Month: August 2010

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Aidan

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Aidan (d. 651), Monk of Iona, Missionary, first Bishop and Abbot of Lindisfarne (source):

Saint AidanO loving God, who didst call thy servant Aidan from the Peace of a cloister to re-establish the Christian mission in northern England, and didst endow him with gentleness, simplicity, and strength: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, following his example, may use what thou hast given us for the relief of human need, and may persevere in commending the saving Gospel of our Redeemer Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
The Gospel: St Matthew 19:27-30

The Saint Aidan 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

The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St Luke 10:25-37

Moreau, The Good Samaritan

Artwork: Gustave Moreau, The Good Samaritan, c. 1870. Oil on canvas.

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Prayers and liturgy

Robert McDonald, Missionary

The collect for a Missionary, in commemoration of The Venerable Robert McDonald (1829-1913), Archdeacon, Missionary to the Western Arctic, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Robert McDonald, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:13-24a

Robert McDonald was born in Point Douglas, Red River Colony (in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba). He was the second of ten children born to a Scottish immigrant and his Ojibway wife. Ordained a Church of England priest in 1852, he ministered among the Ojibway people for almost ten years, mastering the Ojibway language and translating parts of the Bible.

McDonald, Tukudh HymnalHe was chosen to establish a Church Missionary Society mission at Fort Yukon, a settlement then believed to be in British territory but now located within Alaska. Reaching Yukon in October 1862, Robert McDonald was the first Protestant missionary designated for mission work in that territory. He ministered to the Gwitch’in and other aboriginal peoples in northwestern parts of North America for over forty years, during which time he baptised 2000 adults and children.

In 1870, he worked among peoples along the Porcupine River (Old Crow) and later settled in Fort MacPherson on the Peel River, in present-day Northwest Territories. He married Julia Kutuq, a local Gwitch’in woman, in 1876; together they had nine children. He was appointed Archdeacon of the Mackenzie Diocese in 1875.

Archdeacon McDonald developed the first writing system for the Gwitch’in language. (The Gwitch’in Athapaskan language is also known as Tukudh). With the help of Gwitch’in people, including his wife Julia, he translated the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, and compiled a Tukudh hymnal. Finally, in 1911, he published a dictionary and grammar of Tukudh.

Soon after retiring in 1904, he returned to Winnipeg where he died in 1913. He is buried in the cemetery of St John’s Cathedral.

McDonald’s translation of the Book of Common Prayer is posted online here and his grammar and dictionary here.

More biographical information on The Ven. Robert McDonald may be found online at these sites:

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (source):

Botticelli, St Augustine (1480)O merciful Lord,
who didst turn Augustine from his sins to be a faithful bishop and teacher:
grant that we may follow him in penitence and godly discipline,
till our restless hearts find their rest in thee;
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: Hebrews 12:22-24, 28-29
The Gospel: St John 14:6-15

Artwork: Sandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine, 1480. Fresco, Ognissanti, Florence. Photo taken by admin, 16 May 2010.

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Events

Christ Church Book Club and Cinema Paradiso

Christ Church Book Club will resume in September and Cinema Paradiso in October. All are welcome to attend and join in the discussions.

Christ Church Book Club will meet at 7:30 pm on the first Tuesday of the month from September through May (except January.) The first book is Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook. For more information on this and the other books to be discussed, click here.

Christ Church Cinema Paradiso will meet to view and discuss a film at 6:30 pm on the third Thursday of each month from October through May (except December and April). The first film will be The Merchant of Venice on 21 October. The complete schedule is posted here.

Both groups will meet in the Parish Hall.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Bartholomew the Apostle

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

d'Agrate, St BartholomewO almighty and everlasting God, who didst give to thine apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:10-14
The Gospel: St Luke 22:24-30

The apostle Bartholomew, named in all three synoptic gospels, is generally identified with Nathanael, who is named only in the Gospel of St John.  If this identification is accepted, we have a great deal of information on Bartholomew’s calling (St John 1:45-51). Jesus described him as “an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit”.

Nothing is known for certain of his post-New Testament ministry. There are conflicting accounts of his missionary activity in Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, India and Egypt. Of these Armenia has the strongest support, where he was said to have been skinned alive before being beheaded. The traditionally accepted place of his martyrdom is Albanopolis (present-day Derbent), near the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Artwork: Marco d’Agrate, Saint Bartholomew, 1562, Duomo di Milano. This striking sculpture depicts the saint wearing his own skin around his neck. (Click on photo for enlarged view.) Photo taken by admin 4 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9
The Gospel: St Mark 7:31-37

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Bernard (1090-1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, Poet (source):

Saint Bernard statue, Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the WallsO merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of thy servant Bernard,
didst rekindle the radiant light of thy Church:
grant that we in our generation
may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever walk before thee as children of light;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St John 15:7-11

Artwork: Saint Bernard, 19th century. Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome. Photo taken by admin, 29 April 2010.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of the Assumption

“That where I am, there ye may be also”
(John 14.3)

Summer in the Maritimes sometimes seems like a midsummer’s night dream, especially in these rural idylls and in the quiet beauty of such holy places as St. Mary’s, Crousetown. There is a marvelous providence, I think, in our midsummer feasts. They speak to our dreams and our hopes and give them deeper meaning; ultimately, they speak to the redemption of our humanity. August 6th is the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is, we may say, a nine-day wonder which culminates in this lesser known feast, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15th. Providentially, again, it seems to me, our Evensong lessons for the 11th Sunday after Trinity this year flesh out the meaning of our human hopes and aspirations signaled in these feasts.

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” Hardly a midsummer’s night dream, you may think! And yet this first line of one of the secular songs of the Christmas season touches upon the holy mystery of Christmas, the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of human redemption. It even echoes Zechariah’s prophecy which is read on the night before Christmas at Evening Prayer. It is exactly what we heard tonight in the last three verses of the first lesson.

“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of you, says the Lord”… “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.” In between, there is the hint of the universal significance for many, if not all peoples, of the return to Jerusalem. At the heart of it all is the idea of God’s dwelling in the midst of his people.

And, if Paul, in the second lesson, can say, through the dialectic of persecution and preaching, that “they glorified God through me,” how much more so, then, through Mary, the one in whom “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”? The Transfiguration and the Assumption speak to the radical consequence of that divine indwelling; the radical consequence of God’s dwelling with us is the hope of our dwelling with him. It is about our participation in the glory of God. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.” What is contained in that parenthesis – “and we beheld his glory” – is what we celebrate in the Transfiguration and the Assumption. We are being changed by what we behold. It is change that one can believe in; indeed, change that one can only believe in!

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Prayers and liturgy

The Eleventh Sunday After Trinity

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

Millais, Pharisee and PublicanO GOD, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Gospel: St Luke 18:9-14

Artwork: John Everett Millais, The Pharisee and the Publican, from Illustrations to `The Parables of Our Lord’, 1864. Relief print on paper, Tate Collections, London.

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