2009 - Christ Church

13 December 200930 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
The Gospel: St Matthew 11:2-10

Artwork: Juan Fernandez de Navarrette, St John the Baptist in Prison, 1565-70. Oil on canvas, The Hermitage, St Petersburg.

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6 December 200930 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

“My words shall not pass away”

What strong and disturbing words do we hear in this morning’s gospel! Almost as bad as the evening news or the weather report! “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.” Nothing really new about that – same old, same old – other than being far more eloquent than, perhaps, either the news or the weather!

And yet, it must surely give us pause, “men’s hearts failing them for fear”, anxious and worried on account of “looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” There is a profoundly cosmic quality to these Scriptural warning notes which signal the Advent theme of judgment at once coming to us and ever present.

But exactly how, to use Cranmer’s words in his marvellous collect for this Sunday, do such disturbing warnings about judgment provide us with “patience and comfort of thy holy Word”, let alone “hope”? And yet that is precisely Jesus’ claim here. “My words shall not pass away.”

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6 December 200930 March 2026Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 7-13 December

Tuesday, December 8th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, December 10th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, December 13th, Third Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion & Pageant
7:00pm Readings from T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
(Hot Mulled Cider & Cookies afterwards)

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6 December 200930 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Second Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 15:4-13
The Gospel: St Luke 21:25-33

Artwork: Giotto di Bondone, Last Judgment, 1306. Fresco, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

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4 December 200930 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Saint Clement of Alexandria

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 155-c. 215), Priest, Apologist, Doctor (source);

O Lord, who didst call thy servant Clement of Alexandria from the errors of ancient philosophy that he might learn and teach the saving Gospel of Christ: Turn thy Church from the conceits of worldly wisdom and, by the Spirit of truth, guide it into all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: Colossians 1:11-20
The Gospel: St John 6:57-63

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30 November 200930 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Saint Andrew, Apostle and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay: Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 10:8-18
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:18-22

A native of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee, Andrew was a fisherman, the son of the fisherman John, and the brother of the fisherman Simon Peter. He was at first, along with John the Evangelist, a disciple of John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Christ led the two to follow Jesus. Andrew then took his brother Simon Peter to meet Jesus. In Eastern Orthodox tradition, St Andrew is called the Protokletos (the First Called) because he is named as the first disciple summoned by Jesus into his service.

At first Andrew and Simon Peter continued to carry on their fishing trade, but the Lord later called them to stay with him all the time. He promised to make them fishers of men and, this time, they left their nets for good.

The only other specific reference to Andrew in the New Testament is at St Mark 13:3, where he is one of those asking the questions that lead our Lord into his great eschatological discourse.

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29 November 200930 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

“And when he was come into Jerusalem all the city was moved
saying, Who is this?”

Who is this? Indeed. For more than a thousand years, St. Matthew’s story of Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem has been read on The First Sunday in Advent. And for more than a thousand years that reading ended with the question and answer: “Who is this? … This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” It was in the sixteenth century that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer included the continuation of the story with Christ’s cleansing of the temple. Why?

Advent is the season of questions, it seems to me, questions which illuminate this season as the season of teaching. We are being taught by God’s Word shining like a light and a lantern into the darkness of our world and day. Questions, it seems to me, are an essential aspect of the teaching. Advent simply abounds with questions, questions upon questions that reach a crescendo of questioning on The Fourth Sunday in Advent. In a way, the questions of Advent recall us to the great questions that belong to the story of creation and redemption. Just consider.

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29 November 200930 March 2026Sermons

Inwardly Digest: An Advent Meditation

“Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them …” These familiar words belong to the Collect which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer composed for The Second Sunday in Advent (BCP, p. 97). Taken from the Scriptures, in this case Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the prayer captures an entire pattern of theological understanding that is at once formative and foundational for Anglican doctrine and devotion. Diarmaid MacCulloch, commenting on Gerlach Flicke’s 1545 portrait of Cranmer, which depicts him holding The Epistles of Paul but also with Augustine’s book De Fide et Operibus (“Of Faith and Works”), suggests that this signals Cranmer’s theological enterprise, namely, the recovery of the Scriptures understood through the best of the Fathers, principally Augustine.

The creedal or doctrinal understanding of the Scriptures is a distinctive feature of the Anglican Common Prayer tradition. The rich interplay of Scripture and Creed(s), for example, shapes the worship and liturgy of the Church. The Articles of Religion and the ordination vows of the clergy testify to the centrality of the Scriptures for the teaching and praying life of the Church and express a remarkably sophisticated approach to the reading of the Scriptures in the life of the Church. We place ourselves under the authority of God’s Word Written. But that means that we have to think the Scriptures. “What do the Scriptures say?” (Romans 10.8). Or, as Christ asks, “how do you read?” (Lk.10.26). There is a necessary engagement between God and our humanity through the witness of the Scriptures. Revelation is mediation and requires the fullest engagement of our minds with what the Scriptures proclaim.

The reformed principle of sola scriptura, “scripture alone”, admits of a range of applications but its most basic sense for Anglicans is the primacy of Scripture in determining doctrine, devotion and discipline. “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proven thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith,” as Article VI puts it. The same idea is required of the teaching of the clergy stated in their ordination vows. What are the things “necessary to salvation”? Those things which belong to the articles of the Faith; in short, the Creeds, which are the distillation of the Scriptures, and which speak to the nature of our spiritual identity with God in his self-relation as Trinity and in his relation to us as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Creedal and doctrinal principles exercise more than a merely formal role; they exercise a formative role in the life of the Church. They should have a definitive voice in the debates and issues of the day.

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29 November 200930 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Advent Antiphons

The Great ‘O’ Antiphons of Advent

December 16: O Sapientia

O Wisdom, which comes out of the mouth of the Most High, and reaches from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordereing all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

December 17: O Adonai

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the law in Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

December 18: O Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, which stands for an ensign of the people, at whom the kings shall shut their mouths, unto whom the Gentiles shall seek: Come and deliver us, and tarry not.

December 19: O Clavis David

O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel; that opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens: Come and bring the prisoners out of the prison-house, them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 20: O Oriens

O Dayspring, Brightness of the Light Everlasting, and Sun of Righteousness: Come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 21: O Rex Gentium

O King of Nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone who makes both one: Came and save mankind, whom thou didst make of clay.

December 22: O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all ‚nations and their salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

December 23: O Virgo Virginum

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any seen like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? The thing which ye behold is divine.

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

O COME, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that morns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
R: Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,
to thee shall come Emmanuel!

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high, (O Sapientia)
and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. R.

O come, o come, Thou Lord of might, (O Adonai)
who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe. R.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse’s stem, (O Jesse Virgula)
from ev’ry foe deliver them
that trust Thy mighty power to save,
and give them vict’ry o’er the grave. R.

O come, Thou Key of David, come, (O Clavis Davidica)
and open wide our heav’nly home,
make safe the way that leads on high,
that we no more have cause to sigh. R.

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high, (O Oriens)
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death’s dark shadow put to flight. R.

O come, Desire of the nations, bind (O Rex Gentium)
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven’s peace. R.

The initial words of the antiphons in reverse of their original order form an acrostic: O Emmanuel, O Rex, O Oriens, O Clavis, O Radix (“virgula” in the hymn), O Adonai, O Sapientia. ERO CRAS can be loosely translated as “I will be there tomorrow”.