Year: 2010

Prayers and liturgy

The Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

Raising of the Son of the Widow of NainO LORD, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:13-21
The Gospel: St Luke 7:11-17

Artwork: Raising of the son of the widow of Nain (detail from sarcophagus dated c. 325-350), Pio-Christian Museum, Vatican Museums. Provenance: unknown; later in the courtyard of Palazzo Colonna; since 1757 in the Christian Museum of Benedict XIV. Photo taken by admin, 26 April 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Ninian

The collect for today, the Feast of St Ninian (c. 360 – c. 432), Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land,
heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom,
that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 49:1-6
The Gospel: St Matthew 28:16-20

Saint Ninian windowNinian was the first apostle of Christianity in Scotland. Born in Cumbria to Christian parents, he went to Rome for his education. After being ordained a priest and then a bishop, Ninian was commissioned by Pope Siricus to return to Britain to preach the Christian faith.

Tradition holds that Ninian’s mission to Scotland began in 397, when he landed at Whithorn on Solway Firth. The stone church he built there was known as Candida Casa (“White House”). Recent archaeological excavations in that area have found white masonry from what could be an ancient church.

Saint Ninian’s ministry was centred in the Whithorn and Galloway areas of Scotland, but he is also remembered for bringing the gospel to the “southern Picts”—people living in the areas now known as Perth, Fife, Stirling, Dundee, and Forfar.

As early as the 7th century, Christians were making pilgrimages to St Ninian’s shrine. By the 12th century, a large cathedral had been built at Whithorn, but it fell into ruins after the Reformation. Yet today, pilgrims still travel there to visit St Ninian’s Cave, where the saint would go when he needed to pray in solitude.

During his visit to the United Kingdom this month, Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to arrive in Scotland on Saint Ninian’s Day.

Saint Ninian’s Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia (“New Scotland”), is the Episcopal Seat for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish. This prayer is posted at the Cathedral Parish website:

Lord our God, You brought to Scotland the faith of the apostles through the teaching of St. Ninian. Grant that we, who have received from him the light of your truth, may remain strong in faith. We ask this through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.

Artwork: Saint Ninian, stained glass, Saint Margaret’s Chapel, Edinburgh Castle.  Photo taken by admin 24 July 2004.

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Prayers and liturgy

Holy Cross Day

The collect for today, Holy Cross Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O BLESSED Saviour, who by thy cross and passion hast given life unto the world: Grant that we thy servants may be given grace to take up the cross and follow thee through life and death; whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship and glorify, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11
The Gospel: St John 12:31-36a

Sant'Apollinare, Apse Mosaic Cross

Artwork: Apse mosaic (detail), mid-6th century, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Italy. Photo taken by admin 20 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Cyprian

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cyprian (c. 200-258), Bishop of Carthage, Martyr (source):

Saint Cyprian of CarthageO holy God,
who didst bring Cyprian to faith in Christ
and didst make him a bishop in the Church,
crowning his witness with a martyr’s death:
grant that, following his example,
we may love the Church and her doctrine,
find thy forgiveness within her fellowship,
and so come to share the heavenly banquet
which thou hast prepared for us;
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 St Peter 5:1-4,10-11
The Gospel: St John 10:11-16

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am service

“Her sins, which are many are forgiven, for she loved much”

It is hard to imagine a more amazing statement. It dovetails wonderfully with the lesson from Ezekiel which speaks about “one heart” and “a new spirit” within us, “a heart of flesh” and not of stone; in short, a living heart, a heart that is alive to the presence of God. That lesson along side of this gospel story of the unknown and unnamed and utterly silent woman about whom Jesus says, “your sins are forgiven” is astounding. We see something of what that living heart of God in us really means.

What it doesn’t mean is the end of struggle and persecution, at least in this vale of tears. The story in Luke’s Gospel is particularly poignant and real. The woman who came to the house of Pharisee came because she learned that Jesus was there at table. She is described in the most wonderful economy of language by Luke as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner.” She is, in other words, a prostitute. She comes to Jesus.

She says nothing, yet her silence speaks volumes. Her heart is fully on display, fully transparent, a heart of flesh, we must say, though it is Jesus who has to teach us, hard-hearted ones such as we are, just what her actions mean. Her action is, perhaps, even more extreme and extravagant than the action of the one leper who was a Samaritan about whom we heard last Sunday. She brings a precious alabaster flask of ointment; she weeps, wetting his feet with her tears, and wiping them with the hair of her head, kissing them and anointing them with oil. It is an amazing act of devotion and love, an amazing scene of love-in-forgiveness.

Yet, it is the occasion of scandal. Doesn’t Jesus know who she really is? What kind of a religious hot-shot is he if he can’t recognise the garden-variety example of a sinner in this common “woman of the city?”

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am service

“Be not anxious”

What is Jesus saying here? Simply this. He wants us to look at the world with new eyes. Look at the sequence of strong verbs here: behold, consider and seek.  “Behold, the fowls of the air”. “Consider the lilies of the field”. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”.

It makes all the difference for us in our lives. To behold what he wants us to behold, to consider what he wants us to consider, to seek what he wants us to seek counters the paralysis of our fears, the terror of our anxieties and most importantly, perhaps, our anxiety about our anxieties.

Jesus says “be not anxious” more than once in this gospel. He knows our anxieties and how prone we are to being anxious, quite literally, about “a multitude of things”. It is “the Martha Syndrome” as diagnosed elsewhere by Jesus. “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about a multitude of things” (Luke 10.41). We all have our fears and our worries, our troubles and our concerns, our heart-aches and our despairs. And we can worry ourselves, quite literally, to death about them. What are we anxious about? What are our anxieties? Quite simply, they are our cares, the things which, quite literally, occupy our thoughts.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13-19 September

Tuesday, September 14th, Holy Cross Day
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30 Brownies’ Mtg. in Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, September 16th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, September 19th, Trinity XVI
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Family Service – Holy Communion
1:00-3:00pm Parish Picnic (Potluck), 220 Grey Mountain Road, Falmouth
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

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Events

Dr Edith Humphrey to speak at Acadia University

Dr Edith HumphreyRenowned 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.

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Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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

Duccio, Madonna and ChildArtwork: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna and Child, 13th century. Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Servi, Montepulciano. Photo taken by admin, 27 May 2010.

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