Month: January 2022

Prayers and liturgy

Vincent, Deacon and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Vincent of Saragossa (d. 304), Deacon and Martyr (source):

Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 7:13-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:4-12

Vincent is the proto-Martyr (first known martyr) of Spain and the patron saint of Lisbon. He was deacon of Saragossa, Aragon, under Bishop Valerius. Both were arrested during the persecution instigated by edicts of Diocletian and Maximian. Because Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent testified to their faith in Christ, boldly and without fear.

Dacian, Roman governor of Spain, subjected Vincent to horrible tortures. The saint was thrown into prison and weakened by semi-starvation. After refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods, he was racked, burned, and kept in stocks. He died as a result of his sufferings.

St. Augustine of Hippo preached a sermon on Vincent’s martyrdom. Here is an excerpt:

“To you has been granted in Christ’s behalf not only that you should believe in him but also that you should suffer for him.” Vincent had received both these gifts and held them as his own. For how could he have them if he had not received them? And he displayed his faith in what he said, his endurance in what he suffered. No one ought to be confident in his own strength when he undergoes temptation. For whenever we endure evils courageously, our long-suffering comes from him Christ. He once said to his disciples: “In this world you will suffer persecution,” and then, to allay their fears, he added, “but rest assured, I have conquered the world.” There is no need to wonder then, my dearly beloved brothers, that Vincent conquered in him who conquered the world. It offers temptation to lead us astray; it strikes terror into us to break our spirit. Hence if our personal pleasures do not hold us captive, and if we are not frightened by brutality, then the world is overcome. At both of these approaches Christ rushes to our aid, and the Christian is not conquered.

Augustin Théodule Ribot, Saint VincentArtwork: Augustin Théodule Ribot, Saint Vincent, c. 1860. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille.

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Prayers and liturgy

Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Agnes (c. 291-304), Virgin, Martyr at Rome (source):

Eternal God, Shepherd of thy sheep,
by whose grace thy child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness,
in her life and in her death,
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all thy saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that passeth all knowledge,
even 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: Song of Solomon 2:10-13
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-6

Francesco Furini, Saint AgnesOne of the most celebrated of the early Roman martyrs, Agnes was only twelve or thirteen when she was executed in the Piazza Navona for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. Several early Christian leaders praised her courage and exemplary faith, including Ambrose, Pope Damasus, Jerome, and Prudentius. Although her story was embellished during the Middle Ages, it is certain that Agnes was very young and died as a Christian virgin.

St. Ambrose extolled her in his De Virginibus, written in 377:

[St. Agnes’ death was] A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ.

Because her name resembles agnus (‘lamb’), she is generally depicted in art with a lamb in her arms or by her feet. On her feast at Rome, the wool of two lambs is blessed and then woven into pallia (stoles of white wool) for the pope and archbishops.

Two notable Roman churches have been erected at locations associated with St. Agnes. The church of Sant’Agnese in Agone now stands in the Piazza Navona, the place of her martyrdom. The Basilica of Sant’Agnesi fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) was built at her tomb in a family burial plot along the Via Nomentana, about two miles outside Rome.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls.

Artwork: Francesco Furini, Saint Agnes, c. 1640. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 20 January

Did you not know?

Epiphany means manifestation, the making known of what is to be known. The teaching of the Epiphany season in the Christian understanding is about two things: the making known of the essential divinity of Christ and the making known of the divine will and purpose for our humanity. In this way it complements an essential feature of the religions of the world and every educational project worthy of the name. There are things to be known that belong to the wholeness and completeness of our humanity as persons. Such is the idea of philosophy, of learning, as a way of life.

We easily lose sight of this in a world which is fixated and focused on a multitude of specific things such that we can no longer see the whole of which we are a part. This is where the Epiphany season comes into play. It challenges our own incomplete and partial perspectives where we constantly mistake a half-truth (or less) for the whole truth or where we think that because there are different perspectives there is no truth. To say that there is ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ is to say there is no truth which is self-contradictory. We forget that all our knowing presupposes the idea that there is something to be known that is in principle for all. The idea of Truth is assumed in all our intellectual endeavours.

Owing to the restrictions of the current worries about COVID-19 in its latest iteration, omicron, Chapel has been suspended. Yet in the virtual assembly with the Junior School this week, I had the opportunity to speak briefly to them. I reminded them of the story which we would have read in Chapel this week about Jesus as a boy of twelve, not altogether unlike them, engaged with the doctors of the law, “hearing them and asking them questions”. It is a wonderful story about teaching and learning. It is serious and freeing especially in the face of things which we cannot change. The challenge is not to collapse into our fears and worries but to find ways to persevere and to carry on in the pursuit of truth, the one thing necessary and something which lies within our control and responsibility. It speaks to our freedom and dignity and reminds us of the strong ethical requirement that with knowledge and its pursuit comes responsibility. Such is growing up and maturing in wisdom.

