Month: May 2017

Prayers and liturgy

Joan of Arc

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Joan of Arc (1412-31), Virgin, Visionary, Patron Saint of France (source):

Holy God, whose power is made perfect in weakness: we honor thy calling of Jeanne d’Arc, who, though young, rose up in valor to bear thy standard for her country, and endured with grace and fortitude both victory and defeat; and we pray that we, like Jeanne, may bear witness to the truth that is in us to friends and enemies alike, and, encouraged by the companionship of thy saints, give ourselves bravely to the struggle for justice in our time; through Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 12:25-30

Scherrer, The Entrance of Joan of Arc into Orleans on 8th May 1429Artwork: Jean-Jacques Scherrer, The entrance of Joan of Arc into Orleans on 8th May 1429, 1887. Oil on canvas, Musée Jeanne-d’Arc, Rouen.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Sunday after the Ascension

“He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father”

They are words from the Creed but as taken more or less directly from the Scriptures. The Ascension and the Session of Christ are among the creedal mysteries of the Christian faith. They are set before us on this day, The Sunday after the Ascension. Often overlooked and ignored, these two doctrines provide a necessary corrective to the religion of sentiment and emotion, on the one hand, and the religion of morality and self-righteousness, on the other hand. We are reminded in the strongest possible way that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the comings and goings of God, not God in our comings and goings. There is all the difference in the world between these two perspectives: the one would make God subject to us; the other would place us with God in the revelation of his truth and love.

But these mysteries also instruct us about the meaning and understanding of spiritual life. Rather than the simple and false opposition of spirit and matter, for example, or spirit and logic, too, for that matter, the Ascension and the Session teach us that the spiritual embraces and perfects the material and physical world as well as the various forms of our reasoning. These two mysteries signal the radical meaning of human redemption which is about the gathering of all things to God. It is a kind of redire ad principia – a return to a principle – in which we find the true meaning of our lives.

In terms of the rich imagery of Eastertide, which has focused on Christ’s refrain “because I go the Father”, we learn that our comings and our goings find their place and have their meaning in the comings and goings of God. In the Ascension and the Session of Christ there is a kind of ending, a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment, of triumph and joy. Christ enters into the Father’s glory and so into the eternal rest of God. “The end of all things is at hand”, says St. Paul, with a sense not of foreboding but of joy. The ending of all things is indeed celebrated in the Ascension and the Session of Christ. It is an ending in the sense of meaning and purpose. It is about the divine reason and purpose of our existence. From there we await a new beginning through the Pentecostal descent of the Holy Spirit to keep us in the love and knowledge of what has been accomplished by Christ Jesus for us. It always remains to be more fully realized in us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 29 May – 4 June

Monday, May 29th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 30th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Wednesday, May 31st
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Friday, June 2nd
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, June 4th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast with the Ladies)
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

Sunday After Ascension Day

The collect for today, Sunday After Ascension Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:7-11
The Gospel: St. John 15:26-16:4a

Repin, Last SupperArtwork: Ilya Repin, Last Supper, 1901. Oil on canvas, Novgorod State Museum, Novgorod, Russia.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Venerable Bede, Doctor and Historian

The collect for today, the Feast of The Venerable Bede (673-735), Monk, Historian, Doctor of the Church (source):

Almighty God, maker of all things,
whose Son Jesus Christ gave to thy servant Bede
grace to drink in with joy
the word which leadeth us to know thee and to love thee:
in thy goodness
grant that we also may come at length to thee,
the source of all wisdom,
and stand before thy face;
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.

For The Epistle: Wisdom 7:15-22
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:47-52

Scott, Death of the Venerable BedeSaint Bede the Venerable was born and, as far as we know, lived his entire life in the north of England, yet he became perhaps the most learned scholar in all of Europe. At the age of 7, he was sent to Wearmouth Abbey for his education; at age 11, he continued his education at the new monastery at Jarrow, eventually becoming a monk and remaining there until his death. He lived a routine and outwardly uneventful life of prayer, devotion, study, writing, and teaching.

Bede’s writings cover a very wide range of interests, including natural history, orthography, chronology, and biblical translation and exposition. He was the first to translate the Bible into Old English. He considered his 25 volumes of Scripture commentary to be his most important writings. His best-known book is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. This work earned him the popular title “Father of English History”, and not just because it was the first attempt to write a history of England. His historical research was thorough and far-reaching. For example, he asked friends traveling to Rome to bring him copies of documents relevant to English history, and he made use of oral traditions when written materials were not available. The book provides much historical information that can be found in no other source.

His pupil Cuthbert, later Abbot of Jarrow, has left a moving eyewitness account of St. Bede’s last hours. Bede fell ill shortly before Easter 735, when he was in the midst of translating the Gospel of John into the Anglo-Saxon language. Everyone realised that the end was near, but he was determined to complete the translation. Between Easter and Ascension Day, he persisted in the task while continuing to teach his students at his bedside.

