Christ Church

“How readest thou?”

At the heart of the Common Prayer tradition is the Eucharistic lectionary, a creedal way of reading the Scriptures and one which, at the very least, has the virtue of being able to say what the Scriptures are and why and how they should and can be read, a lectionary, too, which is at once catholic and ecumenical.

We meet for Evening Prayer, a wonderful service which provides us with the luxury of luxuriating in longer passages of Scripture than that to which we are ordinarily accustomed and especially for extended passages belonging to the wonderful narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures, such as the story of Joseph which we begin to read tonight. But the Gospel this morning about the parable of the Sower and the Seed provides the interpretative framework. It complements the question raised in this evening’s second lesson, “How do you read?” “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.” There is a parable and there is its interpretation. The parallel to tonight’s second lesson could hardly be clearer. The force of the question, “how readest thou?” could not be greater.

The year 2015 marked the 30^th anniversary of The Book of Alternative Services here in Canada and in some sense the anniversary of the founding of The Prayer Book Society of Canada. The conjunction of the two is at once necessary and unfortunate. What was unfortunate is that it appeared that the Prayer Book Society arose and exists essentially in reaction to institutional authority, particularly, the Bishops in their mistaken and misguided attempt to impose the new alternative liturgies upon parishes over and against the constitutional principles of the Anglican Church of Canada and the doctrinal magisterium of an Anglican Christian identity embodied in the principles of the Common Prayer tradition. What is necessary is the task of upholding and reclaiming the fullness of our spiritual identity and life.

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“Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”

Misunderstood and often overlooked, the three Pre-Lenten Sundays, with their exotic and strange sounding names, provide a necessary preparatory interlude between Epiphany and Lent. Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima are vestiges of older patterns of the biblically based practice of the Quadragesima, the forty day period of fasting, penitence and prayer commonly known as Lent – a term for Spring from Old English referring to the lengthening of the days – which marks our participation in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The pre-Lenten Sundays point to different ways of marking the forty days of Lent. Septuagesima, the week of seventy days, Sexagesima, sixty days, and Quinquagesima, fifty days before Easter, these Sundays have coalesced to form a transitional season having its own intrinsic spiritual character.

They warrant our special attention. Displaced by radical changes in the ordering of the ecclesiastical calendar and the lectionary pattern of scripture reading in recent times, their educational, spiritual and practical significance has been largely ignored. Yet the spirituality of these Sundays is really about appreciating certain crucial and defining features of Christian moral doctrine and life. It has to with the classical and the theological virtues; in short, with the rich interplay between nature and grace that shapes character. These Sundays carry forward a theme which we have also seen in the Epiphany season.

The scriptural lessons on these Sundays prepare us wonderfully for the journey of Lent as the journey of our souls to and with God in Jesus Christ; in short, our whole life. Ultimately, they ground us in the way of our journeying, at once presupposing and anticipating the way to Jerusalem. They prepare us by way of the forms of love. Lent, after all, is the pilgrimage of the soul in love. The love of God perfects and renews our loves. These pre-Lenten Sundays are all about the interplay of the cardinal virtues of temperance, courage, prudence and justice with the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.

As such they offer a powerful narrative of the love which perfects our humanity and which engages critically with the assumptions of the therapeutic culture. They recall us directly to the moral discourse of Christianity with its rich legacy of terms and categories which speak profoundly to the nature of the soul in its desiring. In short, they belong to the theology of amor, love.

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

Tuesday, February 2nd, Candlemas
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, February 4th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 31st, Quinquagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion (followed by Pot-Luck Luncheon and Annual Parish Meeting)

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, February 9th
4:30-6:00pm Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper

Wednesday, February 10th
Ash Wednesday

Tuesday, February 16th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme I

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

O LORD God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do: Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:21b-31
The Gospel: St Luke 8:4-15

Artwork: Domenico Feti, The Parable of the Sower, 1610-23. Oil on panel, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Click here to download a copy of the poster.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles I (1600-1649), King of England, Martyr (source):

