Month: October 2009

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Edward the Confessor

The collect for today, the Feast of St Edward the Confessor (c. 1003-1066), King of England (source):

St Edward, Confessor and KingO Sovereign God,
who didst set thy servant Edward upon the throne of an earthly kingdom
and didst inspire him with zeal for the kingdom of heaven:
grant that we may so confess the faith of Christ by word and deed,
that we may, with all thy saints, inherit thine eternal glory;
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: Ecclesiasticus 31:8-11
The Gospel: St Luke 12:35-40

Artwork: Unknown, Wilton Diptych (detail of left panel), c. 1395-99. Oil on tempera, National Gallery, London.

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Sermons

Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving

“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth”

There is something quite pleasing and aesthetically delightful about Harvest Thanksgiving. In our rural farming communities, Harvest Thanksgiving serves as a kind of testament to the hard work and labour of those who work on the land. It speaks to a sense of identity and vocation. The fruits of creation and human labour are gathered into the Church in a kind of celebration. How wonderful it is to see the things of the natural world, transformed by human labour and industry, brought into the holy places! We are taught by pumpkins and, perhaps, even by zucchini, that the natural world, and that world as transformed by human endeavour and enterprise, exists for God. Harvest Thanksgiving reminds us of the profoundly spiritual nature of our very existence.

Harvest Thanksgiving is a wonderful counter to our contemporary confusions about our world and day and about ourselves. Are we really supposed to believe, as some evolutionary biologists and physicists (though certainly not all nor many) would have it, that the world and all the things in it are just the result of the random coming together of various bits of matter? In other words, that there is no purpose to nature, just blind chance? And therefore no goodness to nature either? There can be no morality in any meaningful sense in such a view. Each thing just happens to be in the way in which it has come to be. But, then, how to speak of one thing as distinct from another? How does one know what and when something is anything as opposed to being on the way to becoming something else or to mere nothingness? These fruits which you see before you have an extraordinary elusive character to their nature, it seems!

Thanksgiving is a fundamental feature of the great religions of the world, particularly of the religions of the revealed word such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Through the Word revealed, nature and human life are understood to have a purpose, a destiny and a direction. We have an end with God. Harvest Thanksgiving reminds us that pumpkins and squash, cucumbers and gourds, apples and pears, are all part of that spiritual end and purpose that belongs to creation itself. Creation exists for something beyond itself. And our western secular cultures, too, (the idolatry of instrumental reason notwithstanding), retain a strong sense of purpose and direction critical to ideas of the self, even if God has been long forgotten and dismissed.

The proper term is Providence. There can be no Harvest Thanksgiving without the idea of the Providence of God written for us to read in nature and in human lives but, much more clearly and fully, in the Holy Scriptures. (more…)

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 12-18 October

Tuesday, October 13th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, October 15th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, October 18th, St Luke/Trinity XIX
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Family Service – Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES

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Prayers and liturgy

Harvest Thanksgiving

The collect for today, Harvest Thanskgiving, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 55:1-12
The Gospel: St John 6:27-35

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Paulinus of York

The collect for today, the Feast of St Paulinus (c. 584-644), Missionary, first Bishop of York (source):

Saint PaulinusAlmighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Paulinus, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the people of northern England. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

With the Lesson and Gospel for a Missionary:
The Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:13-24a

The St Paulinus stained glass was made by the firm of C.E. Kempe of London and installed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1913. Photo taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Prayers and liturgy

William Tyndale

The collect for today, the commemoration of William Tyndale (c. 1495-1536), Priest, Translator, Martyr (source):

William TyndaleO Lord, grant to thy people
grace to hear and keep thy word
that, after the example of thy servant William Tyndale,
we may both profess thy gospel
and also be ready to suffer and die for it,
to the honour of thy name;
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: St James 1:21-25
The Gospel: St John 12:44-50

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Sermons

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

“Friend, go up higher”

It is one of my favourite Scripture texts. It’s not about ambition or pretension. It’s about the hope of transformation. It counters completely the dumb-down aspects of an anti-intellectual culture, such as ours, and conveys the sense that we are, indeed, called to something more, that we have a destiny beyond what we know is before us but will not face, namely, the grave and gate of death. And it signals ever so profoundly the necessary condition of soul for the realization of God’s will and purpose for us in our lives. The necessary condition is humility.

Here is a Scripture reading in which the operative words are “friend” and “go up higher”. We have just had a visible demonstration of this in the baptism of Brennan Isaac. He has been made – there is no other word for it – a friend of Jesus. He has just been called up higher but only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; such is the heart of baptism. We are identified with Jesus in his free-willing identity and sacrifice for us.

Jesus calls us “friends”. He does so not merely by way of a parable but more directly. He calls us friends at the height of his passion, on the night of our betrayal. There is an anticipation of that in the context of this gospel parable where Jesus is being watched critically and being challenged hypocritically by the Lawyers and Pharisees. This is the wondrous thing that passes human understanding. God has made us his friends when we were his enemies! This turns the ancient world on its head. It turns our modern world on its head. We live in a rather hopeless and fearful world. Here is the antidote to our hopelessness and fear. It challenges us so that it can redeem us.

(more…)

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 5-11 October

Tuesday, October 6th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30 Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:30pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room, Parish Hall
“Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

Thursday, October 8th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Saturday, October 10th
9:00-11:00am Men’s Club – Decorating for Harvest Thanksgiving
2:00pm Holy Matrimony – Christ Church: Calvin Guy & Nancy O’Handley

Sunday, October 11th, Trinity XVIII/Harvest Thanksgiving
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

The Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity

The collect for today, the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

LORD, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St Luke 14:1-11

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