The collect for today, the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18
The Gospel: St Matthew 6:24-34
Renowned New Testament scholar and theologian Dr Edith M. Humphrey will be the featured speaker for the 2010 Hayward Lectures at Acadia University. She will deliver a series of three public lectures on “What You Have Received: What the Bible Really Says About Tradition”. The lecture schedule is as follows:
Monday, 18 October
The Problem with Tradition
Tuesday, 19 October
Lost In Translation?
Wednesday, 20 October
Tradition, the Bible and the Personal
All lectures will take place at 7:30pm in the K.C. Irving Auditorium, Acadia University, Wolfville.
Dr Humphrey is William F. Orr Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Before coming to Pittsburgh, she served as Professor of Scripture and Dean at Augustine College, Ottawa. She previously taught at many universities and colleges, including Regent College, Vancouver.
As a member of the Anglican Church of Canada for almost 25 years, Dr Humphrey spoke persuasively in support of traditional Anglican beliefs in such current controversial issues as worship and human sexuality. She served on the Primate’s Theological Commission from 1996 to 2004.
In June 2009, after 13 years of study and discernment, Dr Humphrey was chrismated and received into the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Dr Humphrey’s website has much information about her life and work, including her journey to Orthodoxy.
Acadia’s brochure outlining the 2010 Hayward Lectures and related events can be downloaded here as a pdf document.
The collect for today, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St Luke 1:39-49
Artwork: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna and Child, 13th century. Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Servi, Montepulciano. Photo taken by admin, 27 May 2010.
In returning and giving thanks we are made whole. Such is salvation. It is also our freedom. The burden of thanksgiving, we might say, is precisely our freedom. It is our freedom in Christ.
The giving of thanks cannot be coerced. In the story of the ten lepers, one, and only one, as Luke is at pains to remind us, “returned to give thanks”. All were healed but only the one who returned and gave thanks is said to be made whole. His returning is a free act by which he signals that he is more than just the recipient of an healing act. He acknowledges the God who heals and restores, the God who has mercy and saves. But even more, his action brings him into the presence of God.
His returning and giving thanks puts him in the presence of Christ in his love for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. Thus he enters into the radical meaning of his healing. Its radical meaning is that our ultimate good for both soul and body is found in the presence of Christ in his will for us.
Tuesday, Sept.7th, Eve of the Nativity of the BVM
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion
7:30pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: “Vermeer’s Hat” by Timothy Brook
Sunday, September 12th, Trinity XV
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church
The collect for today, the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Galatians 5:25-6:5
The Gospel: St Luke 17:11-19
Artwork: Christ heals ten lepers, 12th-century mosaic, Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily.
The collect for bishops and other pastors, in commemoration of Robert Wolfall, Priest (source):
Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Robert Wolfall to proclaim thy glory
by a life of prayer and the zeal of a true pastor:
keep constant in faith the leaders of thy Church
and so bless thy people through their ministry
that the Church may grow into the full stature
of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Church of England priest Robert Wolfall was chaplain to the third Arctic expedition led by Martin Frobisher. On 3 September 1578, Rev’d Wolfall presided at the first recorded Holy Eucharist in what is now Canadian territory: Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island.
The service was held on the ship Anne Francis, whose captain later wrote:
Master Wolfall …. preached a godly sermon, which being ended he celebrated also a Communion upon the land …. The celebration of the divine mystery was the first sign, seal and confirmation of Christ’s name, death and passion ever known in these quarters. Master Wolfall made sermons and celebrated the Communion at sundry other times in several and sundry ships, because the whole company could never meet together at anyone place.
A few weeks later, Frobisher abandoned the hope of establishing a permanent settlement on Baffin Island and the expeditionary fleet returned home to England. Anglicans would not celebrate Holy Communion in Canada again for almost a century.
The collect for an Abbot, on the occasion of the Feast of Saint Giles (d. c. 710), Hermit, Abbot (source):
O God, by whose grace the blessed Abbot Giles, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St John 2:15-17
The Gospel: St Luke 6:20-23a
All that is known for certain about this saint is that he was born in the early 7th century and that he founded a monastery in what is now the town of Saint-Gilles, southern France. The monastery became a renowned stopping place in medieval times for pilgrims journeying to Compostela, Rome, or the Holy Land.
A 10th-century Legend attributed important miracles to Saint Giles, which helped make him one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries across Europe are dedicated to him. As well, because he is the patron saint of lepers, cripples, and nursing mothers, many hospitals were built in his name. Saint Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, where his memory is honoured by the Church of Scotland High Kirk: St Giles’ Cathedral.
Artwork: Hans Memling, Saint Giles (detail of the central panel of the Moreel Triptych), 1484. Oil on wood, Groeningemuseum, Bruges.
