Day: March 19, 2009

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St Joseph

A homily on the Feast of St Joseph from The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church.

“But while he thought on these things, the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him in a dream”

In literature and art, Joseph tends to get a bad rap. More a figure of the background, if portrayed at all in art, he is often pictured as a bit of a doddering old man, a sort of gullible fool; in literature, Robertson Davies, in the first of his Deptford Trilogy, Fifth Business, has the eccentric scholar, Padre Ignazio Blazon, describe him as “the most celebrated cuckold in history,” having been upstaged, as it were, by nothing less, it seems, than God the Holy Ghost.

There is something refreshingly honest, then, in turning to the Church’s commemoration of St. Joseph and to the scripture readings that The Book of Common Prayer provides (BCP, p. 113), along with the special collect (BCP, p. 319), for this day. (more…)

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus

The collect for today, the Feast Day of Saint Joseph, Guardian of Our Lord, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron of Canada (source):

God our Father,
who from the house of thy servant David
didst raise up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of thine incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to thy commands;
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 4:13-18
The Gospel: St Luke 2:41-52

Artwork: Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus, c. 1622. Private collection, Venice.

c/p: Nova Scotia Scott

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