Month: November 2019

Prayers and liturgy

Edmund, King and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Edmund (841-869), King of the East Angles, Martyr (source):

O eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with thee and with his people,
and glorified thee by his death:
grant us the same steadfast faith,
that, together with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to the perfect joy of the resurrection life;
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: 1 St. Peter 3:14-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:16-22

James Redfern, St. Edmund the MartyrEdmund was raised a Christian and became king of the East Angles as a young boy, probably when 14 years old. In 869 the Danes invaded his territory and defeated his forces in battle.

According to Edmund’s first biographer, Abbo of Fleury, the Danes tortured the saint to death after he refused to renounce his faith and rule as a Danish vassal. He was beaten, tied to a tree and pierced with arrows, and then beheaded.

His body was originally buried near the place of his death and subsequently transferred to Baedericesworth, modern Bury St. Edmunds. His shrine became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in England, but it was destroyed and his remains lost during the English Reformation.

The cult of St. Edmund became very popular among English nobility because he exemplified the ideals of heroism, political independence, and Christian holiness. The Benedictine Abbey founded at Bury St. Edmunds in 1020 became one of the greatest in England.

Click here to read Fr. David Curry’s sermon for the Feast of St. Edmund.

Artwork: James Redfern, St. Edmund the Martyr, 1867-69. West Front, Salisbury Cathedral.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity

“How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?”

Peter’s question is very much our question, especially in a culture of retaliation and revenge, at a time of polarizing oppositions and the politics of power for power’s sake. Shylock’s great speech in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice calls attention to certain features of our common humanity, including, sadly, revenge. “Hath not a Jew eyes? … hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?… If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Revenge, starkly put, seems to be a certain kind of justice, a getting back at those who have wronged us, tit for tat, as it were. “If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why revenge!”

And yet, as Shakespeare shows us, revenge is not only a limited form of justice but actually a betrayal of justice. “The villainy you teach me,” Shylock says,”I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.” In other words, we don’t just want to get back, we want to dominate and destroy; in short, to “better the instruction.” We cannot overlook the critical irony. Neither Jew nor Christian, nor Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or any of the philosophical religious traditions should seek revenge; for revenge betrays and destroys our humanity. It is an aspect of our fallen humanity; common, sadly enough, to us all. The play turns on the question of the relation of justice and mercy where “mercy seasons justice”, in other words, perfects justice. The highest form of justice is charity and that is something divine moving in us if we are open to exactly what this Gospel story shows. It is nothing less than a lesson about “the mercies of Christ” and the abundance of his love in us, if we will let it rule and move in us. At issue is the conditional “if”. And if not? Such is the picture of the unforgiving servant, himself a study in self-contradiction.

The Gospel illustrates the point that Portia makes in the play, namely, “that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.” We all stand in need of mercy. The question is about how we come to recognise that common need without which self-interest or the bitter revenge of the self dominates and destroys. The Gospel seeks to awaken us to the significance of mercy. Christ’s parable convicts our conscience with the picture of self-contradiction. With the words of forgiveness still ringing in his ears, the servant who was forgiven a great debt refuses to forgive one who owes him a paltry sum. He had sought mercy and received it but when another asked mercy from him he refused it. “We do pray for mercy,” Portia says, “and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.” This Gospel is a powerful indictment of our humanity in its hard-heartedness and selfish disregard for what belongs to our common life. But it does so only to awaken us to the divine mercy which redeems and perfects our humanity in and through our common life. If we will act out of what is given to us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 18 – 24 November

Monday, November 18th
4:45-5:15pm World Religions – Rm. 206, KES
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, November 19th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China & Zhang Weiwei’s The China Wave: Rise of A Civilizational State

Friday, November 22nd
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, November 23rd
10:30am Mass at St. George’s, Halifax: Fr. Curry celebrating, followed by PBSC NSPEI meeting.
7:00-9:00pm Nfld. & Country Evening of Musical Entertainment (honouring Dorothy Rogers on her 80th birthday) – Parish Hall

Sunday, November 24th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

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

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Second Sunday After Trinity

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

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy house hold the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 18:21-35

Willem Drost, The Unmerciful ServantArtwork: Willem Drost, The Unmerciful Servant, 1655. Oil on canvas, Wallace Collection, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Margaret, Queen

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Margaret (1046-1093), Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church (source):

O God, the ruler of all,
who didst call thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gavest to her both zeal for thy Church and love for thy people,
that she might advance thy heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints;
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: Proverbs 31:10-11, 20, 26, 28
The Gospel: St Matthew 13:44-52

Douglas Strachan, Saint MargaretSt. Margaret was born in Hungary to a Saxon noble family in exile. In 1057, she and her family were able to return to England, but they were forced to move to Scotland following William the Conqueror’s invasion in 1066. A few years later, the princess Margaret married Malcolm Canmore, King of the Scots, in Dunfermline.

Queen Margaret was married to Malcolm for almost twenty-five years; her death followed his by only a few days. She bore six sons and two daughters. Three sons ruled as kings of Scotland—Edgar, Alexander I, and David I (later saint)—while a daughter, Matilda, became the queen of Henry I of England.

