Christ Church

To mask or not to mask?

To mask or not to mask? That is the question. I have to confess that I approach Halloween with a certain degree of trepidation, with a sense of uncertainty and unease about what we are doing and what it means. Ambiguity lies at the heart of the secular forms of Halloween albeit in different ways than what belongs to the festival, historically and spiritually speaking. The common ground to some extent is the blurring of boundaries which may (I stress the conditional) help us to think more fully about what it means to be human. The boundaries between human and nature, between human and animal, between human and machine, between male and female, between the living and the dead, between the grotesque and the cute, between the safe and the threatening in the frisson of the scary, are all deliberately blurred. Some people apparently like being frightened. All these things point to something more than our quotidian  experiences.

Halloween, literally speaking, means All Hallows’ Eve, the eve of the medieval Christian Feast of All Saints. All Hallows means All Saints, all the hallowed ones. The Lord’s prayer helps to make the point. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” we say at every chapel service. “Hallowed be thy name” means “holy be your name,” the idea of the holy which we explored last week in terms of the idea of holy spaces, places set aside for what has meaning. Halloween, religiously speaking, refers to the idea of the Holy and of our calling to be holy. It speaks in other words to the end or purpose of our humanity, something wonderfully captured in the Communion of Saints, the company of the holy ones who embody the hopes and dreams and aspirations of our humanity in its truth, a truth found in God.

The masks of this week are ambiguous. The mask or costume you wear either reveals or conceals some aspect of your personality. Take heed! This inherent ambiguity is the best part of the idea of a masquerade. What does this representation really mean? If someone dresses up as Winnie-the-Pooh is that a Christopher Robin fantasy, a comfortable childhood memory, or a mocking of Xi Jinping? Because of the latter references to the Winnie-the-Pooh are banned in China. But who knows? Who can say? The lines of meaning are blurred. There is a necessary gap between the appearance and the reality.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, the commemoration of James Hannington (1847-85), first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Missionary to Uganda, Martyr (source):

Precious in your sight, O Lord,
is the death of your martyrs
James Hannington and his companions,
who purchased with their blood a road into Uganda
for the proclamation of the gospel;
and we pray that with them
we also may obtain the crown of righteousness
which is laid up for all
who love the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 3:14-18,22
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:16-22

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude, Apostles, with Saint Jude the Brother of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect for the Brethren of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

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. Jude 1-4
The Gospel: St. John 14:21-27

In the various New Testament lists of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13), the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon and Judas son of James, also called Thaddaeus.

To distinguish Simon from Simon Peter, Matthew and Mark refer to him as Simon the Cananaean, while Luke refers to him as Simon the Zealot. Both surnames have the same signification and are a translation of the Hebrew qana (the Zealous). The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call. The translation of Matthew and Mark as Simon “the Canaanite” (as, e.g., KJV has it) is simply mistaken.

The New Testament contains a variety of names for the apostle Jude: Matthew and Mark refer to Thaddaeus (a variant reading of Matthew has “Lebbaeus called Thaddaeus”), while Luke calls him Judas son of James. Christian tradition regards Saint Jude and Saint Thaddaeus as different names for the same person. The various names are understood as efforts to avoid associating Saint Jude with the name of the traitor Judas Iscariot. The only time words of Jude are recorded, in St. John 14:22-23, the Evangelist is quick to add “(not Iscariot)” after his name.

Read the rest of this entry »

That you may know

Know what? Today’s readings make it abundantly clear that there are things which Jesus wants us to know. They are the things that belong to our being known by God, to the being of our life with God and in God. The idea of the ethical, of the Good, informs and shapes our thinking and our doing. This is one of the great insights of the religious and philosophical traditions of the world and something which we do well to reclaim. It is, perhaps, the only real counter to the ways in which we manipulate nature and one another and which are so destructive of human personality, the human community, and our world. And that is where these readings come into play; literally, we might say, they are about death and resurrection in and through forgiveness.

In the reading from Ephesians, Paul speaks directly about what we have learned in Christ that is transformative in terms of our behaviours and actions. “You have not so learned Christ,” he is saying, if you remain “in the vanity of [your] mind,” in “the darkness” of your “understanding,” in “ignorance” of God, in “hardness of heart,” in hedonism, in “all uncleanness with greediness.” Not a bad summary of the compulsions and challenges that all of us confront in ourselves and in our lives. What is wanted is to be “renewed in the spirit of [our] minds.” How? By virtue of “the truth that is in Jesus” and what follows from that, namely, the qualities of Christ alive in us. It means putting off “the old manhood” and putting on “the new manhood” which is nothing less than Christ in us. Paul here provides some very specific situations or conditions of soul that capture us all in the negative,  only to then provide the antidotes to encourage us all in terms of the radical meaning of our life in Christ.

