Rector’s Annual Report, 2015
Click here to download the Rector’s Annual Report for 2015 (pdf document).
The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2015 can be accessed via this page.
Month: February 2016
Week at a Glance, 8 – 14 February
Monday, February 8th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
Tuesday, February 9th, Shrove Tuesday
4:30-6:00pm Pancake Supper
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
Wednesday, February 10th, Ash Wednesday
7:00am Penitential Service with Ashes
12noon Holy Communion with Ashes
2:30pm Imposition of Ashes – KES
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall
Thursday, February 11th
6:00-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
Sunday, February 14th, First Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Event:
Tuesday, February 16th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme I
Quinquagesima
The collect for today, Quinquagesima, being the Fiftieth Day before Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 18:31-43
Artwork: The Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho, 1849. Marble statue, St. Michael’s Church, Ghent. Photograph taken by admin, 11 October 2014.
Anskar, Missionary and Bishop
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Anskar (801-865), Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, Missionary to Sweden and Denmark (source):
Almighty and gracious God,
who didst send thy servant Anskar
to spread the gospel among the Nordic people:
raise up in this our generation, we beseech thee,
messengers of thy good tidings
and heralds of thy kingdom,
that the world may come to know
the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Lesson: Acts 1:1-9
The Gospel: St. Mark 6:7-13
Artwork: Siegfried Detlev Bendixen, Bishop Ansgar, 1823. Holy Trinity Church, Hamburg, Germany.
Sermon for Candlemas
“A Light to lighten the Gentiles”
This is an ancient feast and an ecumenical feast, uniting both east and west. Its full title suggests something of its rich significance, a double feast in which we honour both our Lord and his Mother Mary, our Lady, in one festival. It is “The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin”. But its simpler and more usual name is Candlemas. These are all terms and names which contain a host of associations.
Its most basic sense is the remembrance that Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to offer the required and ancient rituals of purification and the presentation of the first-born.
Luke alone gives us this story. The focus is on the encounter between the Child Jesus and the Old Man Simeon; a meeting which is rich in significance.
The Song of Simeon is the Nunc Dimittis, for instance, which has long been a feature of the Church’s evening sacrifice of prayer and praise. It is, we might say, the Song of Candlemas. It signifies the meeting of the Child Christ and aged Simeon. It signifies the bridge between the old and the new. In the Eastern Church this feast is known as “Hypapanti” – which means “meeting”.
The meeting signifies something more than just the passing away of the Old and the inauguration of something new; it captures as well the sense of fulfilment. There is the sense that what was looked for is actually more than what was expected.
Simeon and Anna are in the temple at Jerusalem waiting, watching and hoping. The overarching theme here is hope. What Simeon beholds in Christ is the hope of the Old Testament brought to an intensity of expression, to its fullness of meaning. It marks the inauguration of something new, ultimately we may say it is the Church; but this does not mean the eclipse of the old so much as its redemption and the purification of its intention; “a light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.” This is its ringing theme and song.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
The collect for today, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin (also traditionally called Candlemas), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we humbly beseech thy Majesty, that, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts, by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Malachi 3:1-5
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:22-40
Artwork: Peter Paul Rubens, Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1612-14. Oil on panel, Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp. Photograph taken by admin, 13 October 2014.