Year: 2016

Prayers and liturgy

Gregory the Great, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Gregory the Great (540-604), Bishop of Rome, Doctor of the Church (source):

O merciful Father,
who didst choose thy bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him, we may ever desire to serve thee
by proclaiming thy gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing thy praises;
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: 1 Chronicles 25: 1a, 6-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:42-45

Rubens, Ecstasy of St. Gregory the GreatArtwork: Peter Paul Rubens, The Ecstasy of St. Gregory the Great, 1608. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble.

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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

Fra Angelico, 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”.

His two greatest works are Summa Contra Gentiles, begun c. 1259 and completed in 1264, and Summa Theologica, begun c. 1266 but uncompleted at his death.

The former work is a Christian apologetic for use by missionaries and directed toward Muslims, Jews, and others who did not accept orthodox Christian belief. Using Aristotle, who was popular among Muslim, Jewish, and pagan scholars, Aquinas attempted to give rational arguments in favour of Christianity.

The Summa Theologica is a treatise on Christian orthodoxy directed toward Christians, particularly students of theology. Running to five large volumes, it contains a comprehensive and systematic statement of Thomas’s mature thought on almost all aspects of Christian life and doctrine. He took a logical and intellectual approach to questions about the faith: For each question discussed, objections and replies are presented, concluding with a summary of his view and answers to the objections raised.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

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

What’s this? Have I got the wrong Sunday? Am I having a senior’s moment? Didn’t we have that Gospel story and text two Sundays ago? We did and no, I am not losing it – at least not any more than usual! It’s just that this text also speaks to our readings today. It illumines an interesting sacramental emphasis to the traditional Gospel readings for the Lenten Sundays which culminates on this Sunday at the same time as today’s overtly sacramental Gospel reading catapults us ahead to Maundy Thursday, to the beginning of the Triduum Sacrum, to Christ’s Last Supper. That event anticipates and inaugurates the sacramental life of the Church established through his sacrifice on the Cross.

The Gospel readings for the Lenten Sundays anticipate the concentration of the Lenten journey in the events of Holy Week. There is, too, a sacramental focus to the readings which belongs to the form of our participation in Christ’s sacrifice. “We go up to Jerusalem” sacramentally, it seems to me, journeying in the wilderness and contending against temptation including the temptation to “turn stones into bread,” learning instead to live not “by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” as we heard on The First Sunday in Lent. Yet that is the basis for the sacraments, too. The Word of God made flesh takes bread, gives thanks and breaks it, saying “Take eat; this is my Body.” We are not to tempt God, to put him to the test, but to worship him and serve him. On The Second Sunday in Lent, we learn from the Canaanite woman precisely about the goodness of God in Jesus Christ through her incredible insight into how God provides for us through the struggles of our lives, learning through a kind of humility that even the crumbs which fall from our master’s table are enough to sustain us and to bring healing and salvation to our wounded and broken souls.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 7 – 13 March

Monday, March 7th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, March 8th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, March 9th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, March 10th
6:00-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Saturday, March 12th
9:00am-4:00pm Lenten Quiet Day – King’s-Edgehill School, sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, NS/PEI Branch

Sunday, March 13th, Fifth Sunday in Lent/Passion Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, March 15th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme IV

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

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

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 4:26-5:1
The Gospel: St. John 6:5-14

St. Augustine Kilburn, Accepit Ergo JesusArtwork: Accepit ergo Jesus panes et cum gratias egisset distribuit discumbentibus similiter et ex piscibus quantum volebant [St. John 6:11, Vulgate], St. Augustine Kilburn, London. Photograph taken by admin, 26 September 2015.

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Sermons

Scenes of Bethany – III

This is the third of four Lenten addresses on the theme Contemplation, Activity and Resurrection in the Passion of Christ. The first is posted here, the second here, and the fourth here.

“Martha received him into her house”
Martha: Love-in-Activity

“And a woman named Martha received him into her house”. Our lives are busy lives, probably far too busy. Our busyness becomes our burden and our justification. We are busily miserable and miserably busy all at the same time. The world, without and within our souls, conspires to make us busy and we acquiesce to its demands. We all fall prey to the hideous notion of ‘justification by busyness alone’. Leisure, in its proper and more ancient sense, is intolerable and inexcusable for this possessive spirit of busyness. And yet, there is something not only inevitable but necessary about some of our busyness. Martha in Bethany presents us with the true and the false form of busyness. There is something here to affirm and something here to eschew.

