Year: 2021

Prayers and liturgy

Charles Inglis, Bishop

The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, in commemoration of The Right Rev. Charles Inglis (1734-1816), first Church of England bishop of Nova Scotia, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Charles Inglis to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-44

Born in Ireland, Charles Inglis became in 1787 the first Bishop of Nova Scotia—the first bishop consecrated for any English colony.

Inglis Window, Hensley Memorial ChapelCharles Inglis travelled to North America in 1759 as a Church of England missionary to Dover, Delaware. In 1765 he went to Trinity Church, New York, as assistant to the rector, and was chosen rector in 1777. His ministry proved extremely controversial when he emerged as an outspoken Loyalist during the American Revolution. His life was threatened because he refused to omit prayers for the King and the Royal Family from the liturgy.

In 1783, Rev. Inglis and his family left the newly independent nation and returned to England, where he was consecrated the first Bishop of the Diocese of Nova Scotia, which at that time included Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward’s Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda. He immediately sailed to Halifax and began his work of furthering the progress and unity of the Church of England in Canada.

Bishop Inglis undertook an ambitious programme of church construction across Atlantic Canada; in 1789, he himself laid the cornerstone for the original Christ Church in Windsor. He also played a leading role in the establishment in Windsor of King’s Collegiate School (1788, now King’s-Edgehill School) and King’s College (1789, now University of King’s College, Halifax).

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Prayers and liturgy

Laurence, Archdeacon and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Laurence (d. 258), Archdeacon of Rome, Martyr (source):

Almighty God,
who didst make Laurence
a loving servant of thy people
and a wise steward of the treasures of thy Church:
inflame us, by his example, to love as he loved
and to walk in the way that leads to everlasting 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: 2 Corinthians 9:6-10
The Gospel: St. John 12:24-26

Francisco Goya, Martyrdom of St. LaurenceArtwork: Francisco Goya, Martyrdom of St. Laurence, c. 1760-69. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Tenth Sunday after Trinity

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity

“No-one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit”

“No-one can say JESUS IS LORD but by the Holy Spirit.” It is the earliest creedal statement from within the Scriptures themselves, wonderfully and significantly highlighted by being passed on down to us in capital letters (though many of the earliest manuscripts were all in majuscules – capital letters). It is a Trinitarian statement really, the nucleus of what we proclaim more fully in the great Catholic Creeds of the Church which come out of the Scriptures and which return us to the Scriptures within a way of understanding. Such clarifying proclamations give shape to our lives in grace. “Concerning spiritual gifts … I would not have you ignorant,” says St. Paul. “Now there are diversities of gifts,” and he goes on to list them. They are gifts which arise, as it were, out of this fundamental proclamation – out of what we have been given to say about God by God himself. “No one can say JESUS IS LORD but by the Holy Spirit.”

The diversity of gifts belongs to our life with God in the communion of God – the Trinity. The different gifts are about his grace in our lives; in short, about the divine unity which is the ground of all true diversity. To esteem them is to honour him. This is something communicated to us by the grace of God with us – Jesus Christ – God’s Word and Son. To confess Jesus as Lord acknowledges him as “I am who I am,” as God with us, God in the very flesh of our humanity, God made man. Only so can he be Lord. In Jesus the Old Testament mystery of God’s name – “I AM WHO I AM” (also in capital letters!) is opened to view, explored and explicated in terms of the spiritual relation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost  and in the forms of our incorporation into that divine life through Jesus as way, truth, life, light, resurrection, door, shepherd, bread, and vine. God’s relation to us radically depends upon his self-relation, upon the communion of God with God in God, the communion of the Trinity.

This is the burden of our proclamation in which we are privileged to participate. For if we cannot proclaim with clarity the God of our salvation, then we cannot participate with charity in the divine life which has been opened to view through the sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Tenth Sunday After Trinity

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

LET thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 19:41-47a

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Expulsion of the Money Changers from the TempleArtwork: Lucas Cranach the Elder, Expulsion of the Money Changers from the Temple, c. 1515. Oil on panel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Name of Jesus

The collect for today, the Feast of the Name of Jesus, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Apostle hast taught us that there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved, but only the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may ever glory in this Name, and strive to make thy salvation known unto all mankind; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For The Epistle: Acts 4:8-12
The Gospel: St Matthew 1:20-23

Baciccia, Triumph of the Name of JesusArtwork: Baciccia (Giovanni Battista Gaulli), Triumph of the Name of Jesus, 1679. Ceiling Fresco, Chiesa del Gesù, Rome. Photograph taken by admin, 28 April 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

The Collect for today, the Holy Day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who on the holy mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thy well-beloved Son wonderfully transfigured: Mercifully grant unto us such a vision of his divine majesty, that we, being purified and strengthened by thy grace, may be transformed into his likeness from glory to glory; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 St. Peter 1:16-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 17:1-9

Peter Paul Rubens, The Transfiguration of ChristArtwork: Peter Paul Rubens, The Transfiguration of Christ, 1604-1605. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Oswald, King and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Oswald (d. 642), King of Northumbria, Martyr (source):

O Lord God almighty,
who didst so kindle the faith of thy servant King Oswald with thy Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may ever bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
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.

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

Meister der Oswaldlegende, Martyrdom of St. Oswald in BattleIn AD 635, the army of Prince Oswald defeated the forces of pagan king Caedwalla of Gwynedd (north Wales) at the Battle of Heavenfield (near present-day Hexham, Northumberland). Oswald was a Christian and nephew of King Edwin, the man Caedwalla had defeated a few years earlier to conquer the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Heavenfield proved to be a key battle in English history for it marked the end of paganism as a religious and political force in England.

Knowing that the fate of his kingdom would be decided on the following day, Oswald had a wooden cross erected beside which he and his men knelt and prayed to the Lord for victory. The badly outnumbered Christian soldiers defeated their apparently over-confident adversaries, and Oswald became King of Northumbria.

After his victory, Oswald invited monks to come from Iona and establish a monastery at Lindisfarne, the Holy Island. This was to become one of England’s most important centres of Christian scholarship and evangelism.

King Oswald was killed in battle in 642 defending his land and people against the pagan king Penda of Mercia.

Artwork: Meister der Oswaldlegende, Martyrdom of St. Oswald in Battle, c. 1480-85. Oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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Events

Christ Church Book Club, 2021-22

The new list of discussion books for Christ Church Book Club is now available.. The next series will kick off on Tuesday, 21 September, at 7:00pm, when the featured books will be The Bookseller of Florence, by Ross King, and Burning the Books, by Richard Ovenden.

Click here for the full schedule of books and other information.

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