Month: September 2022

Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:39-49

Le Nain Brothers, Birth of the VirginArtwork: Le Nain Brothers, Birth of the Virgin, c. 1645. Oil on canvas, Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, Paris.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

“Ephphatha, that is, Be opened”

It is one of a handful of ‘aramaisms’ in the New Testament, words in Aramaic, a northern semitic dialect used in Syria which became the lingua franca throughout the Near East, and thus common within the Hebrew world, too. In Mark’s Gospel the Greek translation of the Aramaic word is always provided, as it is here. “Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.”

What does it mean to be opened? The literal sense is obvious, it seems, in terms of the healing by Jesus of “one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech.” His ears are opened to hear and his tongue loosened so that he can speak. Remarkable enough, but is that all there is to it? What does it say to us? “The letter killeth,” after all, as Paul reminds us, “but the spirit giveth life.”

Yet isn’t that really what the healing miracle is all about? “He hath done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.” “The spirit giveth life.” Intellectual and spiritual life is conveyed through physical and sacramental means. In other words, in Christ we are opened out to life in its fullness, life with God. “Our sufficiency is from God” and not “of ourselves.” The real miracle is life. God is essential life. Being opened here is about the “trust we have through Christ to Godward”; the opening is the orientation of our lives towards truth and life and light, to what is more than ourselves. It is not about trusting in ourselves for that is to be closed in upon ourselves in our current obsessions about the self and self-image.

This is largely negative because in the culture of outrage and antagonism the self is constructed in contrast to what is other than self in ways that are oppositional. The pronoun wars reveal the inherent ambiguity of third person pronouns which run the risk of turning one another into an object for others and even for oneself thus negating the self as subject. The same thing can be observed with the digital phenomenon of ‘selfies’. A ‘selfie’ is not you; it is only an image, partial and incomplete, a construct of you and sometimes curated by you. Yet you are more than your ‘selfie’ which becomes merely a projection of your self-image of how you want others to see you or, worse, how others want to persuade you about yourself; i.e. manipulate you. This is the toxicity of the social media world which reflects a sense of antagonism towards the world which is seen as fearful and threatening and in turn projects that sense of antagonism onto others. Things go viral in the social media world just like infectious diseases in the material world. Such is the madness of crowds.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 5 – 11 September

Sunday, September 11th, Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, September 13th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Tuesday, September 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray (2019) and The Madness of Crowds (2021) by Louise Penny.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity

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

Six Miracles (folio 165r from a copy of Matfre Ermengau's Breviari d'Amor)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: Unknown artist, Six Miracles (folio 165r from a copy of Matfre Ermengau‘s Breviari d’Amor), 14th century. Illumination, British Library, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Robert Wolfall, Presbyter

The collect for bishops and other pastors, in commemoration of Robert Wolfall, Priest (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Robert Wolfall to proclaim thy glory
by a life of prayer and the zeal of a true pastor:
keep constant in faith the leaders of thy Church
and so bless thy people through their ministry
that the Church may grow into the full stature
of 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 Rev. Robert Wolfall was vicar of the Parish of West Harptree, Somerset, when he became chaplain to Martin Frobisher’s third Arctic expedition to Canada. On 3 September 1578, Rev’d Wolfall presided at the first recorded Holy Eucharist in what is now Canadian territory: Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island.

The service was held on the ship Anne Francis, whose captain later wrote:

Master Wolfall …. preached a godly sermon, which being ended he celebrated also a Communion upon the land …. The celebration of the divine mystery was the first sign, seal and confirmation of Christ’s name, death and passion ever known in these quarters. Master Wolfall made sermons and celebrated the Communion at sundry other times in several and sundry ships, because the whole company could never meet together at anyone place.

A few weeks later, Frobisher abandoned the hope of establishing a permanent settlement on Baffin Island and the expeditionary fleet returned home to England. Anglicans would not celebrate Holy Communion in Canada again for almost a century.

A commemoration of Robert Wolfall, written by Dr. William Cooke, Vice-President of the Toronto branch of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, is posted here. (See page 5 of pdf document.)

The Canadian Encyclopedia entry on “The First Thanksgiving in North America” is posted here.

Parish of West Hartree, Robert Wolfall Commemorative PlaqueA plaque commemorating Rev. Wolfall was recently placed on the inside wall of his parish church. The photograph was kindly sent to us by former Royal Navy Chaplain The Rev. Anthony Marks.

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Prayers and liturgy

Giles, Abbot

The collect for an Abbot, on the Feast of St. Giles of Provence (d. c. 710), Hermit, Abbot (source):

O God, by whose grace the blessed Abbot Giles, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:15-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:20-23a

Salvatore Frangiamore, St. GilesAll that is known for certain about this saint is that he was born in the early 7th century and that he founded a monastery in what is now the town of Saint-Gilles, southern France, on land given to him by Flavius Wamba, King of the Visogoths.

Giles, accompanied by a hind, had come to live in a hermitage near Arles. During a hunt, King Wamba fired an arrow at the hind, but struck and crippled Giles instead. The king then gave the humble saint land to found an abbey.

A tenth-century Legend attributed important miracles to Saint Giles, which helped make him one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries across Europe are dedicated to him. As well, because he is the patron saint of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers, many hospitals were built in his name. Saint Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, where his memory is honoured by the Church of Scotland High Kirk: St. Giles’ Cathedral.

The monastery founded by St. Giles became a renowned stopping place in medieval times for pilgrims journeying to Compostela, Rome, or the Holy Land.

Artwork: Salvatore Frangiamore, St. Giles, 1903. Oil on canvas, Mother Church of Santa Maria della Luce, Acquaviva Platani, Caltanissetta, Sicily.

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