Month: March 2014

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 17 – 23 March

Monday, March 17th, St. Patrick
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion – Coronation Room

Tuesday, March 18th
6:00 ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme I: The Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio – Parish Hall

Thursday, March 20th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, March 21st
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, March 23rd, Lent III
8:00am Holy Communion – Parish Hall
10:30am Morning Prayer – Parish Hall
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf

Upcoming events:

On Tuesday evenings throughout Lent, there will be Lenten Services of Holy Communion with reflections on the Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio. The services are at 7:00pm on the following Tuesday evenings:

Tuesday, March 18th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, March 25th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, April 1st, 7:00pm

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday in Lent

The collect for today, the Second Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 15:21-28

Annibale Carracci, Christ and the Canaanite WomanArtwork: Annibale Carracci, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1595. Oil on canvas, City Hall, Parma.

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Prayers and liturgy

Gregory the Great, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Gregory the Great (540-604), Bishop of Rome, Doctor of the Church (source):

O merciful Father,
who didst choose thy bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him, we may ever desire to serve thee
by proclaiming thy gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing thy praises;
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 Lesson: 1 Chronicles 25: 1a, 6-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:42-45

Ysenbrant, Mass of St. Gregory the GreatArtwork: Adriaen Ysenbrant, The Mass of Saint Gregory the Great, c. 1510-50. Oil on panel, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

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Uncategorized

Quiet Day Meditations on Original Sin

At the Lenten Quiet Day held last Saturday, Fr. David Curry delivered three meditations on the theme Lent and Original Sin. The text of the three talks may be downloaded in a single pdf document by clicking here.

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, 10:30am Morning Prayer

“One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin”

To be tempted (root, πειραω) and to be pierced (root, πειρω) are related words. The temptations which belong to the beginning of Lent have a connection to the end of Lent in the crucifixion of Christ. He who is pierced for us is tempted for us. The overcoming of temptation belongs equally to the overcoming of his being pierced, in other words, to the triumph of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The cross and the resurrection are obliquely, yet strongly, present in the temptations of Christ. There is a resurrection into the presence of the living Word and Spirit of the Father, but only through “the burning love of the crucified,” to use Bonaventure’s phrase, a love which is already signaled in the temptations of Christ. To be tempted is to be drawn to what we know to be wrong and false. This implies as well that we are drawn away from what we know to be right and true. Our reason is beguiled; our will is seduced. We are at once deceivers and deceived.

Temptations are received in the soul. It is there that they have their force of attraction, drawing us to what we know in some sense we should refuse. But there is always a choice, a crucial moment of decision, whether to give in or withstand. The problem is not that there are temptations – these there must be – but how we face them. Sin, after all, does not lie in the temptations themselves, but in our yielding to them, whether inwardly in our thoughts or outwardly in our deeds. Temptations belong to the path of our spiritual journey to God and with God. They are, we might even say, necessary to the perfecting of our wills, to the matter of setting love in order.

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, 8:00am Holy Communion

“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”

The story of the temptations of Christ read on the First Sunday in Lent follows upon the baptism of Christ. The baptism of Christ is an epiphany – a making known of his essential divine identity: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. What immediately follows is that Christ is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. The temptations belong to the pageant of the passion.

What are the temptations of Christ? They are our temptations brought to a certain kind of clarity in Jesus Christ. We are apt to have a negative view of temptation. But in truth, there is something altogether positive about the fact of temptations. They are a necessary feature of our humanity. Whether or not we are tempted is not at issue, but how we understand and respond to the temptations in our souls is altogether crucial. The story of the temptations of Christ is about two things: the naming of the three forms of temptation; and the threefold overcoming of temptation. The critical lesson for us is that temptation is properly named and only overcome by Christ and only by Christ in us.

The wilderness is the place of spiritual combat. It is also the place of spiritual refreshment and renewal. There is a struggle, a conflict. The conflict is within. It is the conflict of wills within us. We are divided against ourselves in every temptation. It is a question about our fundamental identity. What really defines us?

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 10 – 16 March

Monday, March 10th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, March 11th
6:00 ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, March 13th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, March 16th, Lent II
8:00am Holy Communion – Parish Hall
10:30am Holy Communion – Parish Hall

Upcoming events:

On Tuesday evenings throughout Lent, there will be Lenten Services of Holy Communion with reflections on the Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio. The services are at 7:00pm on the following Tuesday evenings:

Tuesday, March 18th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, March 25th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, April 1st, 7:00pm

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Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday in Lent

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11

Rubens, Temptation of ChristArtwork: Peter Paul Rubens, Temptation of Christ, 1620. Oil on panel, Courtauld Gallery, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Aquinas, Doctor and Poet

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), Priest, Friar, Poet, Doctor of the Church (source):

Everlasting God,
who didst enrich thy Church with the learning and holiness
of thy servant Thomas Aquinas:
grant to all who seek thee
a humble mind and a pure heart
that they may know thy Son Jesus Christ
to be the way, the truth and the life;
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Lesson: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:47-52

Born into a noble family near Aquino, between Rome and Naples, St. Thomas was educated at the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino until age thirteen, and then at the University of Naples. When he decided to join the Dominican Order, his family were dismayed because the Dominicans were mendicants and regarded as socially inferior to the Benedictines. Thomas’s brothers kidnapped and imprisoned him for a year in the family’s castle, but he finally escaped and became a Dominican friar in 1244.

The rest of Thomas’s life was spent studying, teaching, preaching, and writing. Initially, he studied philosophy and theology with Albert the Great at Paris and Cologne. Albert was said to prophesy that, although Thomas was called the dumb ox (probably referring to his physical size), “his lowing would soon be heard all over the world”.

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Prayers and liturgy

Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their companions (d. 203), Martyrs at Carthage (source):

O holy God,
who gavest great courage to Perpetua,
Felicity and their companions:
grant that we may be worthy to climb the ladder of sacrifice
and be received into the garden of peace;
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: Hebrews 10:32-39
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:9-14

St. Perpetua, Euphrasian Basilica, PorecPerpetua, Felicitas, and five other catechumens were arrested in North Africa after emperor Septimus Severus forbade new conversions to Christianity. They were thrown to wild animals in the circus of Carthage.

The early church writer Tertullian records, in what appear to be Perpetua’s own words, a vision in which she saw a ladder to heaven and heard the voice of Jesus saying, “Perpetua, I am waiting for you”. She climbed the ladder and reached a large garden where sheep were grazing. From this, she understood that she and her companions would be martyred.

Tertullian’s The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas is posted here.

Artwork: Unknown Venetian artist, St. Perpetua, c. 1280. Mosaic, Euphrasian Basilica, Porec, Croatia.

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