Week at a Glance, 23 – 29 August
Sunday, August 29th, Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Year: 2021
The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9
The Gospel: St. Mark 7:31-37
Artwork: Domenico Maggiotto, Christ healing a deaf and dumb man, 18th century. Oil on canvas, Private collection.
Sermon for Encaenia 2021
Link to the audio file of the service of Encaenia 2021
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed … are you”
You’re here! How wonderful to see you and to be together at last for this rather historic Encaenia service, unfortunate as it is that not all of the graduating class are able to be here. We miss them even as we think of them as being present with us in spirit. It is historic because this is the first Encaenia service to be held in the Chapel not in June but in August. Last year, too, Encaenia was held in August, again owing to the COVID-19 restrictions, but it was held at Christ Church (a slightly bigger barn than this more modest stable!).
Encaenia is a Greek word (εγκαινια) meaning the renewal of purpose and rededication belonging to the intellectual life of sacred places and institutions of learning. It is found, for instance, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, in Apocryphal texts such as 2 Esdras, and in the New Testament in John’s Gospel. A feast of the renewal of beginnings or principles, it has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D.), and to schools such as our own, which derive their origins from the great medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But we meet in August. Well, if the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 can be held in 2021, then surely the June Encaenia can happen in August! Guess what, you’re here!
The blessing lies in our being here together and in being reminded of the principles which shape the life of the School and all of you who are actually now graduates. The blessing lies in what you have gone through and in what way. Instead of ‘the woe is me’ syndrome, the endless whine of complaints and grievances which turns us all into perpetual victims, there is the deeper sense of perseverance and accomplishment belonging to the principles of education which has been your experience in this place. At issue is how you take a hold of those things and make them your own.
“I have become a question to myself,” Augustine remarks in his Confessions (Mihi quaestio factus sum, Bk. X, xxxiii). And so, too, for all of us in the contemporary world. It is less about the external circumstances of global and local concerns, the fears and anxieties about the pandemic, the climate, or the economy, all of which we face and will continue to face, and more about how we think about things. Only on that basis is philosophy, the love of wisdom, and education, its pursuit, even remotely possible.
Our gathering is profoundly counter-anticulture by which I mean that it goes against the levelling forces of the ideology of liberalism, the governing worldview of our times, which corrodes and dissolves the reason and truth of the institutions which embody human freedom and dignity and which constitute culture through the cultivation of character. This ideology assumes a false anthropology, the idea of the utterly autonomous individual freed from all and every constraint of nature and authority, which in turn leads to the destructive technocratic mastery of both non-human and human nature and thus the antithesis of culture.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot, Doctor, and Poet
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Bernard (1090-1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, Poet (source):
O merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of thy servant Bernard,
didst rekindle the radiant light of thy Church:
grant that we in our generation
may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever walk before thee as children of light;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. John 15:7-11
Artwork: Giovanni da Milano, Appearance of the Virgin to St. Bernard (from Prato Polyptych), c. 1355-60. Tempera on panel, Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, Italy.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.
Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
“But some are fallen asleep”
In complete contrast to the Pharisee,” the Publican, standing afar off,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel parable, “would not lift up so much his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” God has only sinners to send to sinners to proclaim the great good news of human redemption in Christ. Some of you heard me say that though I doubt you remember. Today is the 23rd anniversary of my being among you and that was part of my first sermon here at Christ Church on August 15th, 1998. To be sure, I can hardly remember either! The fact that it is our granddaughter Anna’s birthday is, perhaps, much more memorable.
But that aside, there is a wonderful paradox and contradiction that confronts us in today’s readings and their conjunction with an intriguing and important theological and pastoral commemoration. August 15th marks the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, which in the Prayer Book calendar is referred to as The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a literal translation of the Greek κοιμνσις and the Latin dormition but which also became known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine of the Assumption became Roman Catholic dogma as late as 1950. Yet the underlying idea is about the crucial role of Mary and that has strong support among Anglican and Protestant theologians.