King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for his persecutors
and died in the living hope of thine eternal kingdom:
grant us, by thy grace, so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

with the Epistle and Gospel for a Martyr:
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Artwork: Jan Brueghel the Younger, Allegory on the Consequences of the Execution of King Charles I, 17th century. Oil on canvas, Petworth House, Petworth, West Sussex, England.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Preacher, Doctor of the Church, Archbishop of Constantinople (source):

O God of truth and love,
who gavest to thy servant John Chrysostom
eloquence to declare thy righteousness in the great congregation
and courage to bear reproach for the honour of thy name:
mercifully grant to the ministers of thy word
such excellence in preaching
that all people may share with them
in the glory that shall be revealed;
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: Jeremiah 1:4-10
The Gospel: St Luke 21:12-15

Artwork: Saint John Chrysostom, c. 9th century. Mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Apostolic Man, Martyr (source):

Almighty God,
who gavest to thy servant Polycarp
boldness to confess the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ
before the rulers of this world
and courage to suffer death for his faith:
grant that we too may be ready
to give an answer for the faith that is in us
and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 2:8-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 20:20-23

Church tradition holds that Polycarp was born c. AD 69 of Christian parents and was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who ordained him Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was arrested during a pagan festival in Smyrna (present-day Izmir, Turkey) and brought before the Roman pro-consul.

[W]hen the magistrate pressed him hard and said, “Swear the oath, and I will release you; revile the Christ,” Polycarp said, “Eighty-six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

But on his persisting again and saying, “Swear by the genius of Caesar,” he answered, “If you suppose vainly that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as you say, and feign that you are ignorant of who I am, hear you plainly: I am a Christian. But if you would learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and give me a hearing.”

He was burned at the stake for refusing to renounce Christ.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written down by the church of Smyrna and sent as a letter to the church at Philomelium. It is the first Christian martyrology. Several translations of the text can be accessed via this page.

Artwork: Martyrdom of St Polycarp, Church of St. Polycarp, Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Turkey.

“He spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue”

Paul’s conversion is momentous in the story of Christianity. He is sometimes called the second founder of Christianity for with Paul the Christian Faith goes global at least historically. His travels along Roman roads and in Roman captivity contributes to the spread of the Christian Faith. His story, especially his ‘conversion’, marks the beginnings of Christianity as distinct from Judaism and from the surrounding Hellenistic culture under the dominance of the Roman Empire. Yet his conversion is entirely within the context of Judaism and within the syncretic nature of what will come to be called the first century AD, anno domini, in some sense because of St. Paul as he, too, will come to be called.

Told to us three times in The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s conversion is more about the beginnings of a process of discovery and understanding than simply a one-off event. Certainly there is a dramatic quality to the way Paul tells his story about what happened on the Damascus road. Certainly, it seems, something happened. But his conversion is not from one religion to another because Christianity does not yet really exist as a distinct entity. His conversion is really his insight into a new understanding about the nature of the Messiah which has yet to be fully developed.

He is, he says, a Jew from Cilicia, from Tarsus, “a citizen of no mean city”, and crucially too, he will lay claim to being both a Pharisee and to being a Roman citizen. Both are equally important in terms of the significance of Paul and what will be his teachings for the development of Christianity.

The lesson is Paul’s speech to the people about his experience and its meaning. The context is more powerful than we might realize and more complex in ways that challenge Christians with respect to other religions and cultures. The context is one of extreme hostility and violence. The preceding verses of this chapter are altogether remarkable. Paul has gone into the Temple in Jerusalem with the intention to teach about Jesus. Before he can say anything he becomes an object of derision and hate. He is, first, accused of “teaching men everywhere against the people and the law and his place.” Secondly, he is accused of bringing a gentile, a Greek from Ephesus named Trophimus, into the temple which is regarded as a defilement of “this holy place.” He does not seem to have been responsible for this but in another way it belongs to the interplay between Jew and Gentile.

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The collect for today, the Feast of The Conversion of Saint Paul, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who, through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 21:40-22:16
The Gospel: St. Luke 21:10-19

Artwork: Paolo Veronese, Conversion of Saul, c. 1570. Oil on canvas, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.