Christ Church

“He therefore that would be saved, let him thus think of the Trinity”

My text comes not directly from the Scriptures but from the Scriptures credally understood, from the Athanasian Creed, to be more precise, itself one of the three catholic creeds of the universal Church. It is rarely used and yet it speaks most wonderfully and profoundly to the central and essential mystery of the Christian Faith as well as to the spiritual nature of the great religions of the world. It is all about the Trinity, about God revealed in the witness of the Scriptures as Trinity, the three-in-one and the one-in-three, God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The important point is that the Creeds come out of the Scriptures and return us to the Scriptures within a pattern of understanding – an understanding above all else about God. We cannot not think God. In the Christian understanding thinking God means thinking the Trinity.

This is the essential insight of the Christian Faith but it belongs as well to the deeper meaning of all of the great religions of the world. As the great nineteenth century German philosopher, Hegel, observes, the Trinity is adumbrated – shadowed forth – in some way or another in all of the great religions of the world. At issue is how do we think the Trinity?

The Trinity is the fullest possible statement about the spiritual reality of God: God in his self-sufficient majesty and truth. This is a day where we stand on our heads, as it were. We are enveloped in mysteries which we strive to think knowing that we are struggling with what is inescapably beyond our grasp and yet cannot not be thought. Such is worship which is why the lesson on this day is from The Book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. It presents us with a vision of heaven but even more with a vision of worship, the worship of the whole of creation. It is in worship that our humanity achieves its greatest dignity and highest honour. Our souls are made apt for worship. We are made for worship and for worship, in the language of Isaiah which John deliberately recalls here, of the thrice-holy God, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Worship is about thinking God.

Think about that for a moment and realize how much that runs counter to our culture and church. It is not simply about us and about what pleases us as if entertaining ourselves and making us feel good about ourselves was the aim and purpose of the Church. No. It is first and foremost about God and only then the discovery of things about the truth of ourselves in God. Such is the true meaning of worship: God and us in God.

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Monday, June 1st
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, June 2nd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, June 4th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Saturday, June 6th
2:00pm Committal of Gilmore Huntley

Sunday, June 6th, The First Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Breakfast for the Ladies)
10:30am Holy Communion

The collect for today, the Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee, that this holy faith may evermore be our defence against all adversities; who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 4:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 3:1-15

Artwork: Peter Hemmel von Andlau (attrib.), The Trinity with the Virgin, Saints John the Evangelist, Stephen and Lawrence, and a Donor, 1479. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

“I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly”

The Monday and Tuesday after Pentecost elaborate upon the Pentecostal theme of our new life in the Spirit. It is about life and light, the life and the light of God which redeems and sanctifies our lives. The days of Pentecost remind us of what belongs to our lives in faith: we participate in the life of God opened out to us by the Word and the Spirit of God. We are gathered into the mystery of the Trinity, the communion of the Divine Life.

The Gospel for the Monday after Pentecost reminds us that “God so loved the world” even in the face of the darkness of sin and evil. It reminds us of the triumph, always, of good over evil, of light over darkness. The Gospel for the Tuesday after Pentecost speaks to our entering into that divine life through Jesus. He is, as he says, “the door” through which we enter into this new and abundant life, the life of God. The readings from The Book of The Acts of The Apostles on both days reveal the stages through which we enter into an understanding of the spiritual reality of God, showing us that is about Word and Spirit, both together and in a kind of harmony.

“I am the door,” Jesus says, “the door of the sheep” who hear and know his voice. In the power of the Spirit, Jesus is calling us to himself in his love for the Father. He is come, he says, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” the super-abundant life of God poured out upon us through the power of the Spirit. “Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire and enlighten with celestial fire.”

“I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly”

Fr. David Curry
Tuesday after Pentecost
May 26^th, 2015

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind”

Sometimes the things that come upon us suddenly are the things that unsettle us most. Such is the Descent of the Holy Ghost. He came down “suddenly” upon the disciples, but was his coming suddenly a coming unexpectedly? That he came suddenly we read; his coming unexpectedly, we do not read. In fact, Jesus tells us to expect the coming of the Holy Ghost, “commanding them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father,” even the descent of the Holy Ghost.

Yet we may wait expectantly and still be caught unawares, for the realization of what we await may far exceed our expectations and so catch us by surprise. We await for what we do not fully understand. The grace of God is always something more; the mystery of God something more yet again. The promise of the Ascension was the coming down of the Holy Ghost for which Jesus prepares us and bids us wait, yet “suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind.”

Certainly, the effects of this coming down would appear to be most unsettling, the manner of their appearing no less so – “a rushing mighty wind” and “cloven tongues like as of fire” lighting upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, filling them with the Holy Spirit and moving them “to speak with other tongues.” To all appearances, an event most unsettling and more than a little disconcerting.

We all know about the winds that unsettle us – the rushing, mighty winds of rumour and slander, of whisperings and murmurings, of allegations and accusations which seek to belittle and destroy. The winds of hatred and revenge are the winds of death. These are the winds that unsettle us. But our Lord would not have us unsettled and troubled. In the midst of the sea-storms of our hearts and our world, even in the midst of the sea-storms of our churches and our communities, he bids the seas be calm and our hearts be still; “it is I,” he says, “have no fear.”

