Month: May 2019

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 6 – 12 May

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

Thursday, May 9th
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, May 10th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, May 11th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Lobster Supper

Sunday, May 12th, The Third Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, May 14th
6:30pm Evening Service with KES 254 Cadet Corps

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After Easter

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

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St .Peter 2:19-25
The Gospel: St. John 10:11-16

Cristóbal García Salmerón, The Good ShepherdArtwork: Cristóbal García Salmerón, The Good Shepherd, c. 1640. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Monnica, Matron

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Monnica (c. 331-387), mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo (source):

O faithful God,
who didst strengthen Monica, the mother of Augustine,
with wisdom,
and by her steadfast endurance
didst draw him to seek after thee:
grant us to be constant in prayer
that those who stray from thee may be brought to faith
in thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 1:10-11,20
The Gospel: St. Luke 7:11-17

Pietro Maggi, The Angel Appears to St. MonicaArtwork: Pietro Maggi, The Angel Appears to St. Monica, 1714. Oil on canvas, Chapel of St. Augustine, San Marco, Milan.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 1 May

Come and have breakfast!

The accounts of the Resurrection in John’s Gospel are most intriguing. They provide much in the way of specific detail. They all turn on the idea of how we come to know and show us that process of a dawning awareness about how we come to see things in a completely new way that illumines the past and sets us in motion.

First, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb seeking a body and encounters the Risen Christ whom she mistakes as the gardener! She is told by Christ  not to touch but to go and proclaim to the others that “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God,” words which echo Ruth’s sense of the universality of God as the counter to a merely tribal or personal attachment to a deity or principle. Hence, don’t cling to me, Jesus is saying to her. She is to know him in a new and more universal way that doesn’t negate the personal but enlarges it.

Second, Christ appears behind closed doors and makes himself known to the disciples and especially Thomas, to whom he says “touch and see!” In other words, the mystery of the Resurrection is made known to us in ways that correspond to the different ways of our knowing, ways that honour our individuality and embodied experiences. Peace and forgiveness flow out of the Resurrection of Christ; they are the forms of the Resurrection in us even in the places and circumstances of fear and uncertainty. It is peace and forgiveness now and not by and by.

Third, Christ appears to the disciples on the beach while they are fishing. This last scene is particularly intriguing. It begins with the disciples not recognising Jesus who bids them cast their net on the other side of the boat where they enclose a great number of fishes, indeed, one hundred and fifty three. An awful amount of ink has been spilt in various speculations about the significance of this very precise number. For mathematicians it holds interest as the triangular number of seventeen but what is its symbolic meaning remains unclear. When they do recognise him, he invites them to breakfast; a barbecue on the beach with Jesus. “Come and have breakfast!”

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Prayers and liturgy

Athanasius, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Church (source):

Ever-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:5-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:23-28

Francesco Solimena, St. AthanasiusSaint Athanasius is one of the most inspiring leaders of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.

Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under the orthodox Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.

Athanasius became bishop in 328 at age 33 and spent the next five decades fighting for Nicene orthodoxy. For his troubles, he was deposed and exiled five times, spending a total of seventeen years in flight and hiding, often shielded by the people of Alexandria. Six years of exile were spent in Rome, where he gained the strong support of the Western church, and another six years were spent under the protection of monks in the Egyptian desert.

He was finally able to return to Alexandria in 365 and spent the final years of his life bolstering orthodoxy, which ultimately triumphed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles

The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14

Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, St. PhilipHoly Trinity, Sloane Square, St. James

Artwork: Saint Philip (left) and Saint James (right), stained glass, Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London. Photographs taken by admin, 20 October 2014.

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