Christ Church

“Their sound went out into all the earth,
and their words unto the end of the world.”

Andrew is the Advent saint. Sometimes his feast day anticipates Advent and at other times, it falls within the first week of Advent, as it does this year. In either case, he begins the cycle of the Church’s commemoration of the Saints throughout the course of the year. And, as always, there is something rich and significant about beginnings.

Andrew is recognized as the patron saint of Scotland and, therefore, of New Scotland, Nova Scotia, as well. Scotland, not to mention Nova Scotia, is a long ways from the land of the New Testament, a long ways from the setting of the story of the calling of the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, and the brothers Zebedee, James and John, a long ways from the sea of Galilee. It reminds us of the missionary impulse of the Christian faith. Which is not to say that Andrew ever laid eyes on either!

Yet, the spiritual point is clear. Those who follow Jesus become the ones who proclaim Jesus and make him known even “unto the ends of the world.” For much of the first millennium or more, Scotland must often to have seemed to be the very end of the world. Perhaps, too, the same might be said of Nova Scotia. And yet, the word has gone forth on the wings of the saints and carried forward by their witness to Jesus Christ. Critical to that witness, as the readings on this feast day reminds us, is the Scripture. The Feast of Andrew belongs to that pageant of Word and Song which is part and parcel of the Advent of Christ.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. 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

Read more about Saint Andrew here and here.

Artwork: Pietro Paolini, Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, 17th century. Oil on canvas, San Michele in Foro, Lucca.  Photograph taken by admin, 21 May 2010.

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”.

Advent Prose

Rorate Caeli

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Be not so very angry, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever: thy holy cities are a wilderness, Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation: our holy and our beautiful house, wherein our fathers praised thee.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing, and we all do fade away as a leaf: and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away; thou hast hid thy face from us: and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know me and believe me: I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour: and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, my salvation shall not tarry: I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions: Fear not, for I will save thee: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

“This man came to Jesus by night”

It is a most intriguing scene. Nicodemus, a learned Pharisee, “a teacher of Israel,” comes to Jesus by night. He is perplexed about who Jesus is. He calls him “Rabbi,” and says that Jesus is “a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.” There is something compelling about Jesus, about what he does and what he says. And yet, there is something mysterious and perplexing.

At this point in John’s Gospel, there has been really only “the first of the signs which Jesus did,” namely, the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, the turning of the water into wine. That story is followed by John’s account of the cleansing of the temple which we also heard this morning from Matthew’s Gospel. In John’s Gospel, the story of the cleansing of the temple leads to a discourse about the temple, about its “being destroyed and raised in three days,” meaning, as John says, “the temple of his body,” a reference to the death and resurrection of Christ. John tells us that “many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.” It is in that context that Nicodemus then comes to him by night.

The dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus is all about the light in the darkness, the light of God’s truth and the darkness of human hearts. The light, as John makes clear, is judgment, too. “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” Yet in the darkness Jesus confronts Nicodemus with the idea of being “born anew,” being born from above, being born upwards into the light of God coming towards us in Jesus. What he is talking about are “heavenly things.” They belong to the challenge of Revelation. Spiritual and heavenly things are made known to us in the pageant of God’s Word and Son. The light of God comes down to lift us up into the light of divine understanding.

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“Then Jesus turned”

Advent Sunday marks a time of renewal, a time of endings and beginnings. There is the Christian tradition of reflecting in the season of Advent on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven. And there is the idea of God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ, which marks the beginning of a new year of grace. The great Advent Collect or prayer captures both these sensibilities: Jesus’ coming , ”visit[ing] us in [the] great humility” of his humble birth in Bethlehem; and Jesus’ “com[ing] again in his glorious Majesty” as Judge and Redeemer.

