Month: May 2014

Prayers and liturgy

The Fifth Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Fifth Sunday After Easter, commonly called Rogation Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:22-27
The Gospel: St. John 16:23-33

Pourbus, Last SupperArtwork: Frans Pourbus the Younger, Last Supper, 1618. Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris.

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Prayers and liturgy

Dunstan, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Dunstan (909-988), Archbishop of Canterbury, Restorer of Monastic Life (source):

Almighty God,
who didst raise up Dunstan
to be a true shepherd of the flock,
a restorer of monastic life
and a faithful counsellor to kings:
grant, we beseech thee, to all pastors
the like gifts of thy Holy Spirit
that they may be true servants of Christ and of all his people;
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: Ecclesiasticus 44:1-7
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

British Library, St. Dunstan WritingArtwork: Saint Dunstan Writing, full-page miniature from A Commentary On The Rule Of St. Benedict (1170), British Library, London.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter

“Of his own will he brought us to birth by the word of truth”

Boko Haram, the Islamic fundamentalist group that has taken hundreds of Nigerian girls captive, thinks that western education is sin or forbidden, haram; that is, at least, a rough translation of their name. It strikes me as a remarkable betrayal of Islam’s important contributions to western culture and education of which Islam is an inescapable part.

Despair and fear go together. Anger and resentment are fellow-travelers. The despair and fear in our world reveals a profoundly spiritual malaise. It is the betrayal of the ideals and principles of western education and not just by Boko Haram. The global world is a western world and yet that world is unclear and confused about the fundamental principles that define it. The result is either passive nihilism, a retreat into the gated communities of our minds, eyes shut to what we refuse to see, or active nihilism which takes a variety of forms ranging from the violence of groups like Boko Haram or the deconstruction and dismantling of our institutional life under the guise of re-imaging everything from God to human life. Both are based upon a rejection of the reason of God which results in the tyranny of our wills. There is really only the will to power in the rejection of truth. Such is nihilism. Yet the truth of God is the strong message of this day in the season of the Resurrection, eloquently expressed in Epistle and Gospel alike.

The Gospel of the Resurrection is especially about the overcoming of our fearfulness and our despair. The message of the angel to the women, coming early to the tomb and finding it empty, was “be not afraid.” Jesus counters the despair of the disciples huddled behind closed doors in fear; Jesus runs out after us on the road to Emmaus where we are in flight from Jerusalem in fear.

His presence is the counter to our fears, the fear of death and the fear of the empty nothingness of life. He shows us his hands and his side. He makes visible his victory over our death and the ways of death that we have chosen in our will to nothingness. The meaning of death has been changed and we have only to will what we have been given to see in the witness of the Resurrection. We can only do that by the same means as it been accomplished – by grace.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 19 – 25 May

Monday, May 19th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 20th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The City of Words, by Albert Manguel, and Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, by William Power.

Thursday, May 22nd
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 23rd
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge

Sunday, May 25th, Fifth Sunday After Easter/Rogation Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Morning Prayer
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
4:30pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Monday, May 26th, Rogation Monday
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, May 27th, Rogation Tuesday
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, May 29th, Ascension Day
7:00pm Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Fourth Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15

Vasetnov, Study for The Holy EucharistArtwork: Viktor Vasnetsov, Study for The Holy Eucharist, 1901. The mosaic of this work was placed in the apse of the St. Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw. Polish authorities ordered the cathedral destroyed in 1918.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons

Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2014

Reflections for the Cadet Church Service at Christ Church
May 16th, 2014

Readers: Nandini Mishra, Tristan Kimball, Miranda Walsh, Primrose Chareka, Brayden Graves, Michael Dennis

I. “Arise my love, my fair one and come away, for lo, the winter is past”

The winter is past and spring, at least in its mythic Maritime guise, is upon us. We have survived the tempests of the winter and pause to look back upon the year and, even more, upon the miracle of 225 years.

“How came we ashore?” Miranda asks her father, Prospero, in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. He answers, “By Providence divine”. It is, perhaps, by Providence divine that we gather in the 225th year of the School.

It is May. The year is 1789. We come to the near end of the first year of King’s Collegiate School, now King’s-Edgehill. What kind of a year has it been? A gathering of a few students, merely seventeen in this first year, now swollen to hundreds, huddled against the winter winds and snows, have embarked upon the beginnings of a journey and a venture in education that continues to this day. What kind of education?

Gentleness, learning and manhood, humanitas, as it were. These are the qualities that are literally written on the walls. You can find them in the Chapel. They are there to be written in our hearts. These are principles and ideals that shape character and inform our common life. We neglect them at our peril. They are as important now as they were 225 years ago. They contribute to an education that is about public service and commitment to others, an education that is about being part of an intellectual and spiritual community. It is captured in the mottoes of the School. Fideliter – faithfulness – is the motto of Edgehill. Deo Legi Regi Gregi – for God, the Law, the King and the People – is the motto of King’s.

To come to the end of the first year is to be returned to the principles that define a culture of learning and service. It is about learning to think and live beyond ourselves.
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Prayers and liturgy

Florence Nightingale, Nurse

The collect for today, the commemoration of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), Nurse, Social Reformer (source):

Steell, Florence NightingaleLife-giving God, who alone hast power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of thy servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them thy Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46

Artwork: Sir John Robert Steell, Florence Nightingale, 1862. Bronze, Florence Nightingale Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London. Photograph taken by admin, 25 August 2004.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

“Your sorrow shall be turned into joy”

The mystery of motherhood belongs, paradoxically, it might seem, to the mystery of the Son’s going to the Father. It belongs to the mystery of the Resurrection. The Resurrection is radical new birth and radical new life. The Resurrection goes to the root of all life itself. That root is the reciprocal love of the Son for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. We are brought to birth in this new life out of the tombs of our sorrows, out of the prisons of our souls, out of the graves of our wills still wrapped in “a cloak of maliciousness,” the spirit of ill-will that is so deadly to our souls and our communities.

The idea of new birth and new life is a mothering image, an image about giving birth. Sorrow and pain give place to joy. We have only to live that joy which is not about our arbitrary moods and feelings but a joy which is beyond the fluctuations and changes of this world, a “joy [that] no man taketh from you”. Why? Because it has to do with our being opened out to the divine life of God himself. This is the great meaning of the Resurrection. The Risen Christ is in our midst in the power of his Spirit. He lives in us and we in him. Such is the burden of our liturgical life which extends outwardly to give shape to our lives socially, politically, morally, and so on.

Jesus would teach us about that radical new life of the Spirit which he has inaugurated and established through his Death and Resurrection. We can only be nurtured in what we have received; in what has been given to us. We can only give as mothers give – sacrificially and selflessly – through what God has given and established in us. What we have received from God has to be nurtured in us by God. The love of mothers falls short, after all, of the completeness of God’s love for us. Our loves find their perfection and their fullness only in the love of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 12 – 18 May

Monday, May 12th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 13th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, May 15th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 16th
3:00pm KES Cadet Church Service

Sunday, May 18th, Fourth Sunday After Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, May 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The City of Words, by Albert Manguel, and Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, by William Power.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22

Crespi, Last SupperArtwork: Daniele Crespi, The Last Supper, c. 1624-5. Oil on canvas, Brera, Milan. Originally in the Benedictine monastery at Brugora, in Brianza.

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