Month: November 2020

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):

St. Michael’s Church, Ghent, S. Edmundus RexO 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

Edmund 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: S. Edmundus Rex, stained glass, St. Michael’s Church, Ghent. Photograph taken by admin, 11 October 2014.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 November

Thy word is a lantern unto my feet

The Psalms are the songs of the Hebrew Scriptures but also shape the hymnody and song traditions of the Christian Church. We may not be allowed to sing in Chapel but we can say the psalms which provide such a rich commentary and reflection upon the powerful ethical teachings presented to us in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and which connect as well to the wisdom and understanding of other philosophical and religious traditions. That is especially the case, it seems to me, with Psalm 119 in relation to the profound wisdom of the Ten Commandments; in short, the Law.

Psalm 119 is the longest psalm and indeed the longest chapter in the whole of the scriptures. It is made up of twenty-two stanzas of eight verses each for a total of one hundred and seventy-six verses. The first word in each stanza begins in order with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet which consists of twenty-two letters. Every verse contains words which signify the Law – the various synonyms in the King James version are word, precepts, commandments, statutes, testimonies, judgements. The whole psalm is an extended meditation on God as Word in whose Law we find our delight and our freedom; in other words, our good.

This meditation on God’s Word or Law looks back to the Torah, the first five books or scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures, at the center of which are the Ten Commandments delivered by God to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. Israel in the wilderness is the theme of the Book of Exodus, a going out of slavery in Egypt and into the freedom of service to God. Something is learned in the wilderness journeyings of the people of Israel, all their murmuring, complaining, (or kvetching to use a wonderful Yiddish word) notwithstanding. The freedom is the Law, the will of God for our humanity. The Ten Commandments are light and freedom.

This challenges our negative view of law as restraint and limitation and the assumption that freedom means doing just whatever you want or think you want to do. The very idea of the Ten Commandments counters the childish and adolescent commonplace of ‘you’re not the boss of me’ kind of attitude. To the contrary, the Ten Commandments are our freedom and truth. They are not a random  list of proscriptions or prescriptions; they embody a comprehensive understanding of the nature of our obligations and duties towards God and one another and as such articulate the truth of ourselves as responsible and rational agents. There are ten – no more no less. There is nothing to be taken away from nor added to them. They are complete, comprehensive, and compelling in their logic and form.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hilda, Abbess

St. Hilda Ashford, St. HildaThe collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilda (614-680), Abbess of Whitby (source):

O eternal God,
who madest the abbess Hilda to shine as a jewel in England
and through her holiness and leadership
didst bless thy Church with newness of life and unity:
so assist us by thy grace
that we, like her, may yearn for the gospel of Christ
and bring reconciliation to those who are divided;
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: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 19:27-29

Artwork: St. Hilda, stained glass, St. Hilda’s Church, Ashford, England.

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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

Joseph Noel Paton, Queen Margaret and King Malcom CanmoreSt. 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):

Jan Erasmus Quellinus, Miracle of Saint Hugh of LincolnO 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: Jan Erasmus Quellinus, Miracle of Saint Hugh of Lincoln, first half of 17th century. Oil on canvas, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity

Link to the audio file of Matins & Ante-Communion for Trinity 23

Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s;
and unto God the things that are God’s

This ethical teaching speaks directly to the nature of our obligations towards one another and towards God. It seems straightforward and clear but as with most ethical teachings it is more about a way of thinking and acting regardless of circumstance and situation. Hence it is necessarily challenging. It is a kind of Solomonic judgment akin to Jesus’ equally famous words in the story of the woman taken in adultery: “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” In other words, this ethical teaching calls us to account with respect to the love of God and the love of neighbour. It is about a distinction within a unity like the two tablets of the Law, the Ten Commandments. Duties to one another are bound up in our duties to God. Such things belong to self-knowledge.

But what does that mean in our post-Christian culture and world? This New Testament saying becomes a critical part of a later discourse about the relationship between the sacred and the secular which plays out in such different ways at different times. There is, for example, Ambrose’s rebuke of the Emperor Theodosius, or the Investiture Controversy of the Middle Ages, or the Erastian mode where the church is a department of the state with or without restrictions on its teaching. Theology and politics are more often than not bound up with one another as the phrase cuius regio eius religiowhich defined early modern Europe reminds us – ‘whosever the region his the religion.’ But here in North America, Christ’s words usually refer to the so-called separation between church and state which is mostly misunderstood. In its modern and particularly American context, that separation means nothing more than that no ecclesiastical denomination, religious organisation or group would have any privileged standing politically speaking. In other words, no established church, state sponsored and with a certain special status. It doesn’t mean no religion or no sense of the idea of God or of ethical commitments. It is an endeavour to counter the sectarian forms of religion that have sometimes contributed to division and hatred.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 November

Tuesday, November 17th
7:00m Christ Church Book Club: Notre-Dame: A Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals (2019) by Ken Follett and The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (2011) by David McCulloch.

Sunday, November 22nd, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Holy Communion – KES Chapel

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity

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

O GOD, our refuge and strength, who art the author of all godliness: Be ready, we beseech thee, to hear the devout prayers of thy Church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 3:17-21
The Gospel: St Matthew 22:15-22

Giovanni Serodine, The Tribute MoneyArtwork: Giovanni Serodine, The Tribute Money, c. 1620-30. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

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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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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 11 November

Greater love  hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends

The sacred feast of All Saints informs and shapes the secular observances known as Remembrance Day. The Octave of All Saints includes the Solemnity of All Souls. On the one hand, we are reminded of the spiritual community of our common humanity; on the other hand, we remember our common mortality. In particular, we try to remember those who gave their lives in the great and defining events of the 19th and 20th century. It is a serious and sombre kind of remembering. And difficult.

Why is it difficult? Partly because our human memories are so feeble and fragile, finite and incomplete. At best, as the Octave of All Saints so profoundly teaches, they are joined to God’s eternal remembering and loving of all saints and all souls. In the time of scattered leaves and in the culture of scattered souls, there is a gathering, a remembering which is nothing less than the return to God of all that has gone forth from God. That return is about fellowship, about a kind of community in which together we live for what is greater than ourselves without which we cannot be a self. As such the remembering too is about character.

The transition from the sacred to the secular is complementary not oppositional. The great text read on Monday and Tuesday of this week complements and intensifies the readings we heard last week. In a powerful passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus, who has identified himself as the vine in whom we have our abiding in the love of God, tells us that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. The phrase adorns a thousand cenotaphs in communities throughout our land. A cenotaph is an empty tomb, a poignant reminder that not even their bodies were able to be returned to their communities, homes, and families.

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