The problem is not so much that we are simply busy, but what our busyness is about. What end does it serve? Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, speaks of the contemplative life as a negotiossium otium – “a most busy leisure”. Like the true form of outward activity, that “most busy leisure” has a focus. It is centered. Martha shows us the false and miserable form of busyness not because of what she is doing but because of the manner in which she is doing it.

She is “distracted” or “anxious”. What does that mean? It means that she is uncollected, uncentered, and without a proper focus. The word itself suggests that her eyes move about from one thing to another, turning this way and that, almost in a frenzy of activity but without any clear sense for what end, for what purpose. The most miserable form of busyness is busyness for busyness’ sake.

No doubt, it is easy to lose our heads and our hearts in the daily busyness of our lives. The danger is very great and very real. We can end up by being defined by the endless round of the mere doing of things. Our activity becomes ceaseless and aimless and thoroughly meaningless. We may not even be aware that it is happening. That is a tragedy. When we lose our center, we lose our purpose and our direction. We lose ourselves. Our lives become unsettled. We become unglued. We get bent out of shape.

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Prayers and liturgy

Chad, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Chad (d. 672), Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary (source):

St. Hilda Ashford, St. ChadAlmighty God,
who, from the first fruits of the English nation
that turned to Christ,
didst call thy servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
grant us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
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: Philippians 4:10-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:1,7-14

Artwork: St. Chad, stained glass, St. Hilda’s Church, Ashford, England.

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Prayers and liturgy

John and Charles Wesley

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wesley (1703-91) and Charles Wesley (1708-88), Evangelists, Hymn Writers, Leaders of the Methodist Revival (source):

Merciful God,
who didst inspire John and Charles Wesley with zeal for thy gospel:
grant to all people boldness to proclaim thy word
and a heart ever to rejoice in singing thy praises;
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: Isaiah 49:5-6
The Gospel: St. Luke 9:2-6

Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old ManHudson, Reverend Charles Wesley

Artwork:
(left) Frank O. Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old Man, 1932. Oil on canvas, John Wesley’s House & The Museum of Methodism, London, U.K.
(right) Thomas Hudson, Reverend Charles Wesley, 1749. Oil on canvas, Epworth Old Rectory, Epworth, Lincolnshire, U.K.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint David of Wales

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint David (c. 520-589), Bishop of Menevia, Patron Saint of Wales (source):

Holy Trinity Sloane Square, St. David of WalesAlmighty God,
who didst call thy servant David
to be a faithful and wise steward of thy mysteries
for the people of Wales:
in thy mercy, grant that,
following his purity of life and zeal
for the gospel of Christ,
we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit
be all honour and glory,
world without end.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-29

Artwork: Saint David, stained glass, Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London. Photograph taken by admin 20 October 2014.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, 2:00pm service of Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“You have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed”

Words from The Book of Genesis (Gen. 32.28), from the classic story of struggle, Jacob wrestling with an angel, wrestling with God, it seems, and by virtue of prevailing becomes Israel, one who strives with God. It is all about the struggle, the jihad.

The word, jihad, in its proper spiritual sense, is about the struggle of the soul in relation to the will of Allah, the will of God. So, too, for Christians and Jews, there are the struggles of the soul with respect to God and our life with God in prayer and praise, in service and sacrifice. The struggle means acknowledging our own faults and shortcomings, our sins, to be blunt about it, which is only possible through the prior recognition of the goodness of God. The struggle is “to decline from sin and incline to virtue”; the struggle, quite simply, for “holiness” as Paul tells us. We “are called,” he says, “to holiness” which is the quality of God in our very being. It is a constant struggle intensified for us in the disciplines of the Lenten journey. Lent is about embracing the struggle.

But what kind of struggle? Will it be a struggle which diminishes and destroys or the struggle which dignifies and ennobles? In any event, the struggle is defining. It is nothing less than a “striv[ing] with God and with men,” as the Genesis story reminds us. The struggle, the jihad, is altogether defining. It is ultimately about character and virtue.

This is what we see in the story of the Canaanite woman. We see her perseverance. She tenaciously hangs on to what she believes about Jesus. She senses in him the presence of God in whom there is health and salvation. She seeks in him healing and grace for her daughter. She seeks it by the only means we can receive it – through the prayer for mercy and help. This is no weak and wimpy prayer; this is the prayer of a strong woman who, like Jacob become Israel, will not let go. That tenacity of spirit, that persistent willfulness about what is objectively perceived, that willingness to hold on belongs to the truth of Israel but finds its expression here in one who is from outside Israel, a non-Israelite, yet one who strives with God and breaks into the very heart of God in Jesus Christ.

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