Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”
God commands us to love him. And so we must, for his command does not issue from any lack or insufficiency on his part. God does not need our love. His command proceeds instead from his very being. He is active Love, everlasting love, as we are constantly reminded in the recurring refrain of the Trinity season: “God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him.” Thus God’s command to love him equally extends to his command to love others and ourselves for his sake, for this is the perfecting of his divine image in us. It is really all about grace as what defines and perfects our lives. The Gospel illustrates what is said in the Epistle about “the grace of God which is given [us] by Jesus Christ; the grace that enriches [us] in all utterance, and in all knowledge,” and that confirms us unto the end, our end or being in Christ.
“The end of the matter, all has been heard,” Ecclesiastes concludes. It is the most philosophical book of the Hebrew Scriptures. Having surveyed all the forms of human endeavour under the sun and found them wanting, for “all is vanity” or empty, the Preacher finishes with the words, “Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” It became the title of Richard Allestree’s famous treatise, The Whole Duty of Man (1684), which along with William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), profoundly influenced Christian life and witness in the 18th century, praised by such different personalities as Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, and John Wesley. Fear means awe and wonder; in short, love for what is greater than all else. As Jesus says, “there is none other commandment greater than these.”The whole duty of the Christian appears in this command to love. “For when the love of God precedes, the love of neighbour follows” (Augustine). Love of God and love of neighbour sum up the whole of the Old Law and, in Christ, they become both the fulfillment of the Law and the very heartbeat of Christian life. God’s life in Christ “shall confirm you [keep your steadfast] unto the end,” say St. Paul. That divine life is the “grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil” and the reason for “pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God,” as the Collect says.
Month at a Glance, October
Sunday, October 4th, Trinity 18
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Thursday, October 8th
7:00pm Seminar on the Catechism by way of King Oswald’s Heirs, #1: Intro to end of Ch. 11, Coronation Room, Parish Hall
Sunday, October 11th, Harvest Thanksgiving / Trinity 19
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, October 13th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Saturday, October 17th
9:00-11:00am Church Cleanup
Sunday, October 18th, St. Luke / Trinity 20
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Monday, October 19th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club, Coronation Room, Parish Hall: Daisy Dunn’s The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny (2019) and Niall Ferguson’s Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe (2021).
Saturday, October 24th
9:00-4:00 Quiet Day (WORCs)
Sunday, October 25th, Trinity 21
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(Followed by Time of Refreshment & Fellowship, Hall)
Wednesday, October 28th, St. Simon & St. Jude
7:00pm Holy Communion, followed by Seminar on the Catechism, King Oswald’s Heirs # 2, Ch. 12 – end of Ch. 21, Coronation Room, Parish Hall
The Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 12:28-37
Artwork: Francisco de Zurbarán, Christ the Saviour Blessing (Salvator Mundi), 1638. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.
Remigius, Bishop
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Remigius (c. 438-533), Bishop of Reims, Apostle to the Franks (source):
O God, who by the teaching of thy faithful servant and bishop Remigius didst turn the nation of the Franks from vain idolatry to the worship of thee, the true and living God, in the fullness of the catholic faith; Grant that we who glory in the name of Christian may show forth our faith in worthy deeds; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The Epistle: 1 St. John 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. John 14:3-7
Remigius was consecrated bishop of Reims, France, at age 22. The pagan Clovis I, who had married the Christian princess Clotilde, began his reign as king of the Franks about 20 years later, in 481.
Before entering combat against German tribes at Tolbiac, Clovis prayed to “Clotilde’s God” for victory. His soldiers won the battle, and Clotilde asked Remigius to teach the king about Christianity. Clovis was amazed by the story of “this unarmed God who was not of the race of Thor or Odin”. In the words of Remigius, the king came “to adore what he had burnt and to burn what he had adored”.
In 496, Remigius baptised Clovis in a public ceremony at Reims Cathedral. Three thousand Franks also became Christians. Under the king’s protection, Remigius was able to spread the gospel and build churches throughout Gaul.
Artwork: François Dubois, Saint Remigius baptises King Clovis I in the presence of Queen Clotilde, 1829. Mural painting, Panthéon, Paris.
Jerome, Doctor and Priest
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Jerome (c. 342-420), Priest, Monk, Translator of the Scriptures, Doctor of the Church (source):
O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant Jerome, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The Epistle: 2 Timothy 3:14-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 24:44-48
One of the most scholarly and learned early church fathers, St. Jerome devoted much of his life to accurately translating the Holy Bible from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek into Latin.