These endings and beginnings all turn upon one thing: our life in Christ. “Come and see,” Jesus says in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, as part of the dialogue of question and answer with two of the disciples of John the Baptist who, as it turns out, are about to make a transition and become the disciples of Jesus. “What do you seek?” Jesus has asked them, having turned to them as they were following him after hearing John the Baptist’s remarkable pronouncement about Jesus as “the Lamb of God.” They had replied, oddly it may seem with another question, “Rabbi – Master, where dwellest thou?”

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“The night is far spent”

For centuries upon centuries upon centuries the Gospel story read on the First Sunday in Advent was from the 21^st chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel ending with “this is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” In the 16^th century, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the principle architect of The Book of Common Prayer, added to the reading the scene that follows in Matthew’s Gospel, the scene of Christ’s cleansing of the Temple. It makes for a most compelling beginning to the Advent season.

We are presented with a wonderful contrast between the joy and delight of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and the disturbing encounter with what he finds in the heart of the holy city, in the Temple. The spiritual lesson is very clear. It is about light and darkness, the light of Christ’s coming, on the one hand, the darkness of our hearts and souls, on the other hand. We are called to be the temples of the God’s Holy Spirit; instead, we are the thieves of his grace and mercy, preoccupied with our own affairs and neglectful of the things and places of God. Christ comes as the light that shines in the darkness and “the darkness overcame it not.” In other words, the light is greater than the darkness, the power of the good greater than the folly of evil.

This does not lessen the reality of sin and evil. Christ’s advent is divine judgment. His coming is the grace that restores us to what we are called to be. It means that the darkness within each of us, the darkness of sin and evil, has to be named and overcome, just like the “over[throwing] of the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves.”

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“The night is far spent”

For a millennium or more the Gospel story on the First Sunday in Advent was a reading from the 21^st chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel ending with “this is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” In the 16^th century, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the principle architect of The Book of Common Prayer, added to the reading the scene that follows in Matthew’s Gospel, Christ’s cleansing of the Temple. It makes for a most compelling beginning to the Advent season.

We are presented with a wonderful contrast between the joy and delight of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and the disturbing encounter with what he finds in the heart of the holy city, in the Temple. The spiritual lesson is very clear. It is about light and darkness, the light of Christ’s coming, on the one hand, the darkness of our hearts and souls, on the other hand. We are called to be the temples of the God’s Holy Spirit; instead we are the thieves of his grace and mercy, preoccupied in our own affairs and neglectful of the things and places of God. Christ comes as the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness overcame it not. In other words, the light is greater than the darkness, the power of the good greater than the folly of evil.

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Monday, November 28th
4:45-5:15pm World Religions/Inquirers’ Class, Room 204, King’s-Edgehill School

Tuesday, November 29th, Eve of St. Andrew
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, December 1st
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Sunday, December 4th, Second Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Advent Service of Lessons & Carols with KES – Christ Church (Gr. 7-11)
7:00pm Advent Service of Lessons & Carols – Hensley Memorial Chapel, KES (Gr. 12)

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, December 6th
7:00pm Holy Communion followed by a talk: “Praying the Psalms with St. Augustine in Advent”

Sunday, December 18th
7:30pm A Concert for Christmas featuring Paula Rockwell and others

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Advent, being the Fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 13:8-14
The Gospel: St Matthew 21:1-13

Artwork: Giotto, Entry Into Jerusalem, 1304-06. Fresco, Cappella Scrovegni, Padua.

The collect for a virgin or matron, on the Feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria (4th century?), Virgin and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, the creator of all mankind, we bless thy holy Name for the virtue and grace which thou hast given unto holy women in all ages, especially thy servant Catherine; and we pray that the example of her faith and purity, and courage unto death, may inspire many souls in this generation to look unto thee, and to follow thy blessed Son Jesus Christ our Saviour; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 9:36-42
The Gospel: St Luke 10:38-42

Click here to read more about Saint Catherine.

Artwork: School of Spinello Aretino, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 14th-century fresco, Basilica di San Domenico, Arezzo. Photograph taken by admin, 27 May 2010.