Margaret, an inspirational monarch of great Christian devotion, undertook many works of charity. She protected orphans, provided for the poor, visited prisoners in her husband’s dungeons, cleansed the sores of lepers, and washed the feet of beggars. She encouraged and enabled the founding of monasteries, churches, and hostels. Her excellent education served Scotland well, for under her influence the Scottish court became known as a place of culture and learning.

An advocate of church reform, Margaret supported revival of observances that had lapsed into disuse, including Lenten fasts, Easter communion, and refraining from work on Sundays. She also had Iona re-built following its destruction by Viking raiders.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hugh, Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hugh (1135-1200), Bishop of Lincoln (source):

Kathleen Connor, St. HughO God,
who didst endow thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and didst teach him to commend to earthly rulers
the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Titus 2:7-8,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Artwork: Kathleen Connor, St. Hugh, mid-20th century processional banner, Lincoln Cathedral.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 13 November

They desire a better country

The reading in Chapel on Tuesday from Hebrews 11 & 12 provided an opportunity for further reflection on the significance of Remembrance Day, something which perhaps we are only beginning to understand. It is really about contemplating the devastations and destructiveness of the technology of war in its global extent, on the one hand, and the idea of sacrificial love, on the other hand. These are ethical considerations about the overarching nature of the Good. Contemplating the miseries of our humanity in its destructive disarray actually belongs to our felicity, to blessedness, such as the Beatitudes show.

In a post-Christian, and even anti-Christian, culture and even more in the climate of anti-intellectualism, I am struck by the paradox of the hold that an older and principled ethical and philosophical discourse still has in our current world. “They desire a better country” is the motto of the Order of Canada, the highest honorific in our country. The phrase comes from the King James Version of Hebrews, itself translated into English in the 16th and  17th centuries from the Greek. The motto has been latinized (but not by reference to the Latin Vulgate translation): Desiderantes meliorem patriam.

That idea of a desire for a better country catapults our thinking into a reflection upon the Good and to the ways in which the ethical shapes our thoughts and actions. This is a fundamental feature of the great philosophical and religious traditions of the world. It is about the challenge of acting in accord with virtue as Aristotle says. The traditions of moral philosophy presuppose our openness to what is transcendent, to what comes into us through, for example, illumination, purgation, and perfection that belong to our lives as “strangers and pilgrims” seeking “a better country, that is an heavenly.” We are reminded of “a great cloud of witnesses” of those who have sought to will the good and were willing to sacrifice themselves for principles and ideals which they considered worth dying for because they belong to what dignifies life.

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Prayers and liturgy

Charles Simeon, Pastor

The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles Simeon (1759-1836), Priest, Evangelical Divine (source):

O eternal God,
who didst raise up Charles Simeon
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ
and inspire thy people in service and mission:
grant that we, with all thy Church, may worship the Saviour,
turn away in true repentance from our sins
and walk in the way of holiness;
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: Romans 10:8b-17
The Gospel: St. John 21:15-19

Charles SimeonCharles Simeon served as vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, from 1782 until his death. His zealous evangelical preaching was bitterly opposed by parish leaders, but proved immensely popular and influential among Cambridge undergraduates. He supported the British and Foreign Bible Society and helped to found the Church Missionary Society. His curate Henry Martyn became chaplain of the East India Company and one of India’s best-known missionaries.

Historian Lord Macaulay wrote of him, “If you knew what his authority and influence were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners of England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was far greater than that of any primate.”

A meditation on the life of Charles Simeon, by John Piper, is posted here.

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Prayers and liturgy

Remembrance Day Prayer

A prayer of The Very Rev. Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), Dean of York:

Lest We ForgetO Lord our God, whose name only is excellent and thy praise above heaven and earth: We give thee high praise and hearty thanks for all those who counted not their lives dear unto themselves but laid them down for their friends; beseeching thee to give them a part and a lot in those good things which thou has prepared for all those whose names are written in the Book of Life; and grant to us, that having them always in remembrance, we may imitate their faithfulness and with them inherit the new name which thou has promised to them that overcome; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Source: Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2004.

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Prayers and liturgy

Martin of Tours

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Martin (c. 316-397), Monk, Bishop of Tours (source):

Almighty God,
who didst call Martin from the armies of this world
to be a faithful soldier of Christ:
give us grace to follow him
in his love and compassion for those in need,
and empower thy Church to claim for all people
their inheritance as the children of God;
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: Isaiah 58:6-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:34-40

Harry Clarke, St. Martin of ToursOne of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, Martin was born to pagan parents and, although intending to become a Christian, followed his father into the Roman army.

About three years later, on a cold winter day, he met a beggar at the city gates of Amiens, France. Drawing his sword, he cut his military cloak in two and gave half to the man. In a dream that night, he saw Christ wearing the half-cloak he had given away and saying, “Martin, yet a catechumen, has covered me with his garment”. Martin was baptised shortly thereafter.

After being discharged from the army, he met St. Hilary at Poitiers upon the latter’s return from exile in 360. Hilary provided a piece of land where Martin founded the first monastic community in Gaul. He lived there for ten years until 371, when he reluctantly accepted a call from the people of Tours to become their bishop.

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