Year: 2013

Prayers and liturgy

The Sunday Next Before Advent

The collect for today, the Sunday Next before Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

STIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Jeremiah 23:5-8
The Gospel: St. John 1:35-45

Christ PantocratorArtwork: Christ Pantocrator, early 14th century. Ekklesia tis Theotokos i Pammakaristos (Church of the All-Blessed Mother of God). Istanbul.

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Prayers and liturgy

Clement, Bishop of Rome

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Clement (c. 30-c. 100), Bishop of Rome, Martyr (source):

Eternal Father, creator of all,
whose martyr Clement bore witness with his blood
to the love that he proclaimed and the gospel that he preached:
give us thankful hearts as we celebrate thy faithfulness,
revealed to us in the lives of thy saints,
and strengthen us in our pilgrimage as we follow 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.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:37-45

Tiepolo, Pope St. Clement Adoring the TrinitySaint Clement was one of the first leaders of the church in the period immediately after the apostles. Some commentators believe that he is the Clement mentioned in Philippians 4:3. If so, he was a companion and fellow-worker of Paul. The Roman Catholic Church regards him as the fourth pope.

St Clement is best known for his Epistle to the Corinthians, dated to about 95. Clement addressed some of the same issues that Paul had addressed in his first letter to the Corinthians. The church at Corinth apparently still had problems with internal dissension and challenges to those in authority. Clement reminds them of the importance of Christian unity and love, and that church leaders serve for the good of the whole body.

Although the letter was written in the name of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth, St. Clement’s authorship is attested by early church writers. This epistle was held in very high regard in the early church; some even placed it on a par with the canonical writings of the New Testament.

Artwork: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Pope Saint Clement Adoring the Trinity, 1737-38. Oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

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Prayers and liturgy

Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cecilia (3rd century), Virgin, Martyr (source):

O GOD, which makest us glad with the yearly festival of blessed Cecilia thy Virgin and Martyr: grant, we beseech thee; that as we do venerate her in our outward office, so we may follow the example of her godly conversation. Through Jesus Christ our Lord who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Ecclesiasticus 51:9-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:1-13

Waterhouse, Saint CeciliaArtwork: John William Waterhouse, Saint Cecilia, 1895. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Edmund, King and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Edmund (841-869), King of the East Angles, Martyr (source):

O eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with thee and with his people,
and glorified thee by his death:
grant us the same steadfast faith,
that, together with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to the perfect joy of the resurrection life;
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 3:14-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:16-22

Saint EdmundEdmund was raised a Christian and became king of the East Angles as a young boy, probably when 14 years old. In 869 the Danes invaded his territory and defeated his forces in battle.

According to Edmund’s first biographer, Abbo of Fleury, the Danes tortured the saint to death after he refused to renounce his faith and rule as a Danish vassal. He was beaten, tied to a tree and pierced with arrows, and then beheaded.

His body was originally buried near the place of his death and subsequently transferred to Baedericesworth, modern Bury St. Edmunds. His shrine became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in England, but it was destroyed and his remains lost during the English Reformation.

The cult of St. Edmund became very popular among English nobility because he exemplified the ideals of heroism, political independence, and Christian holiness. The Benedictine Abbey founded at Bury St. Edmunds in 1020 became one of the greatest in England.

Click here to read Fr. David Curry’s sermon for the Feast of St. Edmund.

Artwork: St. Edmund the Martyr, c. 1420-40. Stained glass, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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Administrative

Explanatory note regarding today’s readings

An explanatory note may be in order about the readings used this Sunday. On page 258 of the Canadian BCP, at the end of the appointed readings for the Trinity Season, there is the following rubric:

If there be an additional Sunday preceding the Sunday before Advent, the Service of the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany shall be used; if there be two additional Sundays, the Services of the Fifth and Sixth.

Thus at Holy Communion this morning at Christ Church, the Propers for Epiphany VI (p. 131, ff.) were used. In the Sunday and Weekday Office Lectionary (BCP, pp. xvi-xlv) provision is made for the Office readings for the Twenty-fifth and the Twenty-sixth Sundays after Trinity at Morning and Evenings Prayer, following a Year One and Year Two pattern (depending on whether Advent Sunday in any given ecclesiastical year is an even or odd numbered year). So there is an ambiguity. This year, 2013, we have twenty-five Sundays after Trinity. Following the rubric of page 258, the Collect, Epistle and Gospel for Epiphany VI are directed to be used. But what if the second service in a Parish happens to be Morning Prayer? A different Collect associated with different readings? Or the same Collect with the Office Readings appointed for the twenty-sixth Sunday? I chose to keep the connection between the Office and the Eucharist – same Collect of the Day and the readings belonging to both the Eucharist and the Service of Morning Prayer.

An argument could certainly be made for using the readings appointed for Morning Prayer for Trinity XXV along with the Collect for Epiphany VI. The intent of the Office and Weekly pattern is, I think, fairly clear, but here is an instance of an ambiguity and one which I happily confess to have exploited in the interest of the intriguing reading from The Prayer of Manasses. Such are the vagaries of time and the limits of all our systems. At issue really are the principles which govern the readings at the Holy Eucharist and its connection to the reading of the Scriptures at the Sunday Offices. All this relates to a much deeper concern: the principles that belong to the Theology of Revelation without which the Scriptures cease to be the Scriptures and merely relics of the past.