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Prayers and liturgy

Henry, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for a missionary, on the Feast of St. Henry of Finland (d. 1150), Bishop, Missionary, Patron Saint of Finland, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Saint Henry of FinlandO GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Henry, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

“Mine hour has not yet come”

Click here to listen to an audio file of the Service of Matins & Ante-Communion for the Second Sunday after Epiphany.

It is, as John tells us, the first miracle, the “beginning of signs” which Jesus did “in Cana of Galilee”. It is an epiphany, a manifestation of his glory, the making known of his essential divinity. But as we saw last Sunday, Epiphany also makes known the will and purpose of God for our humanity.

“This beginning of signs” highlights one of the key features of the Epiphany season; the idea of miracles. We are apt to be rather skeptical or even contemptuously dismissive of miracles thinking they negate or contradict the order of nature. It was an ancient debate but for us it is largely seen through one aspect of the legacy of the so-called Enlightenment in its confidence in human reason to the point of denying any other form of knowing, particularly revelation. Thomas Jefferson, for example, influenced by Thomas Paine and other radical figures, took his scissors to the New Testament, cutting out all the miracles of Christ and leaving only a husk of morality. But morals without metaphysics are empty and without meaning, belonging more to the shrill claims of political and social correctness, arbitrary and contentless in our times.

Miracles as signs do not contradict the order of nature but open us out to its underlying principle, God. The God who creates the natural order is, by definition, not constrained by that order. Epiphany seeks to make known the end and purpose of creation for us and for the understanding of our humanity. It counters the idea that the natural and material world accounts for itself in and through the processes of evolution, for example, but avoiding the problem that neither Newton nor Darwin can say what anything is and overlooking the implicit teleology of evolution brought out for instance in Herbert Spencer’s famous addition to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, “the survival of the fittest”. That assumes a telos, an end. Though Darwin cannot say with any epistemological clarity what a species is, there is much to appreciate in the adaptations within species to their environment; it is another thing, a further hypothesis, to assume the development of one species into another. These are just some of the questions but which in no wise take away from the importance of evolutionary theory in its various forms.

Timothy Findley in his marvelous novel, The Wars, relates the very moving discourse between Harris, a young man from Sydney, Nova Scotia, who is dying in a London hospital and the main character, Robert Ross, who is deeply attached to his friend and to the extraordinary things which he says. Harris is fascinated with the ocean and with the sea as the embodiment of all life. Robert says “No. We were always men”, always humans. Harris responds, in a splendid passage of poetic prose about our connection to the sea as the mother of life. “The placenta is a little sea. Our blood is the sea moving in our veins … we are the ocean walking on the land”. Simply wonderful. The point is that both positions are true and both reflect the profound philosophical insight of the creation story in Genesis which connects our humanity to everything else in the created order, on the one hand, but also to the uniqueness of our humanity as made in the image of God, on the other hand.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Sebastiano Ricci, Marriage Feast at CanaArtwork: Sebastiano Ricci, Marriage Feast at Cana, 1712-15. Oil on canvas, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 13 January

Out of Egypt have I called my Son

Fuga in Aegyptum. The flight into Egypt of the Holy Family belongs to one of the most disturbing stories in the Scriptures, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. That it should be part of the Christmas mystery and of the Epiphany, too, indicates the deeper meaning of God’s engagement with our humanity. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son”. It is a most challenging story.

The flight into Egypt belongs to the exodus, a going forth, the idea of a journey. It is part of the break-out from Bethlehem, not the journey to but the journey from Bethlehem. Like the Magi, it, too, is a journey of the understanding and as such needs to be pondered and weighed. It speaks to some of our current confusions and contradictions.

The flight into Egypt is emphatically not a flight from the world either in the manner of the technocratic adventures of the rich elite such as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or in the manner of a flight from the body, what Mary Harrington calls bio-libertarianism, an aspect of identity politics in our times.

Some argue that such elite space ventures pave the way for space travel for us all just as the airplane has transformed our sense of the world and ourselves; perhaps, but we can hardly overlook how modern travel comes with enormous costs environmentally, socially, and economically. Not all can afford to travel. It is impossible to think about the current COVID-19 pandemic apart from the increased forms of mobility in our global world, for instance. In terms of the flight from the body, it is enough to say that while we are biological and embodied beings, constrained to some extent or another by place and culture, we are not just that. We are more though not less than our embodied being. As such there are social constructs that belong to the varieties of expression about ourselves as persons. But it doesn’t mean that we are simply what we claim to be or think we are in our minds. The danger in all of these instances is that we reduce the world and our bodies to objects to be manipulated. It is a flight from reality.

