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
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
Artwork: Giovanni Serodine, The Tribute Money, c. 1620-30. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.
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 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.
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.
A prayer of The Very Rev Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), Dean of York:
O 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.
This memorial tablet to the British Empire dead of the First World War was unveiled in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, Brussels, on 27 July 1927. Photograph taken by admin, 14 October 2014.
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
One 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, in Amiens, France, came the famous incident portrayed in the statue seen here.
On a cold winter day, he met a beggar at the city gates. 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.
This Gospel question complements and even intensifies the teaching which is at the heart of the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The various readings provided for the Octave of All Saints along with the readings for today have very much to do with mercy. You get what you give, but if we are not merciful? Then there can be no mercy for us. As with all of the Beatitudes, the question is about what is moving in us. The question is about the inner qualities of soul, about the matters of character. What kind of person are you?
As such these readings speak to the contemporary confusions about the self and show us once again that the knowledge of the self is bound up with the knowledge of God. Character is about our lives as lived for something greater than ourselves without which we cannot be a self. Mercy lies at the heart of the story even in the denial of mercy.
Mercy is not about being nice. This is one of the common misconceptions about mercy. Being nice doesn’t really mean much of anything. A more serious misconception is to suppose that mercy overrides justice, that mercy and justice somehow stand in opposition to each other. One of the readings provided for services in the Octave and on patronal festivals is the Matthaean Apocalypse. It is a vision that seems to be harsh and judgemental in the separation of the sheep and the goats but really belongs to the mercy of being called to account. It provides the scriptural basis of what becomes the seven works of corporal mercy. In being called to account we discover that our actions towards one another reveal our relation to God. “Inasmuch as ye have done this to one of the least of these my brethren,” Jesus says, “ye have done it also unto me.” Our actions reveal our hearts and minds. That is exactly the point of the Gospel of the unforgiving servant. It is an example from the negative about the importance and the necessity of showing mercy.
Tuesday, November 10th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Sunday, November 15th, Trinity 23
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Event:
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.
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
Artwork: Claude Vignon, The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, 1629. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Willibrord (658-739), Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle to the Frisians, Patron Saint of the Netherlands (source):
O Lord our God, who dost call whom thou willest and send them whither thou choosest: We thank thee for sending thy servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve thee, the living God; and we entreat thee to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of thy service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The Lesson: Acts 1:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-9
Artwork: St. Willibrord, altarpiece, Abbey of Echternach, Luxembourg.