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice,” he says. Isn’t that only too true? Especially the part about  “all malice,” that dreadful feature of wanting the injury of others? But then, he opens us out to our life in Christ. “Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” These are not empty platitudes of mere moralizing. The Gospel shows us the radical significance of forgiveness.

Forgiveness. This is what Jesus, above all else, it seems, wants us to know. It is what Paul, too, has grasped. Jesus is the forgiveness of sins without whom we cannot forgive one another. Forgiveness is a divine quality realized in our human lives through the grace of Christ. It is transformative. It is touching and powerfully moving as we see in the Gospel. A paralyzed man is brought by his friends to Jesus. It is as if he were dead, unable to move. They seek the healing of their friend sensing something powerful and divine in Jesus. “And Jesus, seeing their faith,” speaks to the man who is paralyzed. His words are astounding. “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee.” Words of forgiveness. The greatest problems of our humanity are found in our souls.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, October 28th
4:45-5:15pm World Religions – Rm. 206, KES
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, October 29th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Friday, November 1st, All Saints’ Day
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, November 3rd, Twentieth Sunday after Trinity / In the Octave of All Saints
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Monday, November 11th, Remembrance Day services
11:00am Windsor Cenotaph followed by service at KES Cenotaph

Saturday, November 16th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Ham Supper

Saturday, November 23rd
7:00-9:00pm Nfld & Country Evening of Musical Entertainment

Sunday, December 8th
4:00pm Advent Lessons & Carols with KES.

I regret to inform you that Capella Regalis will not be able to come to Windsor this year.

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

O GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:17-32
The Gospel: St. Matthew 9:1-8

Artwork: Anthony Van Dyck, Christ Healing the Paralytic, c. 1619. Oil on canvas, Royal Trust Collection, Buckingham Palace, London.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Alfred the Great (849-899), King of the West Saxons, Scholar (source):

O God our maker and redeemer,
we beseech thee of thy great mercy
and by the power of thy holy cross
to guide us by thy will and to shield us from our foes,
that, following the example of thy servant Alfred,
we may inwardly love thee above all things;
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: Wisdom 6:1-3,9-12,24-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:43-49

Artwork: Alfred King of England, stained glass, Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London. Photograph taken by admin 20 October 2014.

The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, on the Feast of St. Cedd (c. 620-664), Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Cedd to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 17:22-31
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-16

The collect for a Martyr, on the Feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian, Martyrs (d. c. 285), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who didst bestow upon thy Saints such marvellous virtue, that they were able to stand fast, and have the victory against the world, the flesh, and the devil: Grant that we, who now commemorate thy Martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, may ever rejoice in their fellowship, and also be enabled by thy grace to fight the good fight of faith and lay hold upon eternal life; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Crispin and Crispinian are believed to have been brothers and Roman noblemen martyred for their faith during the persecution of Emperor Maximian.

Artwork: Kerstgen van Ringenberch, Altarpiece of Sts. Crispin and Crispinian, 1510, St. Nicholas Church, Kalkar, Germany.

You are standing on holy ground

“Put off your shoes from your feet; for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” What do we mean by holy spaces? Morning after morning we meet in Chapel. It is “holy ground.” Why? Because of what Exodus 3 presents to us. It is, we might say, the quintessential story for the understanding of sacred or holy spaces.

It would be hard to overestimate the significance of the story of ‘the burning bush’ in which God reveals himself to Moses not only as “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” but, more importantly, as “I Am Who I Am,” the universal principle of all reality, of the being and the knowing of all things, we might say, philosophically speaking. Here is the defining moment for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What is that? The principle of ethical monotheism.

We are going to spend some time with the Book of Exodus. Not only does the idea of ‘exodus’ belong to the project of education – the idea of our going out from ourselves into a larger understanding of things – but the book itself is, I suggest, an ethical treatise to be considered alongside Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Ethics. In a world where some political leaders think they are above the law, we need to reclaim an understanding of the ethical upon which law fundamentally depends. The ethical is about what is the good from which we might begin to determine what is right to do. The legal depends upon the ethical and not the other way around. The Book of Exodus teaches us much about the ethical and connects to a whole world of philosophical and religious thinking about what is good and what is right.

The story of the burning bush is definitive for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It is about ‘Revelation,’ the idea that things are made known to us through what is seen and heard so as to be understood. Here we have a story which is the premise and presupposition of the Genesis story of creation. A bush burns and yet is not consumed. That is not natural. Exactly. That is the whole point. It is entirely about revealing the prior principle upon which the world as any sort of intelligible reality ultimately depends. God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush to reveal himself, not just in terms of particular and tribal identities – read our current identity politics – but in terms of something utterly universal, the famous ‘name’ of God as “I Am Who I Am.”

Read the rest of this entry »