Christ Church

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy”

The leaves are scattered on the wind and the rain. The splendor of yesterday’s golden glory lies in scattered heaps. And, yet, in the soft dying of nature’s year, when the colours of blazing reds, bright yellows and vibrant oranges have been dimmed to burnished gold, there is a gathering; a gathering into glory far greater than any spectacle of nature.

There is a gathering of the scattered leaves of our humanity, and like the gathering together “into one volume” of the scattered leaves of Sybil’s oracles, as the poet, Dante, puts it, the gathering has to do with our remembering, with the quality of our recollection. There is a gathering of scattered minds into unity and order, a unity and order which signals the redemption of our humanity in the truth of its diversity. The Feast of All Saints is the great autumnal festival of spiritual life, the great celebration of the redeemed community of our humanity.

All Saints recalls us to the spiritual community to which we belong. It signals the vocation of our humanity, both individually and collectively considered. We are called to holiness even in the face of our sinfulness.

The text which is central to this recollective gathering is at once provocative and paradoxical. It is The Beatitudes, the blessednesses, from The Sermon on the Mount. They have, it seems, an inexhaustible content that challenges us because of the quality of uncompromising objectivity.

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Tues., November 2nd, All Souls’ Day
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies’ Mtg. in Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion
7:30pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: “Three Day Road” by Joseph Boyden

Wednesday, November 3rd
6:30-7:30pm Sparks’ Mtg. in the Parish Hall

Thursday, November 4th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-in
7:30pm West Hants Historical Society Monthly Meeting

Sunday, November 7th, Octave of All Saints’/Trinity XXIII
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
9:30am Holy Communion – KES
10:30am Holy Communion
5:00pm Fr. Curry preaches at Choral Evensong, St. George’s, Halifax.

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

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy house hold the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 18:21-35

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

Congratulations and best wishes to Connie and Peter Kelley upon the occasion of their fiftieth wedding anniversary! What a wonderful witness and testimony to the “love divine” which sustains, redeems and perfects human love! Blessings!

Fr. David Curry
The Parish of Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude, Apostles, with Saint Jude the Brother of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect for the Brethren of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St Jude 1-4
The Gospel: St John 14:21-27

In the various New Testament lists of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13), the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon and Judas son of James, also called Thaddeus.

To distinguish Simon from Simon Peter, Matthew and Mark refer to him as Simon the Cananaean, while Luke refers to him as Simon the Zealot. Both surnames have the same signification and are a translation of the Hebrew qana (the Zealous). The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call. The translation of Matthew and Mark as Simon “the Canaanite” (as, e.g., KJV has it) is simply mistaken.

The New Testament contains a variety of names for the apostle Jude: Matthew and Mark refer to Thaddeus (a variant reading of Matthew has “Lebbaeus called Thaddaeus”), while Luke calls him Judas son of James. Christian tradition regards Saint Jude and Saint Thaddeus as different names for the same person. The various names are understood as efforts to avoid associating Saint Jude with the name of the traitor Judas Iscariot. The only time words of Jude are recorded, in St John 14:22-23, the Evangelist is quick to add “(not Iscariot)” after his name.

Jude is often identified as one of the brothers of the Lord and the author of the New Testament Epistle of Jude, but this is by no means universally accepted. The New Testament says that some or all of the Lord’s brothers did not believe in Him until after the Resurrection, so it is questionable whether the apostle Jude is the same Jude who authored the epistle bearing his name. In any case, as James Kiefer suggests,

we commemorate on this day (1) Simon the Zealot, one of the original Twelve; (2) Judas of James (also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus), also one of the original Twelve; and (3) Jude (or Judas) the brother of James and author of the Epistle, without settling the question of whether (2) and (3) are the same person.

After Pentecost, nothing certain is known about Simon and little about Jude. Some ancient Christian writers say that Simon and Jude went together as missionaries to Persia, and were martyred there. If this is true, it explains, to some extent, our lack of historical information on them and also why they are usually put together.

In modern times Jude has acquired considerable popularity as ‘patron of hopeless causes’ or ‘saint of last resort’. This patronage is said to have originated because nobody invoked him for anything since his name so closely resembled that of Judas who betrayed the Lord; consequently he favours even the most desperate situations of his clients.

Artwork (top left): Francesco Moratti, St Simon, 1708-09. Marble, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome. Photo taken by admin, 29 April 2010.

Artwork (bottom right): Lorenzo Ottoni, St Jude Thaddaeus, c. 1718. Marble, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome. Photo taken by admin, 29 April 2010.

“Go thy way, thy son liveth”

Seeing is believing, it is commonly said, but here is the story of someone who having heard believed and having heard again, believed yet again – all without seeing. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us since “faith cometh by hearing,” except that what is heard and believed stands in such stark contrast to what is wanted to be seen. “Except ye see signs and wonders,” Jesus says, “ye will not believe.” He names our expectation – seeing – and its consequence – our unbelief. For where God is wanted to be tangibly present – immediately there for us, subject to us, as it were – faith has no meaning. The Word has no resonance in us.

In the Gospel, the demand is that Jesus should be physically present for an act of healing to be effective: “Come down ere my child die”. Something divine in Jesus is at once acknowledged and denied in the request. For where the Word is made captive to our desires, there the sovereign freedom of the Word can have no play upon our understanding. To acknowledge the sovereign freedom of the Word, on the other hand, means that our understanding is made captive to the Word and not the Word to the immediacy of our desires. Such acknowledgement is faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen”. It has its play primarily upon our understanding and not upon our senses.

The captivity of our understanding to the Word gives meaning and purpose to our desires without which they are essentially nothing. For where our understanding is captive to the Word, there the Word is allowed to shape our desires. In contrast to the all-absorbing tyranny of the self, they are shaped “according to thy word.” It is “thy will be done” and my will only as it is found in God’s will. Our wills find their place in God’s will, but only in the captivity of our understanding to the divine Word – to the resonance of that Word in us,  to that Word taking shape in us according to its sovereign freedom.

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Tuesday, October 26th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Wednesday, October 27th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Thursday, October 28th, St. Simon & St. Jude
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-in
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, October 31st, Trinity XXII/All Hallows’ Eve
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, November 2nd
Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room, Parish Hall
“Three Day Road” by Joseph Boyden

Saturday, November 20th: Annual Parish Ham Supper

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

GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-20
The Gospel: St John 4:46-54

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

ALMIGHTY God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 4:5-13
The Gospel: St Luke 24:44-52

Read more about Saint Luke here.

Artwork: Nanni di Banco, Saint Luke, 1408-13. Marble, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 14 May 2010.

“Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is”

What is prayer really all about? Is it about bartering and badgering, bargaining and begging God to get something we want? What does it mean to pray?

It means quite simply to want God’s will to be done in our lives. It is what we pray in the prayer which shapes and governs all prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. In a way, the whole attitude and approach to prayer and to our lives in faith is captured in the words “thy will be done.”

These words reverberate throughout the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament where they take on a new kind of intensity of expression. They are there in Mary’s great ‘yes,’ her wonderful and active acquiescence of her whole being to the divine will. “Be it unto me according to thy word;” in short, she prays that the divine will be done. Her words are the prologue to the most intense expression of this concept and idea voiced by Christ in the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane; “not my will, but thine be done” and then, captured on the Cross in the last word of the Crucified; “Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit.”

In other words, our prayers are grounded in the Son’s prayer to the Father in the bond of the Spirit. “When you pray,” Jesus tells us, “say, ‘Our Father’,” which is itself an amazing thing. His Father becomes our Father to whom we have access through the Son and in the Spirit.

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