Christ Church

“Their sound went out into all the earth,
and their words unto the end of the world.”

What are we to make of the saints? Where do they fit into the picture of Christian life? And how are we to understand the various commemorations of the saints in relation to the liturgical pattern of the Christian year? These are important questions which turn upon a number of different theological and ecclesiological concerns. At issue is the relationship between justification, sanctification, and glorification. The saints belong to that sense of our humanity as having an end in glory. “The glory of God is man fully alive,” as Irenaeus puts it, a powerful and arresting thought. The saints somehow speak to that idea of being “fully alive” which is nothing more than being alive to God, the fullness of life and glory. But the saints are by definition “the holy ones”. This connects to sanctification and thus to justification since their holiness and end in glory cannot be understood apart from God in Christ and Christ in them.

In the reformed traditions, illustrated, for example, in the calendar of the Anglican Canadian Prayer Book, and in the provisions for Saints’ Days, it is the figures from the New Testament who bear the sobriquet ‘Saint’. The  only exceptions are St. David of Wales, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. George of England, St. Denys of France, and in brackets, signifying its historical obscurity, St. Anne the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The exceptions bear witness to the emergence of the national states and churches in the post-medieval period and to the popular devotion to St. Anne, looking back to the Patristic period and subsequent medieval developments associated with Mary. The calendar distinguishes between what are known as “red letter days” and “black letter days”, the former commemorating New Testament figures and certain festivals of Christ such as the Transfiguration or Candlemas, at once The Presentation of Christ in the Temple and The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin. Red letter refers to their being written in red in both manuscript and early print books.

The reformed churches draw upon two things, the general New Testament view which sees the saints as belonging to the faithful community of believers, and the idea that holiness is our Christian vocation. They accept the idea of the New Testament saints as well as the common use of the term ‘saints’ for a great number of figures that belong to the pageant of the faith down to the reformed period and beyond but without an ecclesiastical process for the canonization of later figures in the life of the Church such as was developed in Roman Catholicism.  There is in this a certain reticence about the application of the sobriquet ‘saint’. In English, for instance, one never speaks of Jesus as ‘Saint Jesus’ apart from some hymns and devotions which call upon “Holy Jesus”. Instead the term ‘saint’ refers to those who in some way or another embody certain aspects of our life in Christ.

The Communion of Saints is the company of prayer and praise in which we participate and to which we belong in our prayer and praise to God, with God, and in God. In short, we are never alone in our prayers. The saints are integral to our life in the body of Christ which they embody in an exemplary manner such that we remember them as one with us in Christ. They embody the different qualities of spiritual perfection which have their fullness and unity in Christ.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay: Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 10:8-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:18-22

A native of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee, Andrew was a fisherman, the son of the fisherman John, and the brother of the fisherman Simon Peter. He was at first, along with John the Evangelist, a disciple of John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Christ led the two to follow Jesus. Andrew then took his brother Simon Peter to meet Jesus. In Eastern Orthodox tradition, St. Andrew is called the Protokletos (the First Called) because he is named as the first disciple summoned by Jesus into his service.

At first Andrew and Simon Peter continued to carry on their fishing trade, but the Lord later called them to stay with him all the time. He promised to make them fishers of men and, this time, they left their nets for good.

The only other specific reference to Andrew in the New Testament is at St. Mark 13:3, where he is one of those asking the questions that lead our Lord into his great eschatological discourse.

In the lists of the apostles that appear in the gospels, Andrew is always numbered among the first four. He is named individually three times in the Gospel of St. John. In addition to the story of his calling (John 1:35-42), he, together with Philip, presented the Gentiles to Christ (John 12:20-22), and he pointed out the boy with the loaves and fishes (John 6:8).

Read the rest of this entry »

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

“Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my path”

Advent signals the motion of God’s Word and Son coming to us. It is Revelation, something made known to us which is not simply a product of human reason but which is nonetheless given for thought and life. On the First Sunday of Advent we encounter the interplay of strong negatives and positives, the strong negatives and positives of God’s Word as Law and Light, the positive in the negative and the negative in the positive.