Born near Aquileia, northeast Italy, of Christian parents, Jerome travelled widely. He received a classical education at Rome and travelled to Gaul where he became a monk. He later moved to Palestine, spending five years as an ascetic in the Syrian desert. In 374, he was ordained a priest in Antioch. He then pursued biblical studies at Constantinople under Gregory Nazianzus and translated works by Eusebius, Origen, and others.
Travelling to Rome in 382, Jerome became secretary to the aged Pope Damasus. By the time the pope died three years later, Jerome had become involved in theological controversies in which he antagonised many church leaders and theologians. He left Rome under a cloud, returning to Palestine where he lived as a monk in Bethlehem for the rest of his life.
Over several decades, Jerome wrote biblical commentaries and works promoting monasticism and asceticism. Most importantly, he produced fresh Latin translations of most of the Old and New Testaments, based on the original biblical languages. This work formed the basis of the Vulgate, which remained the standard Scriptural text of the western church for over a millennium.
Artwork: Gerard David, St. Jerome (from the Cervara Altarpiece), c. 1506. Oil on oak panel, Palazzo Bianco, Genoa.
Meditation for Michaelmas
Michaelmas Daisies Dancing with Angels
Michaelmas daisies in their varied hues dance along our maritime roadsides in the soft September air. They are asters, a Greek word meaning star, and are called ‘michaelmas daisies’, because their appearance coincides with the great Fall festival of St. Michael and All Angels on September 29th. They recall us to the larger dimensions of creation and of the traditions of intellectual and spiritual life which are part of the life of academic institutions and our churches as places of contemplation, learning and service.
Angels are a strong reminder to us of our spiritual and intellectual nature. They, too, are creatures but purely intelligible beings, spiritual beings, in other words, though often beautifully depicted in art. As Diotima teaches Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, spirits are intermediary between god and humans. She notes that “they interpret and carry messages from humans to gods and from gods to humans”. This ancient Greek view complements the angelic messengers in the scriptural traditions and belongs to the idea of good news that is shared and in which we participate. Evangelist means, literally, a good angel, a good messenger; hence, gospel or good news that is made known.
Angels are an inescapable feature of the scriptural and spiritual landscape of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic worlds. The ideas or forms of Plato have become the ideas or thoughts of God and have entered into the spiritual imaginary of the theological cultures of reflection and to a branch of theology known as angelology. They belong to our thinking about creation, spiritually and intellectually, and to ourselves as spiritual creatures, albeit not angels, because we are unmistakingly embodied beings. Angels are the great ‘celestial no-see ums’, as Fr. Robert Crouse was fond of observing. The artistic traditions picture and imagine the angels in various ways but in truth they can only be thought.When we think and pray, itself a form of thinking in a Godward direction, we are in the company of angels.
The most important things in life are the things which we cannot see but are known intellectually or spiritually. Such are the angels who contribute to our thinking about the intellectual principles that belong to the created order and to our lives in thought and prayer and to the primacy of the ethical, our thinking about good and evil.
Saint Michael and All Angels
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Revelation 12:7-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-10
The name Michael is a variation of Micah, and means in Hebrew “Who is like God?”
The archangel Michael first appears in the Book of Daniel, where he is described as “one of the chief princes” and as the special protector of Israel. In the New Testament epistle of Jude (v. 9), Michael, in a dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, says, “The Lord rebuke you“. Michael appears also in Revelation (12:7-9) as the leader of the angels in the great battle in Heaven that ended with Satan and the hosts of evil being thrown down to earth. There are many other references to the archangel Michael in Jewish and Christian traditions.
Following these scriptural passages, Christian tradition has given St. Michael four duties: (1) To continue to wage battle against Satan and the other fallen angels; (2) to save the souls of the faithful from the power of Satan especially at the hour of death; (3) to protect the People of God, both the Jews of the Old Covenant and the Christians of the New Covenant; and (4) finally to lead the souls of the departed from this life and present them to our Lord for judgment. For these reasons, Christian iconography depicts St. Michael as a knight-warrior, wearing battle armor, and wielding a sword or spear, while standing triumphantly on a serpent or other representation of Satan. Sometimes he is depicted holding the scales of justice or the Book of Life, both symbols of the last judgment.
Calendar of Services and Events, September through December 2026 (updated)
An updated version of the Calendar of Services and Events for the period September through December 2026 (tentative) can be downloaded here as a pdf document.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.