The flight into Egypt is not a flight from the world but from the evil of the world in terms of the abuse and misuse of power itself. Herod seeks to annihilate a child-king whom he thinks is a potential rival to his throne. He embarks upon a policy of infanticide – such are the cruelties and the savagery of the overreach of authority – killing all the little ones “at Bethlem in his fury” as the carol, Puer Nobis Nascitur, puts it. The story is a retelling of the story in the Book of Exodus of Pharaoh, at once god and king in the Egyptian view, who initiated a policy of infanticide to control the Hebrews. Out of that comes the birth of Moses and the Exodus, the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son”. The Exodus is a journey of the understanding which locates human freedom in the Law of God. Israel is in this view not just freed from oppression but freed to a principle which articulates and embodies human dignity and freedom.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hilary, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilary (c. 315-368), Bishop of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church (source):

Francesco Capella, St. Hilary BishopEverlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed thy Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:18-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:8-12

Hilary was born in Poitiers, Gaul, of wealthy pagan parents. After receiving a thorough education in Latin classics, he became an orator. He also married and had a daughter. At the age of about 35, he rejected his former paganism and became a Christian through a long process of study and thought. Robert Louis Wilken describes his path to conversion in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (p. 86):

[Hilary] found himself turning to more spiritual pursuits. In his words he wished to pursue a life that was “worthy of the understanding that had been given us by God.” Like Justin [Martyr] he began to read the Bible, and one passage that touched his soul was Exodus 3:14, where God the creator, “testifying about himself,” said, “I am who I am.” For Hilary this brief utterance penetrated more deeply into the mystery of the divine nature than anything he had heard or read from the philosophers. Shortly thereafter he was baptized and received into the church.

Around 353 he was chosen bishop of Poitiers and became an outspoken champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. St. Augustine praised him as “the illustrious teacher of the churches”. St. Jerome wrote that Hilary was “a most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians”. Hilary became known as “Athanasius of the West”.

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Prayers and liturgy

John Horden, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the commemoration of The Right Rev. John Horden (1828-1893), first Bishop of Moosonee, Missionary to the First Nations of Canada:

The Right Rev. John HordenO God,
the Desire of all the nations,
you chose your servant John Horden
to open the treasury of your Word
among the native peoples of Canada.
Grant us, after his example,
to be constant in our purpose and care
for the enlargement of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Source of collect: Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2004, p. 456.

Born in Exeter, England, to humble Christian parents, John Horden resolved to be a missionary while a young boy at school and, when he was 23, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) offered him a post as a teacher and missionary at Moose Factory on James’ Bay. He and his young wife set sail on 8 June 1851, arriving at Moose Factory on 26 July.

Horden gave himself whole-heartedly to his task. Within eight months he was able to teach and preach to the indigenous people in the Cree language. In the summer of 1852, Bishop David Anderson of Rupert’s Land travelled 1500 miles to visit his new minister, initially planning to bring him to Red River for theological training. The young man’s conscientiousness and maturity were so impressive, however, that Bishop Anderson changed his plans, ordaining John Horden priest on 24 August.

Rev. Horden ministered to the James Bay Cree and Hudson Bay Company employees for many years, visiting indigenous peoples all around the James Bay region. He translated the Gospels, a hymnal, and a prayer book into Cree, and sent them to England for printing. Because no one was competent to proof-read the master copies, the CMS sent him a printing press and told him to print the books himself. Horden needed many long, frustrating days to teach himself how to assemble and operate the press. His printing press was soon producing other Christian literature in Cree. He also wrote a grammar of the Cree language.

In 1872, Bishop Robert Machray of Rupert’s Land decided that his diocese had grown too large and should be sub-divided. Thus, at Westminster Abbey on 15 December 1872, the Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated John Horden the first Bishop of the Diocese of Moosonee.

Bishop Horden continued to travel across his vast diocese. By the end of his life, most of the Cree of James Bay had been converted, as well as many Ojibwa, Chipewyan, and Inuit. Also, he laboured on translating the Bible into Cree until he died unexpectedly on 12 January 1893. He is buried at Moose Factory.

Biographies of John Horden are posted here and here.

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Prayers and liturgy

Benedict Biscop, Abbot and Scholar

The collect for a Doctor of the Church, Poet, or Scholar, on the Feast of Saint Benedict Biscop (c. 628-89), Founder of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Scholar, Patron of the Arts, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962);

O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Benedict Biscop, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:9-17

Norwich Cathedral, St. Benedict BiscopSaint Benedict Biscop is remembered as a church leader instrumental in preserving and disseminating Western civilisation during the so-called “Dark Ages”.

Born into a noble Northumbrian family, Benedict spent many years in Frankish monasteries, becoming a monk at the Abbey of Lérins, off the southern coast of France. He also travelled to Rome six times. At the conclusion of his third visit in 668, he accompanied St. Theodore of Tarsus, the Greek monk newly commissioned as Archbishop of Canterbury, to England. For two years, Benedict served as abbot of the monastery of St. Peter & St. Paul (later St. Augustine’s), Canterbury, but soon wanted to establish his own foundation.

Receiving papal approval to establish monasteries in Northumbria, Benedict founded the twin monasteries of St. Peter’s at Wearmouth in 674 and St. Paul’s at Jarrow in 681. He travelled to Rome and returned with an “innumerable collection of books of all kinds”. He also brought with him John the Chanter, Archcantor of St. Peter’s, Rome, who taught the monks the Roman liturgy and Gregorian chant.

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