The Collect concentrates this for us in the complementary actions of “casting off” and “putting on”, echoing explicitly the Epistle reading from St. Paul, a movement from the ‘negatives’ of the Law to the “put[ting] on the armour of light”. Such are the positives of “walk[ing] honestly as in the day”, walking in the light of the Law understood in its fullness in Christ. “Put[ting] on the Lord Jesus Christ” is about us in Christ and Christ in us, the alpha and omega of our lives. This, in turn, is complemented by the Gospel but in the reverse order: going from the positives of Christ’s joyous  and triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the negatives of his “cast[ing] out all them that sold and bought in the temple; and over[throwing] the tables of the money-changers”. Love here appears as the wrath of Christ.

Such images belong to the dialectical nature of Revelation where the negatives are equally positive and vice-versa. What is revealed comes to us as light into the darkness of the world of human sin not simply as condemnation but as illumination and, as such, restoration; in short, as both negative and positive. Advent awakens us to the idea of embracing the coming of the light of God which does not extinguish and annihilate human reason and will but seeks their perfection in truth in its fullness. The Ten Commandments have as their end and purpose the charity or love which establishes friendship between one another in the human community and with God.

Aquinas, following Paul, argues that “the whole law is comprised in this one commandment, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’, as expressing the end of all commandments: because love of one’s neighbour includes love of God, when we love our neighbour for God’s sake”. This essentially captures “the summary of the Law”, on the one hand, and recognizes the priority of the ground of each of the Ten Commandments in the first commandment, “Thou shalt have none other gods but me”, on the other hand. “For the love of God”, Aquinas says,  “is the reason for the love of neighbour. Hence the precepts ordaining man to God take precedence over the others” (ST. I-II, 100). There is a complete order of thought to the Ten Commandments; yet in a way they are an explication of the radical meaning of the first commandment about God. They have their unity in the God who reveals himself to Moses out of the burning bush not just in terms of tribal, cultural, ethnic and religious identities, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but as the universal principle of all reality, I AM WHO I AM.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday, November 30th, St. Andrew’s Day
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme I

Sunday, December 5th, Second Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Advent, being the Fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 13:8-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 21:1-13

Artwork: Valentin de Boulogne, Expulsion of the Money-changers, c. 1620-25. Oil on canvas, Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Law is freedom

The Ten Commandments read in Chapel this week present in a concise and clear way the universal moral code of our humanity and mark the climax of the Exodus, itself a journey of ethical education. They are the core teachings that underlie a multitude of laws and regulations that arise over time in various situations and circumstances. In this sense, the idea of the Law differs from regulations which bind and limit. The Law in contrast liberates. Regulations belong and apply to local conditions and are arbitrary and alterable, cultural and relative to context. The Law, on the other hand, transcends the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic, to speak to matters which are in principle universal.

Our reflection on the Ten Commandments follows logically upon the Revelation of God as “I AM WHO I AM” to Moses out of the burning bush and complements the idea of the interaction between the different forms of our knowing. Revelation engages our minds. Thus the Ten Commandments are grounded in the metaphysical revelation of God as the principle prior to all forms of knowing and being. They move us from that idea of God to the making known of the will of God for our humanity. They are revelation but they are equally a complete system of ethical thinking. They begin with the “I AM WHO I AM” who leads us out of what constrains and limits our humanity.

“I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. This is the preface to the giving of the Ten Commandments which are not numbered per se in the text (there are two different traditions about the way they are numbered – more about that later). “I am the Lord thy God” is a circumlocution for saying in effect, “I am the I AM WHO I AM, thy God”. This follows upon the story of the burning bush where God says to Moses say to the people of Israel “I AM has sent me to you”. And why? Because God has seen the affliction of his people and undertakes their deliverance, in this case from Egyptian slavery.

Even more, the Ten Commandments are about a greater liberation that counters the limits of cultural relativism which denies any abiding truth to any law – all laws become merely regulations, arbitrary and alterable and as such subject to the misuse and abuse of power. The Law is not only liberation from what limits and enslaves but a liberation to a principle in which our humanity finds its truest expression, its dignity and freedom. With the Ten Commandments, the ideas of freedom and dignity have real content and are not merely slogans bandied about under the guise of coercion and social conformity.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for a virgin or matron, on the Feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria (early 4th century?), Virgin and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, the creator of all mankind, we bless thy holy Name for the virtue and grace which thou hast given unto holy women in all ages, especially thy servant Catherine; and we pray that the example of her faith and purity, and courage unto death, may inspire many souls in this generation to look unto thee, and to follow thy blessed Son Jesus Christ our Saviour; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 9:36-42
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:38-42

