Year: 2017

Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:39-49

Cavallini, Nativity of the VirginArtwork: Pietro Cavallini, Nativity of the Virgin, 1296-1300. Mosaic, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

It is an Aramaic word translated by Mark into Greek and by extension for us into English, all the while keeping before our hearts and minds the original word, Ephphatha. Aramaic was probably the language which Jesus himself spoke. The Christian Scriptures as a result retain a handful of Aramaicisms.

The story in which it occurs is unique to Mark, though the Greek word translated into English as “Be opened” is the same word used by the other Evangelists, especially by Luke in the Resurrection accounts about how Jesus opened the minds and opened the understanding of the Scriptures to the disciples. And so too something is being opened to us.

Guarda è escolta. Look and listen, Beatrice tells the pilgrim Dante in the poet’s great poem, the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy. Look and listen to what? The pageant of Revelation in a sacramental form. It is not too much to say, perhaps, that Mark’s story here is the scriptural fons et origo of such imagery. For here is a story which speaks directly to the meaning of the Scriptures and in a way that is inescapably sacramental. In other words, we are being reminded of an essential feature of our own Catholic and Reformed Christian tradition, namely, the interplay between Word and Sacrament, the Word audible and the Word visible.

There is a kind of wonder in encountering this story in the midst of the Trinity season. It is one of the few Gospels from St. Mark in the classical eucharistic lectionary during the Trinity season; there are only three Gospel passages from Mark out of twenty-four or twenty-six Sundays. It speaks, I think, wonderfully and directly to our current confusions and uncertainties which are really about a kind of closing of our hearts and minds. “Ears have they and hear not; eyes have they and yet they see not.” Here we are being opened. Opened to what? What is it that we do not hear and see? What is it to which we are closed in our hearts and minds? To the presence and truth of God in our lives. We are closed to the very principle of all life, God. Here we have a powerful story about what God seeks and wants for us: our being opened to his transforming grace in our lives.

Here is a story, too, which reminds us of both the power and the limitations of language. You might say that the power and the truth of language actually is found in our recognition of its limits. Such is the meaning and nature of translation. Translation opens us out to the Word behind the words, if you will. It is an important feature of Judaism and Christianity that there can be and must be translation. And yet that doesn’t excuse us from appreciating and even learning other languages, even ancient languages. It means, however, that truth is not the sole property of any one language.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity

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

St. Augustine Kilburn, Healing Deaf MuteArtwork: Healing Deaf Mute [St. Mark 7:33], St. Augustine Kilburn, London. Photograph taken by admin, 26 September 2015.

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Prayers and liturgy

Giles, Abbot

The collect for an Abbot, on the Feast of St. Giles of Provence (d. c. 710), Hermit, Abbot (source):

O God, by whose grace the blessed Abbot Giles, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:15-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:20-23a

Miguel de Alcañiz, St. GilesAll that is known for certain about this saint is that he was born in the early 7th century and that he founded a monastery in what is now the town of Saint-Gilles, southern France, on land given to him by Flavius Wamba, King of the Visogoths.

Giles, accompanied by a hind, had come to live in a hermitage near Arles. During a hunt, King Wamba fired an arrow at the hind, but struck and crippled Giles instead. The king then gave the humble saint land to found an abbey.

A tenth-century Legend attributed important miracles to Saint Giles, which helped make him one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries across Europe are dedicated to him. As well, because he is the patron saint of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers, many hospitals were built in his name. Saint Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, where his memory is honoured by the Church of Scotland High Kirk: St. Giles’ Cathedral.

The monastery founded by St. Giles became a renowned stopping place in medieval times for pilgrims journeying to Compostela, Rome, or the Holy Land.

Artwork: Miguel de Alcañiz, St. Giles, c. 1408. Tempera on wood with gold ground, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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Prayers and liturgy

Aidan, Missionary and Bishop

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

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. John’s, NL, Saint AidanO 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

The Saint Aidan stained glass was made by the firm of C.E. Kempe of London and installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1913. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Prayers and liturgy

Beheading of St. John the Baptist

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

Masaccio, Martyrdom of St. John the BaptistArtwork: Masaccio, Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist (predella from the Pisa Altarpiece), 1426. Tempera on panel, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

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Prayers and liturgy

Augustine, Bishop and Doctor

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

Fra Angelico, Conversion of St. AugustineArtwork: Fra Angelico, The Conversion of St. Augustine, c. 1430-35. Tempera on wood, Musée Thomas-Henry, Cherbourg, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Robert McDonald, Missionary

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.

McDonald, Tukudh HymnalHe 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:

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Prayers and liturgy

The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

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

O GOD, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 18:9-14

Fabritius, The Pharisee and the PublicanArtwork: Barent Fabritius, The Pharisee and the Publican, 1661. Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Bartholomew the Apostle

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

Master of the Winkler Epitaph, Martyrdom of St. BartholomewThe 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 is Albanopolis (present-day Derbent) near the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Artwork: Master of the Winkler Epitaph, The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, 1480s. Oil on oak, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

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