Year: 2009

Prayers and liturgy

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Annunciation, by Sir Edward Burne-JonesThe collect for today, The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canada, 1962):

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For The Epistle: Isaiah 7:10-15
The Gospel: St Luke 1:26-38

Artwork: Edward Burne-Jones, The Annunciation, 1879. Oil on canvas, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Wirral, England.

c/p: Nova Scotia Scott

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Events

Upcoming Event – Music Night

Newfoundland & Country Music Night

Please join us for an evening of music entertainment featuring:
Harold Hunt
Stanley Drake and Friend
John & Jason Caldwell and Friends
Carroll Edwards

Saturday, April 18th, 2009, 7:00-9:30 pm
Christ Church Parish Hall
Corner of King Street and Wentworth Road, Windsor

Adults: $5.00; children under 14 free.
Light refreshments and door prizes
Everyone is encouraged to contribute an item to our Parish Food Bank.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23-29 March 2009

Monday, March 23rd
4:45-5:15 pm Conformation Class – Parish Hall

Tuesday, March 24th
10:30 am Valley Clericus – St. Mary’s, Auburn
6:00 pm Prayers & Praises – Haliburton Place
7:00 pm Holy Communion and Lenten Meditation: “The Seven Deadly Sins: What and Why?” III

Wednesday, March 25th, Annunciation
7:00 pm Holy Communion
7:30 pm Regional Eucharist with Bishop Moxley – St. Mary’s, Auburn

Thursday, March 26th
1:30-3:30 pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Friday, March 27th
11:00 am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30 pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, March 28th, Lent V/Passion Sunday
8:00 am Holy Communion
10:30 am Holy Communion
4:30 pm Evening Prayer or Holy Communion at King’s-Edgehill School

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Sermons

Sermon for Fourth Sunday in Lent

The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, based on the Epistle: Galatians 4:26-5:1.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”

Freedom is one of the elusive catchwords of modernity. It signifies a quality of life which is somehow known, somehow anticipated, somehow expected and sought after, somehow claimed. But what is our freedom? (more…)

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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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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

Rector’s Annual Reports

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2008 have been uploaded as pdf documents and can be accessed via this page.

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Prayers and liturgy

Prayer Is Our Life: Lenten Meditation

Prayer Is Our Life
Fr. David Curry

Roger van der Weyden, Crucifixion

Rumours of Lent swirl about in the snow-mist of the Valley and dance in the beams of the mid-winter’s sun. What I am about to say concerns the season of Lent but in its larger dimension. It concerns the Lent that is our lives, our lives in pilgrimage. I want to say something about prayer and a rule of life.

We all have, I suspect, too narrow a view of prayer and, as a consequence, too narrow a view of Christian life. The consequences of such narrowness are deadly. Where religion is reduced to simply an optional aspect of life, it ceases to be religion. Where prayer appears as simply an item in the smorgasbord of optional religious activity, it ceases to be prayer. To the contrary, religion is life essential and prayer is its necessity. The recovery of a sense of the necessity of prayer means the rediscovery of our essential selves in the very life of God himself.

We are to be a people of prayer. That is to be taken, I think, in the most radical sense as meaning a people who are defined by prayer, a people whose lives simply are prayer. How can this be? (more…)

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick

The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick.

“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”

The Gospel (Matthew 4. 13-24, BCP., 315, Propers of a Missionary) says nothing about shillelaghs, shamrocks or even about snakes, let alone green beer! It does say something about places “upon the sea-coast”, about the preaching of Christ seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of light coming to “the people which sat in darkness” and in the “shadow of death”, about repentance, about discipleship, and about healing and salvation; in short, about all the things that belong to the evangelium – the good news that is the meaning of the word, gospel.

And the lesson, too, (Acts 12.24-13.5) underscores the same theme. “The word of God grew and multiplied,” meaning what, exactly? (more…)

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Patrick

The collect for today, the Feast Day of St Patrick (c. 390-c. 461), Bishop, Missionary, Patron of Ireland (source):

St. Patrick Baptising Christian ConvertsAlmighty God,
who in thy providence chose thy servant Patrick
to be the apostle of the people of Ireland:
keep alive in us the fire of faith which he kindled,
and in this our earthly pilgrimage
strengthen us to gain the light of everlasting life;
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: 1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
The Gospel: St Matthew 28:16-20

Click here to read the prayer known as St Patrick’s Breastplate.

Artwork: Lombard School, St Patrick Baptising Christian Converts, 15th century. Fresco, Santuario di San Patrizio, Colzate.

c/p: Nova Scotia Scott

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