Christ Church

“You have received a spirit of sonship”

It is a theological truism to say that God wants what is best for us. So do we, of course, but unfortunately we do not always know what is best for ourselves or for one another. There is a darkness within us, in our own self-knowledge. We see, as St. Paul famously put it “in a glass darkly.” Louise Penny in her Canadian detective fiction novel Still Life captures this dilemma brilliantly. A young police officer looks in the mirror at the house of a suspect and notices a little note on the mirror which says, “you are looking at the problem.” She “immediately began searching behind her, the area reflected in the mirror”! She has missed the point completely. In a mirror we see ourselves. We are the problem. This carries over into our knowledge of others.

There are limitations not just to what we know about ourselves but also about one another. We grasp at shadows and images and mistake them for eternal truth. We catch at falling stars and fall with them in a burst of glory or ignominy. We do not know as we ought.

Yet, if that were not bad enough, there is an even deeper darkness in all of us. There is the darkness of our wills, the darkness of our refusals to act upon the truth and the good which we do know. We deny the light which is given to us to see and without which we cannot love. We see, albeit “in a glass darkly,” but we do not always act upon what we see.

This is the human condition. The grace of God is the answer to the human predicament, to the contradictions in which we find ourselves, whether in its ancient or its modern form.

For the developed cultures of antiquity, the Truth is the Law or the Good which is necessarily above us and beyond us but compelling us to live in accord with it. It is what we want but cannot have. The truth which we see we cannot reach. It is too high for us and yet it is what we most want. This can only leave us endlessly frustrated.

Modernity, on the other hand, presumes that we are each altogether complete. We are simply ends in ourselves without reference to anything outside ourselves, certainly without reference to the absolute otherness of God. We are, in this view, gods without God, only to find ourselves in a similar situation of despair because we have ceased to hope for anything more. There is nothing to hope for. Despair, both ancient and modern, is the denial of our desire for God.

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

O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 8:12-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 7:15-21

Artwork: James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes, 1886-96. Watercolour, Brooklyn Museum.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary (source):

Lord God, the Source and Goal of all creation, we bless you for your servant Anne, whose daughter Mary was the mother of our Lord. Grant us grace in our succeeding generations to honour the gift of life, that young and old together may learn the love whose fruit is life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:26-33

Artwork: Masaccio, The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, 1424. Tempera on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. James the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle Saint James, leaving his father and all that he had, without delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him; so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow thy holy commandments; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 11:27-12:3a
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:32-40

Artwork: Lorenzo Monaco, St. James the Great Enthroned, 1408. Tempera on panel, Santa Croce Museum, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 17 May 2010.

“Go to my brethren, and say unto them,
I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God.”

It is part of the remarkable exchange between Mary Magdalene and Jesus at the garden tomb after the horrifying events of the Crucifixion. She came full of grief and sorrow in the quiet of the early morning. She came looking for a corpse, the body of Jesus. She encounters the utterly unexpected reality of the Resurrection.

Jesus meets her at the empty tomb with the question of the angels, “Woman, why weepest thou?” and adds, “Whom seekest thou?” Mistaking him for the gardener, she repeats her request for the body of Jesus. Jesus’ response is to call her by name, “Mary,” to which she replies with a simple word of recognition, “Rabboni,” meaning master or teacher. This leads to the first command to her by the Risen Christ, a most curious command, “Touch me not,” he says, followed by the second command, her mission and his message. “I am not yet ascended to my Father,” Jesus prefaces his direction to her, “but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”

Occasionally, a major saints’ day, meaning in our Anglican understanding, a New Testament figure or event, coincides with a Sunday. Every Sunday is by definition a celebration of the Resurrection in relation to which particular themes or teachings of Christ are set before us. The major saints’ day serve to complement this fundamental emphasis, even more so with Mary Magdalene who is the first witness to the Resurrection and the first to proclaim the Resurrection. She is “the apostle to the apostles,” as the Fathers of the early church put it, the one who is sent by Jesus to those whom Jesus will send out into the world as the emissaries of his word and will of human redemption. The Church is nothing if not apostolic; that is to say, rooted and grounded in the word and will of Jesus authoritatively passed on to the apostles by the author of our redemption, Jesus himself. Mary cannot be ignored in relation to that idea.

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

O ALMIGHTY God, whose blessed Son did sanctify Mary Magdalene, and call her to be a witness to his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by thy grace we may be healed of all our infirmities, and always serve thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 13:27-31
The Gospel: St John 20:11-18

Artwork: Taddeo Gaddi, Magdalene Washing the Feet of Jesus (from the fresco cycle Last Supper, Tree of Life, and Four Miracle Scenes), 1360s, Santa Croce, Florence.

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

LORD of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 6:17-23
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:1-9

Artwork: Bartolomeo Letterini, Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1721. Oil on canvas, Chiesa di San Pietro Martire, Murano, Venice.

The collect for a Virgin or Matron, on the Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch (early 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 Margaret of Antioch; 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

Artwork: Ludovico Carracci, The Martyrdom of St Margaret, 1616. Oil on canvas, Cappella di Santa Margherita, San Maurizio, Mantua.

“Love your enemies”

I have had occasion to ponder the mystery of this Gospel. It is, to be sure, a melancholy object to contemplate the meanness and the mindlessness of our institutional culture and our individual dealings with one another at times. Hatred and death, love and life, are often on full display and not always in equal proportion and not just in the world of war and politics. This Gospel is really about ourselves in the division of our hearts.

“Love your enemies,” Jesus says. It seems impossible and it is and yet, it goes to the heart of the Christian understanding. Life and death, love and hate are totally intertwined in human experience. What we are being commanded here belongs to our Christian identity. “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful,” Jesus says, and beyond mere words, the whole life of Jesus is about mercy. “While we were yet sinners,” that is to say, while we were the enemies of God, “Christ died for us.” Such is his love. His love is love in the face of our enmity.

But we do not want to hear this. It seems so negative. Yet, it is the amazing grace of the Gospel. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” – loved us. The Cross shows us the real meaning of mercy and love. We see on the Cross what Jesus is saying about God: “for he is kind unto the unthankful, and to the evil.” It is an old biblical view. The sun shines upon the just and the unjust. To be sure. And while it seems grotesquely unfair, the wicked do sometimes seem to “flourish like green bay tree,” as the Psalmist puts it, and not just on Bay Street or Wall Street or the City (London). And there is the deeper philosophical question of Plato in The Republic, hinted at in myriad of ways in the Scriptures, the question about whether it is better to appear just while being unjust or to be just regardless of how you appear in the eyes of others.

This is where this Gospel passage comes into its own and shows us its real power. Read the rest of this entry »

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

O GOD, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 6:3-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:27-36

Artwork: Sermon On The Mount, 6th-century mosaic, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.