum” so essential to the understanding of the Christian faith; in short, to the “consensus fidelium” of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Fathers, in no small measure, are the definitive voices of the essential catholicism of the Christian faith.

There are as well the mothers, too, such as the Cappadocian women: the grandmother of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina the Elder, their mother Emelia, their older sister, Macrina the Younger; Gregory of Nazianzen’s mother Nonna, his sister Gorgonia, and Basil’s two younger sisters. These women are understood to have contributed to the spiritual themes of deification and monastic devotion in the Cappadocian Fathers. And there is Anthusa, the mother of John Chrysostom, and, of course, there is Monica, the mother of Augustine who figures prominently in his Confessions.There are other important figures such as St. Perpetua and Felicitas, and the 4th century Etheria (or Egeria), famous for her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in her account, The Pilgrimage of Etheria. To name but a few.

Scripture and Creeds, Councils and Controversies, Traditions and Polities, Liturgies and Prayers – we cannot think any of these things apart from the Fathers in this broader sense. Without them, we cannot begin to say what the Faith is, let alone think it. They would have us think and to think in their company, the company of the Fathers.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of SS Philip and James

“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me;
or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”

The centrality and the uniqueness of Christ is an essential doctrine of the Christian Faith. For Anglicans, this is captured in Article XVIII of the Thirty-nine Articles; the only anathema in all of the articles concerns the denial of the centrality and the uniqueness of Christ. It is only through the centrality and the uniqueness of Christ that Christians can and must engage the religions of the world as well as the forms of contemporary culture. And sometimes the pattern of the Sanctorale, especially of the Apostles of the Christian Church, coincide with the themes of the season and illustrate certain features of the Apostolic Faith and teaching.

The Feast of St. Philip and St. James is one of three apostolic pairings in the cycle of the Church Year and falls within Eastertide. The other pairing is found in the late Fall with the joint feast of St. Simon and St. Jude which completes the cycle of the twelve apostles and usher us into the omni gatherum feast and festival of All Saints. At the end of June there is another pairing though of a somewhat different provenance in The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The readings for all these feasts in the Offices is instructive about the Scriptural witness to their lives, sometimes simply through the mention of their names.  The readings for Philip and James canvass a number of important texts about their witness, particularly the witness of Philip. But note that the Epistle and Gospel for their feast complement the Eastertide readings from the Gospel of John and on the next two Sundays, the Epistle of James. The Gospel reading is the beginning of Jesus’s farewell discourse that illustrates the radical meaning of Christ’s going from us in going to the Father and what that means for his abiding in us and us in him. The Epistle reading from James exhorts us to seek the wisdom of God and not to waver in our faith and understanding. James also will emphasize the importance of the works of faith.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles

The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14

Michael Leopold Willmann, The Martyrdom of SS Philip and JamesArtwork: Michael Leopold Willmann, The Martyrdom of SS Philip and James, late 17th-century. Oil on canvas, National Gallery Prague.

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Prayer Book Society

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Third Sunday after Easter

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after Easter.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

“Your sorrow shall be turned into joy … joy [that] no one taketh from you”

The Gospel readings for the next three Sundays encompass almost all of Chapter 16 of John’s Gospel. The central part of Jesus’s “farewell discourse” (Ch. 14-17) ends with his high priestly prayer in Chapter 17, which carried us into Good Friday and Easter. Look in your Prayer Books for a moment and note how Chapter 16 is read on these Sundays.

Today on The Third Sunday after Easter we read from verses 16 to 22 of that chapter. Next Sunday, The Fourth Sunday after Easter, we read from verses 5 to 15 and on The Fifth Sunday after Easter, Rogation Sunday, we read from verses 23 to 33, the very end of the Chapter. In brief, we go from the middle to the beginning and then to the end of the Chapter. The only verses not read on these Sundays are verses 1-4, though they will be read on The Sunday after Ascension Day. In a way, they signal the entire project of Eastertide and Ascensiontide. “These things have I told you,” Jesus says, “that, when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them” (vs. 4).

We begin today in media res, in the midst of things, at least the midst of Chapter 16. Jesus is preparing the disciples and us for the meaning of his going from us in terms of Death, Resurrection, and Ascension which are, paradoxically, the very conditions of his being with us. His words preceding that movement now serve to teach us what it means in terms of our abiding in him and he in us. His going to the Father is ultimately the homecoming of the Son and the exultation of our humanity. Such is the Ascension and our joy.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, April – May 2026

Sunday, April 26th, Third Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Thursday, April 30th, Eve of St. Philip & St. James
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, May 3rd, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, May 10th, Fifth Sunday after Easter (Rogation Sunday)
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Monday, May 11th, Rogation Monday
10:00am Holy Communion

Tuesday May 12th, Rogation Tuesday
10:00am Holy Communion
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, May 14th, Ascension Day
7:00pm Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday after Easter

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St John 16:16-22

Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Last SupperArtwork: Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Last Supper, 1308-11. Tempera on wood, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Mark the Evangelist

The collect for today, The Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark: Give us grace, that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:11-16
The Gospel: St. Mark 13:1-10

Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini, Saint Mark Preaching in AlexandriaThe author of the second gospel, Saint Mark is generally identified with John Mark, the son of Mary, whose house in Jerusalem was a meeting place for the disciples (Acts 12:12,25). John Mark accompanied his cousin Barnabas and Paul on their missionary journey to Cyprus, but Mark’s early departure to Jerusalem caused a rift between Paul and Barnabas, following which Barnabas took Mark on the next mission to Cyprus while Paul and Silas traveled through Syria and Cilicia (Acts 15:37-41).

Paul later changed his mind about Mark, who helped him during his imprisonment in Rome (Col. 4:10). Just before his martyrdom, Paul urged Timothy: “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).

Also, Peter affectionately calls Mark “my son” and says that Mark is with him at “Babylon”—almost certainly Rome—as he writes his first epistle (1 Pet. 5:13). This accords with church tradition that Mark’s Gospel represents the teaching of Peter.

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