Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Sunday called Septuagesima.

Go ye also into the vineyard”

It is a suggestive and powerful image that belongs to the essential qualities of the itinerarium or spiritual journey of the soul upon which we embark this Sunday known as Septuagesima Sunday. Along with the other ‘gesima’ Sundays, it seems that we turn to the landscape of creation, literally to the vineyard, to the ground, and to the road near Jericho. Yet in all these ‘gesima’ Sundays, we are being turned to Jerusalem, to the image of the heavenly city, the city of God, in which the true yearnings of the soul are realized. What follows immediately from today’s Gospel, for instance, is Matthew’s account of what we have in the Gospel from Luke on Quinquagesima Sunday about “going up to Jerusalem” and which continues on to form the Gospel for Passion Sunday from Matthew.

In every way, these ‘gesima’ Sundays belong to the spiritual pilgrimage of Lent. As such they speak directly to the forms of spiritual discipline necessary to the quintessential itinerary of the soul to God. Something is required of us. The spiritual journey is an activity of the soul in relation to God imagined here in terms of our relation to nature, to the landscape of creation, presented as a vineyard in which we labour.

As the Epistle teaches, that labour requires self-mastery or temperance in terms of the ultimate goal which is not a perishable or “a corruptible crown” but “an incorruptible”. What we strive and labour for is not something transitory and passing but everlasting. Such is the true yearning of the soul. “For it has become clear,” as Boethius puts it in his itinerary of the soul, The Consolation of Philosophy, “that all perfect things are prior to the less perfect.” All our desires are but shadows of the human longing for what is absolute, the great all-good, as it were.

Thus the ‘gesima’ Sundays are more than mere prelude to the play of Lent and are really part of the Lenten pilgrimage but with a certain sensibility about the land; in short to our relation to the land. But vineyards? Hardly so, it might seem, in the cold of January, however much vineyards have become such a distinctive feature of Nova Scotia, particularly here in the Valley. But in looking to Jerusalem in the itinerary of these ‘gesima’ Lenten Sundays, we look to the spring of our souls even in the throes of winter.

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Tuesday, February 2nd, Candlemas
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, February 7th, Sexagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion, followed by Annual Parish Meeting

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, February 16th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Christ Unabridged: Knowing and Loving the Son of Man: Essays (2020) and J.I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (1990)

Services to be held in the Parish Hall, January through March.

The collect for today, Septuagesima (or the Third Sunday Before Lent) from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
The Gospel: St. Matthew 20:1-16

Artwork: Andrey Mironov, The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, 2013. Oil on canvas. © Copyright Andrey Mirinov and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles I (1600-1649), King of England, Martyr (source):

King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for his persecutors
and died in the living hope of thine eternal kingdom:
grant us, by thy grace, so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

with the Epistle and Gospel for a Martyr:
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Artwork: Edward Bower, Charles I at his Trial, 1648. Oil on canvas, Royal Collection, Great Britain.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Preacher, Doctor of the Church, Archbishop of Constantinople (source):

O God of truth and love,
who gavest to thy servant John Chrysostom
eloquence to declare thy righteousness in the great congregation
and courage to bear reproach for the honour of thy name:
mercifully grant to the ministers of thy word
such excellence in preaching
that all people may share with them
in the glory that shall be revealed;
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: Jeremiah 1:4-10
The Gospel: St Luke 21:12-15

Artwork: Sebastiano del Piombo, St. John Chrysostom Altarpiece, 1510-11. Oil on canvas, San Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice.

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”

The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul more often than not falls within the scope of the Epiphany season. Paul’s phrase from Romans is part of the epistle reading for the First Sunday after the Epiphany. It captures an important feature of the Epiphany and indeed of the nature of Christian life. Epiphany as teaching, as education, and as healing is also about epiphany as conversion.

But about conversion there is no end of difficulties. We have perhaps a rather skeptical if not negative view of conversion particularly in terms of religion. Paradoxically, it is really much more a feature of contemporary culture in terms of the ‘woke’ generation demanding that things be said and thought about only in one way and in complete contempt for any other way. We assume that it means a radical break from one position to another and as such retains a sense of opposition. We forget or overlook the more interesting and more comprehensive character of conversion. It really involves two moments: first, repudiation, and second, recapitulation. In other words, the apparent dramatic change from one position to another leads to a reappraisal and a recapitulation of the former position, a way of transcending simply the oppositional.

The story of the Conversion of St. Paul, the so-called ‘Damascus road experience’, is told by Paul three times in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. In one sense, the story is personal and, in another sense, it is more universal. It belongs, I think, to the idea of epiphany as conversion in the sense of the break-through of the understanding. It is about coming to see things in a new and deeper way but that does not happen without a struggle, the struggle of the soul to grasp and understand. In other words, conversion is not a passive event, not something which just happens to us arbitrarily or inadvertently. It happens because of an intense struggle in the soul or mind. In this sense, conversion is an on-going affair. It belongs to education, to the constant transformation through the renewing of our minds, to use Paul’s pregnant, provocative and powerful phrase.

The word ‘transformation’ is literally metamorphosis, a radical change in our entire outlook and attitude of mind. That can happen dramatically or it can happen more gradually, it seems to me. Learning is about the activity of knowing in us that leads inescapably to changes in how we understand and see things. It means the willingness to see things differently, to challenge our assumptions and our attachments. This is wisdom; the realization of the problem about our attachments is a feature of the cultures of ancient Greece, of Confucianism, of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as a feature of the ascetic disciplines of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is intrinsic to the journey of the soul as a constant series of conversions of the mind to a deeper appreciation of truth. In other words, conversion is the dynamic of the mind’s engagement with the ideas that matter and which change us, the constant conversion to truth.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Apostolic Man, Martyr (source):

Almighty God,
who gavest to thy servant Polycarp
boldness to confess the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ
before the rulers of this world
and courage to suffer death for his faith:
grant that we too may be ready
to give an answer for the faith that is in us
and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 2:8-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 20:20-23

Church tradition holds that Polycarp was born c. AD 69 of Christian parents and was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who ordained him Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was arrested during a pagan festival in Smyrna (present-day Izmir, Turkey) and brought before the Roman pro-consul.

[W]hen the magistrate pressed him hard and said, “Swear the oath, and I will release you; revile the Christ,” Polycarp said, “Eighty-six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

But on his persisting again and saying, “Swear by the genius of Caesar,” he answered, “If you suppose vainly that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as you say, and feign that you are ignorant of who I am, hear you plainly: I am a Christian. But if you would learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and give me a hearing.”

He was burned at the stake for refusing to renounce Christ.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written down by the church of Smyrna and sent as a letter to the church at Philomelium. It is the first Christian martyrology. Several translations of the text can be accessed via this page.

Artwork: Martyrdom of St Polycarp, Church of St. Polycarp, Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Turkey.

The collect for today, the Feast of The Conversion of Saint Paul, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who, through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 21:40-22:16
The Gospel: St. Luke 21:10-19

Artwork: Adam Elsheimer, The Conversion of St. Paul, c. 1598. Oil on copper, Städel Museum, Frankfurt.

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after Epiphany.