Month: April 2019

Prayers and liturgy

Reginald Heber, Bishop and Poet

The collect for today, the commemoration of Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta, Missionary, Hymn writer (source):

Reginald Heber, Bishop of CalcuttaAlmighty God,
you granted to Reginald Heber
a manifold life of service,
to shepherd a rural parish in England
and to preach in the cities of India.
Give to your people such faithfulness,
that in every place and circumstance
they may sing of your power
and minister your gifts
for the glory of your Name;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 3:1-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-9

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Sermons

Lenten Programme 2019: Thinking Sacramentally IV

“And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down”

Jesus identifies himself as the bread of life in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. It is one of the seven so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel which point to his essential divinity at the same time as providing a host of metaphors that concern our humanity in terms of our dwelling and abiding in him. Such is the whole matter of thinking sacramentally. “I am the door”, “I am the way, the truth and the life”, “I am the resurrection and the life”, “I am the good shepherd”, “I am the light of the world”, “I am the vine” and “I am the bread of life”. They are all really sacramental in scope and application. They speak to the forms of our incorporation in Christ. But the most ostensibly and obviously sacramental is when Jesus says he is “the bread of life”.

The Gospel for the Fourth Sunday in Lent is John’s account of Jesus’ feeding the multitude in the wilderness. It comes from the sixth chapter where Jesus says he is the “bread of life” and belongs to its sacramental intensity. It belongs, in other words, to what Christ is teaching us about himself and his relation to us. First, he is saying something profound about himself in relation to God who reveals himself as “I am who I am” in and through the burning bush, itself a sacramental image about the invisible made known through the visible, and without the destruction of the natural. The bush burns but is not destroyed. Secondly, he is saying something profound about us in our relation to him. In other words, his relation to the Father in the Communion of the Trinity is the ground of his relation to us through these metaphors of incorporation; in short, metaphors about our life in Christ.

Articles XXV through XXXI of the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion deal with the matter of the sacraments in a reformed understanding and in the context of the intense debates about the sacraments at the time of the reformation. Article XXVIII deals explicitly with the Lord’s Supper. It is crucial to keep in mind Article XXV which treats of the sacraments in general and makes the important point that they are “effectual signs of grace”; in other words, they effect what they signify. What is critical for the Anglican reformers is preserving the essential nature of the sacraments as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. What that means is the necessity of preserving the sign in relation to the thing signified and that requires maintaining the integrity of the natural in relation to the supernatural. This is the key point which shapes the Anglican Reformed understanding of the sacraments. Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.

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Prayers and liturgy

Henry Budd, Priest

The collect for today, the commemoration of Henry Budd (1814-75), first North American Indian to be ordained to the ministry in the Church of England, Missionary to the Cree nation (source):

The Rev. Henry BuddCreator of light, we offer thanks for thy priest Henry Budd, who carried the great treasure of Scripture to his people the Cree nation, earning their trust and love. Grant that his example may call us to reverence, orderliness and love, that we may give thee glory in word and action; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 5:13-18
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-21

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Prayers and liturgy

Lent Prose 2019

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

To thee, Redeemer, on thy throne of glory:
lift we our weeping eyes in holy pleadings:
listen, O Jesu, to our supplications.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

O thou chief cornerstone, right hand of the Father: way of salvation, gate of life celestial:
cleanse thou our sinful souls from all defilement.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

God, we implore thee, in thy glory seated:
bow down and hearken to thy weeping children: pity and pardon all our grievous trespasses.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

Sins oft committed, now we lay before thee:
with true contrition, now no more we veil them:
grant us, Redeemer, loving absolution.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

Innocent captive, taken unresisting:
falsely accused, and for us sinners sentenced,
save us, we pray thee, Jesu, our Redeemer.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51.17

Lord, for thy tender mercies’ sake, lay not our sins to our charge; But forgive that is past, and give us grace to amend our sinful lives; To decline from sin, and incline to virtue; That we may walk with a perfect heart before thee, now and evermore. (BCP, Penitential Service, p. 614)

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, p. 138)

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