The great paradox lies in this. In the Epistle, Paul repeatedly makes reference to things in the life of Christ “according to the Scriptures;” the phrase is used explicitly twice and alluded to at least twice more. It becomes an important doctrinal and creedal point captured in the idea that essential faith depends entirely on that which can only be proved by the received witness of the Scriptures. Yet the dogma of the Assumption of Mary has absolutely no scriptural ground or base whatsoever.
Nonetheless, it belongs to a profound creedal reflection on the role and place of Mary in the working out of human redemption. But because it has no explicit scriptural attestation, it cannot be required to be believed in our Anglican and Protestant understanding.
I want to probe the deeper connection between Mary’s Assumption or Dormition or Falling Asleep, to refer to its various terms, and the nature of our pilgrimage in faith in the Trinity season. Today’s readings provide an interesting complement to the place of Mary in the work of human redemption. The idea is that “where Christ is there shall we be also.” Such is the deep meaning of the “grace which has been bestowed upon [us],” realised most fully in Mary, “full of grace.” Such is the deep truth of her commemoration on this day.
Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 August
Sunday, August 22nd, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
The collect for today, the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Gospel: St Luke 18:9-14
Artwork: Maerten De Vos, The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, c. 1580-1600. Pen and ink, Private collection.
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop
The collect for today, the commemoration of Jeremy Taylor (1613-67), Bishop of Down and Connor, Teacher of the Faith (source):
O holy and loving God,
who dwellest in the human heart
and makest us partakers of the divine nature
in Christ our great high priest:
grant that we,
having in remembrance thy servant Jeremy Taylor,
may put our trust in thy heavenly promises,
and follow a holy life in virtue and true godliness;
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 14:7-9,10b-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47
Born and educated at Cambridge, Jeremy Taylor was ordained to the Anglican priesthood at the age of 20. His eloquent preaching brought him to the attention of Archbishop William Laud, who enabled him to be elected fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford. Taylor also became chaplain to the archbishop and to King Charles I.
A chaplain to royalist troops during the Civil War, Taylor was captured and imprisoned three times by Cromwell’s men. After the Restoration in 1660, Charles II appointed him Bishop of Down and Connor, Northern Ireland.
Taylor was a prolific writer of theological and devotional works. Among his many books are The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650) and The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651), generally known as Holy Living and Holy Dying.
A prayer of Jeremy Taylor:
O almighty and eternal God, there is no number of thy days or of thy mercies: thou hast sent us into this world to serve thee, and to live according to thy laws; but we by our sins have provoked thee to wrath, and we have planted thorns and sorrows round about our dwellings: and our life is but a span long, and yet very tedious, because of the calamities that enclose us on every side; the days of our pilgrimage are few and evil; we have frail and sickly bodies, violent and distempered passions, long designs and but a short stay, weak understandings and strong enemies, abused fancies, perverse wills, O dear God, look upon us in mercy and pity: let not our weaknesses make us to sin against thee, nor our fear cause us to betray our duty, nor our former follies provoke thy eternal anger, nor the calamities of this world vex us into tediousness of spirit and impatience: but let thy Holy Spirit lead us through this valley of misery with safety and peace, with holiness and religion, with spiritual comforts and joy in the Holy Ghost; that when we have served thee in our generations, we may be gathered unto our fathers, having the testimony of a holy conscience; in the communion of the catholic church; in the confidence of a certain faith; and the comforts of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; and perfect charity with thee our God, and all the world; that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, may be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Source: “Prayers at the Visitation of the Sick”, Holy Dying, cited in Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayer, compiled by Christopher L. Webber (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 2004), p. 83.
Artwork: Frontispiece to Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, 1651, British Museum.
Hippolytus, Doctor and Bishop
The collect for today, the commemoration of Hippolytus (d. c. 235), Doctor, Bishop in Rome, Martyr (source):
O God, who hast enlightened thy Church by the teaching of thy servant Hippolytus: Enrich us evermore, we beseech thee, with thy heavenly grace, and raise up faithful witnesses who by their life and doctrine will set forth the truth of thy salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
With the Epistle and Gospel for a Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27
Artwork: Jacques Callot, St. Hippolytus, Martyr, 1636. Etching, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.