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Prayers and liturgy

Augustine of Canterbury, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Augustine (d. c. 605), first Archbishop of Canterbury (source):

O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 5:17-20a
The Gospel: St. Luke 5:1-11

All Saints Margaret Street, St. Augustine of CanterburyCeltic Christianity had taken root in Britain and Ireland by the end of the third century. In the fifth century, however, Britain was overrun by non-Christian invaders from northern Europe: the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

In 596, Pope Gregory the Great chose Augustine, prior of a monastery at Rome, to head a mission to convert the pagan English. After Gregory consecrated Augustine bishop, the missionary party landed in Kent in 597. The dominant ruler of Anglo-Saxon England was the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, whose wife Bertha was a Christian princess of the Franks. The king, although initially uninterested in Christianity, allowed Augustine and his companions to live in his territory and freely preach the gospel. Within four years, the king and several thousand of his people had been converted and baptised.

After his consecration as archbishop, Augustine built the first cathedral at Canterbury. Pope Gregory had initially planned to organise the church in England with metropolitan sees at the old Roman centres of London and York. London, however, was in the hands of a hostile king, and Canterbury was therefore chosen as Augustine’s seat. The people of London were later brought to the faith through the preaching of Augustine’s companion Mellitus.

Augustine established a monastery just outside Canterbury’s city walls, originally dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul and later known as St. Augustine’s.

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Sermons

Sermon for Ascension Day

“He was received up into heaven”

The seventh and last sonnet in John Donne’s cycle of sonnets called La Corona is Ascension. La Corona is a remarkable literary achievement. It consists of seven sonnets which are all closely connected in such a way that they form a crown, a circle, la corona. The last line of each of the seven sonnets becomes the first line of the next sonnet. Thus the last sonnet entitled Ascension ends with what becomes the first words of the first sonnet, “Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.” In other words, the seven sonnets form a “crown of prayer and praise” based on the sequence of creedal and doctrinal moments in the life of Christ. The Ascension marks the beginning and the ending of a perfect circle, a redire ad principia, at once a going forth and a return to God.

Donne’s poetic achievement captures the significance doctrinally of the substantial moments in Christ’s life. The sonnet on the Ascension reflects on the mystery of the Ascension. What is that mystery? It is the homecoming of the Son to the Father in the Spirit having accomplished all that belongs to human redemption. “Salute the last and everlasting day” – such is the Ascension. We are opened out to the homeland of the spirit, our true homeland. The Ascension proclaims our spiritual identity and home; the truth of our humanity is found in God. This is the counter to our worldly preoccupations and yet provides us with the means to live in the world without being defined by its concerns and follies. Such is prayer.

The ancient fathers of the early Church speak of the Ascension as “the exaltation of our humanity.” We are lifted up in Christ’s being lifted up. “We ascend,” Augustine says, “in the ascension of our hearts.” Our humanity finds its truth in God. We participate in that homeland of the spirit here and now through prayer. Prayer signifies all the service that we ever do unto God. In prayer we are lifted up into the life of God. There we place our cares and concerns about others, about our world and day, especially in a world and day fraught with despair and destruction. We place these cares and concerns with God because of Christ’s Ascension.

There is “joy at the uprising of this sun, and son” because he has prepared a place for us. “Nor doth he by ascending, show alone,/ But first he, and he first enters the way.” Donne suggests something of the scriptural tenor of the Ascension as a kind of breaking into heaven. “O strong ram, which hast battered heaven for me” but then in almost complete contrast, Christ is also the “mild lamb, which with thy blood, hast marked the path”, the path for us to follow. The Ascension inspires us to prayer and praise. “Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.” All because he was received up into heaven.

Fr. David Curry
Ascension Day, May 25th, 2017

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Prayers and liturgy

The Ascension Day

The collect for today, The Ascension Day, being the fortieth day after Easter, sometimes called Holy Thursday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continuously dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-11
The Gospel: St. Mark 16:14-20

Andrea da Firenze, Ascension of ChristArtwork: Andrea da Firenze, Ascension of Christ, 1366-67. Fresco, Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

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Prayers and liturgy

Rogation Wednesday

The Collect for today, Rogation Wednesday (Rogation Days being the three days before Ascension Day), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962);

ASSIST us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Luke 11:1-10

Collect for the Fruits of the Earth and the Labours of Men:

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift: Bless, we beseech thee, the labours of thy people, and cause the earth to bring forth her fruits abundantly In their season, that we may with grateful hearts give thanks to thee for the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Genesis 1:26-31a
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-33

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Prayers and liturgy

Rogation Tuesday

The Collect for today, Rogation Tuesday (Rogation Days being the three days before Ascension Day), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962);

ASSIST us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Luke 11:1-10

Collect for the Fruits of the Earth and the Labours of Men:

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift: Bless, we beseech thee, the labours of thy people, and cause the earth to bring forth her fruits abundantly In their season, that we may with grateful hearts give thanks to thee for the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Genesis 1:26-31a
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-33

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