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“He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance”

Pentecost counters and redeems our empirical obsessions, it seems to me, the deeply entrenched idea – and it is actually important to remember that it, too, is an idea – that reality is essentially and only what can be sensed and experienced materially. To the contrary, some of the most important things in life are precisely what cannot be seen and known empirically, that is to say, through sense experience, nor can they be measured in the way one thinks to measure the world of our senses. Marina Warner’s observation about education relates to the natural, “The things that matter most cannot be measured.” The marvel of Pentecost is that it opens us out to an important intellectual and spiritual idea that belongs to religion, particularly the Christian religion, namely, that the things which cannot be seen and experienced are made known through the sensible.

Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the disciples gathered once again “with one accord in one place,” this time after Christ’s Ascension. Such things as the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit are empirically meaningless – we can make no sense of such dislocations of time and space; they are simply beyond the empirical. And yet the way in which the Ascension and Pentecost are made known to us is through the sensible and empirical. And perhaps, nowhere more profoundly than in the story of Pentecost as Acts presents it.

“Suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind … and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire.” Sounds and sights through which something is communicated but only through similies, through metaphor. “As of a rushing mighty wind” which is to say that it is not a rushing mighty wind; “like as of fire” which is a far different than saying that it is fire. And what is the ‘it’, here? The spiritual reality of God the Holy Ghost, the invisible yet effective presence of God with us.

As Jesus makes clear, the Holy Ghost is the Comforter, the strengthener. He who dwells in us is the one whom the Father sends in Jesus’ name. We are dealing with the spiritual mystery of God as Trinity, something which can only be taught to us through revelation. Revelation is simply what God makes known to us about himself and about ourselves, too. Pentecost uses the images of wind and fire to signal the spiritual power and truth of God and our lives with God through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It can’t be quantified; it has to be experienced not sensibly but intellectually and to be sure emotionally, too; it is about hearts and minds. It, too, is ultimately about teaching.

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Monday, May 25th, Monday after Pentecost
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, May 26th, Tuesday after Pentecost
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, May 28th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 29th, Ember Friday
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, May 31st, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27

Artwork: Francken Workshop, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, early 17th century. Oil on panel, Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp. Photograph taken by admin, 13 October 2014.

KES Cadet Church Parade – Friday, May 22^nd, 2015
Reflections on “Home”

Prologue: Where is home? Our homes are from all over the world. Yet our home is here, too.

Section 1

Home is Australia, Barbados, and Bahamas; Home is Bermuda, China, and Germany; Home is Ghana, Japan, and Kazakhstan;

Home is Korea, Luxembourg, and Mali; Home is Mexico, Russia, and Saint Kitts and Nevis; Home is Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Spain;

Home is Taiwan; Home is Uganda; Home is United States; Home is Canada.

Section 2 (Dialogue)

You forgot Antarctica.

Antarctica? Who is from Antarctica?

Well, Jack O’Flaherty is always drawing penguins. He must be from Antarctica!

No. He’s from Newfoundland.

Then why doesn’t he draw seals? They’re cuter.

Section 3

Home is great cities, small towns, and villages; Great cities of the world like Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Barcelona, Dubai, Kampala, Mexico City, Moscow, Toronto, Montreal, and Windsor – not!

Home is other cities, great and small, like Accra, Almaty, Dakar, Bamako, Cancun, Krefeld, Shenzhen, Nassau, Jinan, St. John’s, Nanjing, Cornerbrook, Mississauga, Campeche, Burlington, Monterrey, Duncan, Hamilton, Mainz, Halifax, and Windsor – not!

Home is any number of small towns like Landau in Germany; Basseterre in St. Kitts; Smithers in British Columbia; Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Kippens, and Labrador City in Newfoundland; and in Nova Scotia, towns like Lunenburg, Kentville, Berwick, Wolfville, Antigonish, New Glasgow, Hantsport, Pictou, Mahone Bay, Truro, Parrsboro, and Windsor – yes!

Home is a myriad of villages and communities like Wohltorf and Friedelsheim, Germany; Far Hills, New Jersey; Upper Kingsclear and Charters Settlement, New Brunswick; Miscouche and Cardigan, Prince Edward Island.

Home is a host of scattered villages and communities in Nova Scotia: Aylesford, Bible Hill, Heatherton, Kingston, Springfield, Upper Tantallon, Granville Ferry, Eastern Passage, Merigomish, Brooklyn, Chester, Conquerall Mills, Londonderry, Centreville, New Minas, Fall River, Hammonds Plains, Hubbards, New Ross, Newport, Port Williams, Falmouth, Mount Uniacke, and, last but not least, Hants Border.

And for some, home is Mabou by way of Saudi Arabia, and Lower Sackville by way of Dubai.

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The collect for today, the Feast of Saint 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

Artwork: Saint Dunstan, stained glass, Norwich Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 3 October 2014.