Month: January 2018

Prayers and liturgy

Charles Stuart, King and Martyr

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

Hubert Le Sueur, Bust of Charles IKing 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: Hubert Le Sueur, Bust of Charles I, 1631. Marble, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Photograph taken by admin, 27 September 2015.

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Sermons

Sermon for Septuagesima

“Go ye also into the vineyard”

In the western imagination, perhaps nothing speaks more profoundly to the idea of civilisation and culture than vineyards. In a way, they epitomise our humanity’s proper relationship to nature and to the theme of cultivation and learning. Scripturally speaking vineyards, too, are an important image about our relationship with God.

The older classical and catholic patterns of reading the Scriptures in the course of the year are intentionally instructive. With the older “Gesima” Sundays, there is a turn towards the human soul. They mark the beginnings of a kind of inwardness that has very much to do with the classical traditions of moral philosophy. The “Gesima” Sundays provide a catechism, an instruction, about the virtues. The virtues are the qualities of excellence belonging to the ancient Greek and Roman understanding of the good of human personality but which undergo a kind of sea-change, transformed by the three Christian ‘graces’ of faith, hope and love.

In the imagery of the “Gesima” Sundays, the Gospel readings from Matthew and Luke locate our humanity first, in a vineyard, secondly, on the ground, and thirdly, on the road to Jerusalem. Viewed in conjunction with the Epistle readings from 1st and 2nd Corinthians, they comprise a short treatise on the virtues of temperance and justice today in the Epistle and Gospel respectively, the virtues of courage and prudence on Sexagesima Sunday, and through the Epistle and Gospel of Quinquagesima Sunday, the realisation of their transformation into forms of love through the theological virtues of “faith, hope, and charity” or love which is the basis of the Christian pilgrimage of life concentrated for us in the season of Lent.

The Latin terms Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima are, I suppose, a bit intimidating and a bit of a mouthful, but they are easily explained. These three Sundays orient us towards Easter, marking the week of the seventieth day, the sixtieth day, and fiftieth day before Easter, for which the Quadragesima, meaning the forty days of Lent, prepare us. The terms reflect in part some of the history of the development of the forty days of Lent in terms of the number of days allowed in each week as a break from the rigour of the Lenten fast. They are simply the three pre-Lenten Sundays which prepare us inwardly for the Lenten pilgrimage by recalling us to the virtues as the active principles that belong to the Christian journey of faith. Critical to this instruction is the recognition that by themselves, as Augustine memorably put it, the virtues are but splendid vices, meaning that the journey of the soul to God cannot be undertaken simply by us alone but only by way of Christ in us; in short, by grace perfecting nature, by the virtues transformed into the forms of love. The point is that something is required of us; we are not simply passive beings, mere automatons, if you will.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 29 January – 4 February

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

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

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

Thursday, February 1st, Eve of Candlemas
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, February 2nd
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, February 4th, Sexagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, February 11th
Pot-Luck Luncheon & Annual Parish Meeting following the 10:30am service.

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Prayers and liturgy

Septuagesima

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

O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
The Gospel: St. Matthew 20:1-16

Rembrandt, The Parable of the Labourers in the VineyardArtwork: Rembrandt, The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, 1637. Oil on panel, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

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Prayers and liturgy

John Chrysostom, Doctor and Bishop

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

Pedro Orrente, Saint John Chrysostom in the WildernessArtwork: Pedro Orrente, Saint John Chrysostom in the Wilderness, c. 1620s. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Polycarp, Bishop, Apostolic Man, Martyr

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

St. PolycarpAlmighty 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: St. Polycarp, stained glass, Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Photograph taken by admin, 18 August 2004.

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Sermons

Meditation for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

“Brother Saul, receive thy sight”

There is something providentially wonderful about the celebration of the Conversion of Saint Paul in the last week of the Epiphany Season this year. For his conversion can be seen as a kind of epiphany, a making known to us about what God seeks for our humanity. It is all about light and life. His so-called conversion, so-called because there are a number of ambiguities about what is to be understood here about the word conversion, is nonetheless about a breakthrough of the understanding.

His conversion is not about a change of allegiance from Judaism to Christianity because the latter does not yet exist either notionally or institutionally. Paul, after all, is a critical figure in the ultimate development of what will come to be called Christianity. As the accounts make clear, his story is entirely within the context of late Judaism in its encounter with Greek language and thought and its domination by Roman law and order. Such is the real richness of The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. It reminds us that Christianity cannot be understood apart from the collision of those principles: Jewish religion, Greek philosophy and culture, as well as Roman order.

Luke tells us about the story of Saul on “the road to Damascus.” The phrase has entered into world culture as the image of conversion, a kind of breakthrough moment. In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, Paul tells his story three times. The epistle reading for his feast day provides us with the third and, perhaps most moving account, especially when one considers the setting. It is one of hostility, the hostility of the Jews towards Paul who has to be rescued by the soldiers of the Roman legion and who is allowed to address his own people “speaking unto them in the Hebrew tongue” after having spoken in Greek to the tribune, Claudius Lysias, a Roman officer. We see the interplay of Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the story of Saul who by virtue of his experience will be renamed Paul.

What is his story? It is his conversion, and here the word must be used literally, from being the persecutor of Christ to becoming an Apostle of Christ. It is, also literally, about seeing former things in a new light. He is blinded into sight, into a new way of thinking about the Messiah, a new way of thinking about God’s engagement with our humanity in terms that without destroying the law transcend the law, especially in its narrow Pharisaic sense. His story is about his mystical encounter with the risen Christ. In a way, the critical moment lies in the exchange between Christ and Saul.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Conversion of Saint Paul

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

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Conversion of St. PaulArtwork: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Conversion of St. Paul, 1567. Oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Timothy and St. Titus, Apostolic Men

The collect for today, The Feast of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Apostolic men, Companions of St. Paul (source):

Saint Timothy and Saint TitusHeavenly Father,
who didst send thine apostle Paul to preach the gospel,
and gavest him Timothy and Titus to be his companions in the faith:
grant that our fellowship in the Holy Spirit
may bear witness to the name of Jesus,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 1:1-8 or Titus 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 10:1-10

Artwork: St. Timothy and St. Titus, stained glass, Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Photograph taken by admin, 18 August 2004.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 22 January

Who is this?

Yearning for miracles is not the same thing as learning from miracles. The readings in Chapel of late have been about what is learned about God and about his will for our humanity. The miracles are not something accidental to that interest but belong fundamentally to it. The miracles teach. They do so, in part, by way of questions.

“Who is this?” A great question wonderfully explored in the hymn sung in Chapel on Monday and Tuesday where the first phrase of each four verses is the question, “who is this?” and which is repeated in the third verse. Thus, five times the question is raised “who is this?” in relation to the Christian story of the significant moments in the life of Christ. In each of the four verses of the hymn, there is a response, an answer given at the beginning of the second quatrain of every verse: “‘Tis our God.”

The question is at once an Advent and an Epiphany question albeit in different ways. In Advent, the whole city of Jerusalem was moved at the spectacle of Christ’s triumphant entry into the city to ask this question, “Who is this?” It is raised in the context of the one who comes to our world. In the Epiphany we have the same question, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” It is in the context of a story, a remarkable story about Christ rebuking the wind and calming the sea in the midst of a ship in a storm. The difference between the Advent question and the Epiphany question is that the latter is about an awakening that happens from within the conditions of our natural world, a world, too, of tempests and storms. There are not only the storms of nature but also the storms and tempests of the human heart and mind. What is so amazing about this story is the idea that God cares.

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