Month: March 2015

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 9 – 15 March

Monday, March 9th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00-7:30pm Confirmation Class – Rm. 206, KES

Tuesday, March 10th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, March 12th
3:15 Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Saturday, March 14th
9:00am-4:00pm Lenten Quiet Day – King’s-Edgehill School
Sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, NS/PEI Branch

Sunday, March 15th, Fourth Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion (followed by Simnel Cake)
2:00pm Holy Baptism – KES Chapel

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, March 17th, St. Patrick
7:00 Holy Communion & Lenten Programme III – Parish Hall

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Lent

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

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:1-14
The Gospel: St Luke 11:14-26

Curing the Possessed, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo

Artwork: Curing the Possessed, 6th-century mosaic, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.

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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

St. Paul's Church, Antwerp, St. Thomas AquinasBorn 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

Unknown Polish artist, Mary and Child with Perpetua and FelicitasPerpetua, 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: Anonymous painter from Greater Poland, Mary and Child with Saints Felicity and Perpetua, c. 1520. Tempera on wood, National Museum of Warsaw

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent

“Truth, Lord; yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall
from their masters’ table”

Such a powerful and instructive Gospel. It highlights so many things which are distinctive and important about the Christian journey of faith so wonderfully concentrated for us in the season of Lent. Here is the story of a remarkable woman who gets it, who gets what we so often forget or deny. Here is the story about sticking-with- it and not giving up, no matter what the obstacles.

She is a Canaanite woman, Matthew is at pains to point out. Mark describes her as a Syro-Phoenician woman. The point is abundantly clear: she is a non-Israelite. She is from outside the religious community of Israel.

And yet, she comes to Jesus seeking the healing of her daughter “grievously vexed with a devil,” possessed we might say, emotionally troubled, the therapeutic culture of our day would euphemistically say. She sees in Jesus something of the power of God which might heal her daughter. She has, quite simply, an insight into the truth of God in Jesus Christ. For who else can restore and redeem except the God who has created and made us? Such is the logic of redemption. It always turns us back to the doctrine of creation without which redemption – salvation and wholeness – really makes no sense.

What she senses in Jesus is a truth which she will not relinquish. It is her sticking with it in the face of adversity that makes her story so compelling. Yet at the same time, the responses to her request must trouble and disturb us. She is met, first, with silence; secondly, with what amounts to a rebuke; and, thirdly, with what must utterly seem to be a grievous insult. What is going on here? Simply the way in which we learn how the Christian Gospel is for all people and not the possession of a few. This gospel particularly challenges the tribalism of our churches and communities. It opens us out to what is for all people and in all places. The whole dynamic is not only about the woman but about us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 2 – 8 March

Monday, March 2nd
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00-7:30pm Confirmation Class – Rm. 206, KES

Tuesday, March 3rd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme II: “Poets, Preachers & the Passion of Christ”

Thursday, March 5th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, March 8th, Third Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, March 14th
9:00am-4:00pm Lenten Quiet Day – King’s-Edgehill School
Sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, NS/PEI Branch

Tuesday, March 17th, St. Patrick
7:00 Holy Communion & Lenten Programme III – Parish Hall

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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

Ludovico Carracci, Christ and the Canaanite WomanArtwork: Ludovico Carracci, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 16th century. Oil on canvas, Brera, Milan.

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