Fr. David Curry

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am Morning Prayer

“For Thou, O Lord, art the God of those who repent, and in me
thou wilt manifest thy goodness”

Beautiful words from a beautiful prayer. Called The Prayer of Manasseh, it is a classic of penitential adoration. Tucked away in the Apocrypha, texts belonging to the inter-testamental period, between the collecting together of the Jewish Scriptures known to Christians as the Old Testament and the collecting together of the writings known as the New Testament, there is this beautiful literary and theological gem.

A kind of literary masterpiece in its own right, The Prayer of Manasseh is also a puzzle. We are not even sure in what language it was originally composed: Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek? It has survived in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopic. There are varying Latin translations; the one in the Latin Vulgate differs from an older Latin translation. For Anglicans, it is listed among those works read not “to establish any doctrine” but “for example of life and instruction of manners,” following Jerome, as Article 6 of The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion puts it.

Chances are pretty good that you have never heard or read it. It is part of the Church’s public reading of Scripture, though rarely; in this case, at Morning Prayer on The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity but only in a year in which there is a Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity and then only when the Advent Sunday of that year was an even year! Advent Sunday of this Church Year was in 2012. We come to the end of one Church Year, which is not the same as the civil or secular year, and so to the beginning of a new Church Year. Endings and beginnings.

I love the readings in these times of endings and beginnings. They call us to a kind of contemplation and reflection. They challenge and disturb us. You have just heard the entire Prayer of Manasseh. I wonder what you make of it.

What happens to a culture and a people when we are no longer capable of being moved by beautiful words, beautiful music, beautiful spaces? Here are some very beautiful words, it seems to me. Words which I hope can literally move our souls.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am Holy Communion

“And every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself”

In the November grey of desolation and decay, the church year runs out in the greater themes of judgment and mercy, of hope and glory. The church year does not take its measure from the civil or secular calendar but from our relation to the substantial moments in the life of Christ. Advent, so soon upon us, marks the beginning of a new year, a new year of grace. We take our beginning from the motion of God’s love towards us, his Advent. We take our beginning from our looking towards his coming.

His coming is twofold: there is judgment and mercy; there is hope and glory. Now, in this time of endings, there is the gathering up or the summing up of our lives in the light of God’s grace and in the hope of his glory. Then, in the time of Advent’s beginnings, there is the sense of starting out anew in faith and hope, a new beginning in the remembrance of the motion of God’s love towards us in the coming of Christ, our Judge and Saviour. There is the sense of ending and beginning in hope.

There is the sense of apocalypse. We read today, for instance, from what is sometimes called the “Matthaean Apocalypse”. That section of his gospel deals with the end-time and the theme of judgment, with eschatology. We have also been reading at Morning and Evening Prayer from those books which are found between the Old Testament and the New Testament called collectively, The Apocrypha. These writings contain various forms of apocalyptic literature. The term “apocrypha” literally means “things hidden away;” the words “apocalyptic” and “apocalypse,” on the other hand, refer to what is revealed or uncovered.

In general, we confront the uncovering of all things from the standpoint of God, a consideration of how things stand in the sight of God’s all-knowing, absolute and total judgment. In particular, we confront the unveiling of our souls and lives in the light of God’s truth revealed in Jesus Christ.

(more…)

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 18 – 24 November

Monday, November 18th
4:45-5:15pm World Religions/Inquirers’ Class, Rm. 206, King’s-Edgehill School
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks in Parish Hall

Tuesday, November 19th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks and What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel

Thursday, November 21st
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, November 22nd
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Saturday, November 23rd
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper

Sunday, November 24th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church
4:30pm Holy Communion – KES

The Church Year runs out in wisdom and glory, in judgment and mercy. I love the readings at this time of the year, readings that sum up the journey of our souls in the year past and that spur us to begin again the journey of our souls in grace. We are reminded of the connection between the Epiphany Season and the Trinity Season. More than just sharing the liturgical colour of green, symbolic of growth and hope, the connection appears in the abundance of miracle stories in each and in this fascinating exchange whereby the readings for Epiphany 5 (& 6) serve as the readings for Trinity 25 (& 26) if needed. These readings belong to a post-Cranmerian development of the Eucharistic Lectionary; the Epistle and Gospel were chosen by Bp. John Cosin who also composed the Collect(s). A 17th century Anglican divine, he notes that the Collects he has composed are based on the Epistle and Gospel readings for the day, a feature, he argues, that belongs to the BCP. The ‘Matthaean Apocalypse’, as it is sometimes called, reminds us of the end-times and judgment; of our lives as seen in the light of God, while the Epistle recalls us to the love of God in Jesus Christ who was manifested or came forth into the world “that he might destroy the works of the devil.” The victory of good over evil, of right over wrong, makes the beginnings of a new year of grace possible and joyous.

Upcoming Events:

Sunday, December 8th
4:30pm Advent & Christmas Lessons & Carols with KES (Gr. 7-11) – Christ Church
7:00pm Gr. 12 Service – Hensley Memorial Chapel, KES

Friday, December 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series II, Capella Regalis presents “To Bethlehem with Kings”

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Trinity

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

O GOD, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life: Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:23-31

Signorelli, ApocalypseArtwork: Luca Signorelli, Apocalypse, 1499-1502. Fresco, Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hugh, Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Hugh (1135-1200), Bishop of Lincoln (source):

O God,
who didst endow thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and didst teach him to commend to earthly rulers
the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Titus 2:7-8,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Carducci, Appearance of Angel Musicians to St. HughArtwork: Vincenzo Carducci, Appearance of Angel Musicians to St. Hugh of Lincoln, 1632. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid. (Originally at Santa Maria de El Paular Monastery, Rascafría, Madrid.)

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