According to her legend, St. Catherine lived in Alexandria when Emperor Maxentius was persecuting the church. A noble and learned young Christian, Catherine prevailed in a public debate with philosophers who tried to convince her of the errors of Christianity. Maxentius had her scourged, imprisoned and condemned her to death. She was tied to a wheel embedded with razors, but this attempt to torture her to death failed when the machine (later a Catherine wheel) broke and onlookers were injured by flying fragments. Finally, she was beheaded. Tradition holds that she was martyred in 305.

The cult of Saint Catherine arose in the Eastern Church in the 8th or 9th century and spread to the West at the time of the Crusades. She is not mentioned in any early martyrologies. No reliable facts concerning her life or death have been established. Most historians now believe that she probably never existed.

St. Catherine is often portrayed holding a book, symbolic of her great learning. She is the patron saint of libraries and librarians, teachers and students.

Artwork: Guido Reni, Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1607. Oil on canvas, Diocesan Museum, Albenga, Italy.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Clement (c. 30-c. 100), Bishop of Rome, Martyr (source):

Eternal Father, creator of all,
whose martyr Clement bore witness with his blood
to the love that he proclaimed and the gospel that he preached:
give us thankful hearts as we celebrate thy faithfulness,
revealed to us in the lives of thy saints,
and strengthen us in our pilgrimage as we follow thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:37-45

Saint Clement was one of the first leaders of the church in the period immediately after the apostles. Some commentators believe that he is the Clement mentioned in Philippians 4:3. If so, he was a companion and fellow-worker of Paul. The Roman Catholic Church regards him as the fourth pope.

St Clement is best known for his Epistle to the Corinthians, dated to about 95. Clement addressed some of the same issues that Paul had addressed in his first letter to the Corinthians. The church at Corinth apparently still had problems with internal dissension and challenges to those in authority. Clement reminds them of the importance of Christian unity and love, and that church leaders serve for the good of the whole body.

Although the letter was written in the name of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth, St. Clement’s authorship is attested by early church writers. This epistle was held in very high regard in the early church; some even placed it on a par with the canonical writings of the New Testament.

Artwork: Giovanni Francesco Penni, Portrait of Pope Clement I (with the features of Pope Leo X), 1520-21. Fresco, Sala di Constantino, Vatican Museums.

“This will be a time for you to bear testimony”

Times of transition signal occasions for renewal. We come to the ending of the Church Year and to the beginning of yet another. The times of endings return us to our beginnings. Advent fast approaches and with Advent, we begin anew.

But what does it mean, these endings which bring us back to our beginnings? What does it mean to begin anew? Are we simply trapped in a never-ending cycle, like squirrels on a fly-wheel? Is the cycle of the Church Year but another dreary round of the same old things in the same old places with the same old faces? Or is it the dance of God’s grace and glory in human lives?

We come to the end of a year of grace and take stock of our lives in the light of God’s grace. It marks a kind of harvest-time, as it were, for our souls, a gathering up of the fruits of grace of the past year in our lives. But it means, too, that we are returned to our beginning, to Him who is the foundation and meaning of our lives. The grace is God’s Word revealed, the idea of God making known to us things that compel our attention.

In the greyness of the year, comes Christ the King (with apologies to T.S. Eliot). Christ strides across the barren fields of humanity to gather us into the barn of his righteousness and truth. We are returned to him who is “the Lord our Righteousness” (Jer. 23.6), our Judge and King, the Shepherd and the Healer of all mankind, the Alpha and the Omega of all creation. Our endings and our beginnings all meet in him. Basil the Great (330-379 AD) shows us something of what this means:

As all the fruits of the season come to us in their proper time, flowers in spring, corn in
summer and apples in autumn, so the fruit for winter is talk.      (Letters)

Talk, you may protest, thank you very much, but we have had enough talk, too much talk in fact, especially preachers’ talk. But talk about what, you might ask? What is the talk in the times of endings, the fruit for winter’s evenings, the talk which marks the occasions for renewed beginnings?

Read the rest of this entry »