Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Aidan (d. 651), Monk of Iona, Missionary, first Bishop and Abbot of Lindisfarne (source):

O loving God, who didst call thy servant Aidan from the Peace of a cloister to re-establish the Christian mission in northern England, and didst endow him with gentleness, simplicity, and strength: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, following his example, may use what thou hast given us for the relief of human need, and may persevere in commending the saving Gospel of our Redeemer Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
The Gospel: St Matthew 19:27-30

Artwork: St Aidan, 19th-century stained glass, from the East window, North transept, Cartmel Priory, England.

“How readest thou?”

How do you read? Jesus asks the certain lawyer who had asked him about eternal life. Jesus responded with two questions: first, “What is written in the Law?” and then, secondly, “how do you read?” He means, I think, how do you understand or discern what is written in the Law, in the Scriptures more generally speaking.

This exchange serves as the introduction to one of the most familiar and, perhaps, most powerful of the Gospel parables, the parable of the so-called Good Samaritan (so-called because ‘good’ is not stated in the text; it belongs, and rightly so to the interpretation). The parable complements wonderfully Paul’s command in today’s Epistle (Gal. 5.16-24) to “walk in the Spirit” as against “the desire of the flesh”; it is really an illustration of “the fruit of the Spirit” alive and at work in us in our care and concern not only for one another, the neighbour whom we know, but also and importantly towards the stranger, the outsider, the neighbour whom we do not know. Somehow the stranger, too, is neighbour because the stranger, too, is human. This is quite radical and yet at the same time part and parcel of an older Jewish understanding about dealing with the sojourner, the stranger in your midst, reminding the people of Israel that they, too, were once strangers in the land. But in every way the exchange and the parable speak profoundly to what it means to be human by opening us out to a more explicit and more universal view of our humanity.

This gospel opens us out to the largest dimensions of love, the divine love which shapes and moves our human loves. Its radical message is that the love of neighbour, the possibility of our love for our fellow human beings, depends upon the love of God alive in us.

And yet that concept really all depends upon our how we read, especially how we read the Scriptures! Now there is a thought which must give us pause. Somehow our thoughts shape our actions; our thoughts are not simply afterthoughts but the very principle or living force of our actions. To put it another way, our actions are to be thoughtful actions. They arise out of our sense of humanity and of God. That is why the exchange which precedes the parable is so important. Jesus is at once countering and correcting the lawyer whose intent is actually to tempt Jesus, to put him to the test. But what about? Perhaps about this deeper understanding of the universality of our humanity which turns upon the primacy of the love of God. Somehow that love enables what otherwise seems hard and impossible, the point of view, it seems, of the lawyer who answering Jesus’ question rightly about the Law and its interpretation, then seems altogether sceptical about the possibility of doing the Law in his apparently dismissive question “and who is my neighbour?”

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

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:25-37

Artwork: Maximilien Luce, Le Bon Samaritain, 1896. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

The collect for today, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O God, who didst send thy messenger, John the Baptist, to be the forerunner of the Lord, and to glorify thee by his death: Grant that we, who have received the truth of thy most holy Gospel, may bear our witness thereunto, and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Jeremiah 1:17-19
The Gospel: St. Mark 6:17-29

Artwork: Vasily Khudyakov, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, 1861. Oil on canvas, Vologda State Museum, Vologda, Russia.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (source):

O merciful Lord,
who didst turn Augustine from his sins to be a faithful bishop and teacher:
grant that we may follow him in penitence and godly discipline,
till our restless hearts find their rest in thee;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:13-20

Artwork: Master of Saint Augustine, Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine, c. 1490. Oil, silver and gold on wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The collect for a Missionary, in commemoration of The Venerable Robert McDonald (1829-1913), Archdeacon, Missionary to the Western Arctic, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Robert McDonald, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:13-24a

Robert McDonald was born in Point Douglas, Red River Colony (in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba). He was the second of ten children born to a Scottish immigrant and his Ojibway wife. Ordained a Church of England priest in 1852, he ministered among the Ojibway people for almost ten years, mastering the Ojibway language and translating parts of the Bible.

He was chosen to establish a Church Missionary Society mission at Fort Yukon, a settlement then believed to be in British territory but now located within Alaska. Reaching Yukon in October 1862, Robert McDonald was the first Protestant missionary designated for mission work in that territory. He ministered to the Gwitch’in and other aboriginal peoples in northwestern parts of North America for over forty years, during which time he baptised 2000 adults and children.

In 1870, he worked among peoples along the Porcupine River (Old Crow) and later settled in Fort MacPherson on the Peel River, in present-day Northwest Territories. He married Julia Kutuq, a local Gwitch’in woman, in 1876; together they had nine children. He was appointed Archdeacon of the Mackenzie Diocese in 1875.

Archdeacon McDonald developed the first writing system for the Gwitch’in language. (The Gwitch’in Athapaskan language is also known as Tukudh). With the help of Gwitch’in people, including his wife Julia, he translated the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, and compiled a Tukudh hymnal. Finally, in 1911, he published a dictionary and grammar of Tukudh.

Soon after retiring in 1904, he returned to Winnipeg where he died in 1913. He is buried in the cemetery of St John’s Cathedral.

McDonald’s translation of the Book of Common Prayer is posted online here and his grammar and dictionary here.

More biographical information on The Ven. Robert McDonald may be found online at these sites:

• Virtual Museum Canada
• Anglican History: Leaders of the Canadian Church
• Manitoba Historical Society

The new list of discussion books for Christ Church Book Club has been released. The next series will kick off on Tuesday, 22 September, at 7:00pm, when the featured books will be Crimes Against My Brother, by David Adams Richards, and The Mountain and the Valley, by Ernest Buckler.

Click here for more details, including the full schedule of books.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who didst give to thine Apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:10-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 22:24-30

The apostle Bartholomew, named in all three synoptic gospels, is generally identified with Nathanael, who is named only in the Gospel of St. John. (For more details, see here.) If this identification is accepted, we have a great deal of information on Bartholomew’s calling (St. John 1:45-51). Jesus described him as “an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit”.

Nothing is known for certain of his post-New Testament ministry. There are conflicting accounts of his missionary activity in Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Egypt. Of these, Armenia has the strongest support, where he is said to have been skinned alive before being beheaded. The traditionally accepted place of his martyrdom in Albanopolis (present-day Derbent) near the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Artwork: Jerome Duquesnoy the Younger, Saint Bartholomew, 1646. Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula, Brussels. Photograph taken by admin, 14 October 2014.

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9
The Gospel: St. Mark 7:31-37

Artwork: Philippe de Champaigne, Christ Healing a Deaf-Mute, c. 1650–60. Oil on canvas, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Bernard (1090-1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, Poet (source):

O merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of thy servant Bernard,
didst rekindle the radiant light of thy Church:
grant that we in our generation
may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever walk before thee as children of light;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. John 15:7-11

Artwork: El Greco, San Bernardino, 1603. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.