Month: November 2022

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Andrew the Apostle

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

Caravaggio, Crucifixion of St. AndrewA 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).

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Sermons

Advent Meditation

“Thy Seven-fold gifts impart”

Isaiah is the most ‘evangelical’ of all the Prophets as Anthony Sparrow, a seventeenth century Anglican divine, wisely notes. It is not by accident that in the Advent Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, used in Advent in 1918, just after the horrible and soul-destroying ravages of World War I, three of the great lessons are from Isaiah. Isaiah 11. 1-3a, 4a, 6-9 is particularly instructive about Advent both as an important doctrine and season in its own right and as anticipating the mystery of Christmas.

The passage emphasizes the so-called seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the theme of Paradise restored. They go together and help to illuminate the darkness of our minds and our world. The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols is a pageant of the strong Word of God coming to us as light and life. The Seven gifts of the Spirit speak to heart and mind in relation to properties or qualities identified with the Messiah “which is being interpreted the Christ”, as the Gospel for the Sunday Next Before Advent reminds us. Yet the Hebrew text, as we have it from a much later period than the Greek translation of it, called the Septuagint and from which the Latin Vulgate translation derives, names six gifts though the Septuagint names seven gifts of the Spirit. That has come to define a whole tradition of spirituality in the Church Catholic expressed for instance in the Veni Creator Spiritus used at ordinations: “thou the anointing Spirit art, / who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart” in John Cosin’s lovely translation (BCP, 653).

But what are these gifts, these qualities of soul that participate or share in the divine nature itself? “The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord”. The Septuagint, probably influenced by the rhetorical features of Greek poetry, couples “piety” or devotion with knowledge and makes “the fear of the Lord” a kind of concluding principle. The fear of the Lord refers to a sense of the awe and wonder of God whom we honour and worship.

They are all intellectual and spiritual gifts understood as having come from God. They speak to heart and mind, to character. That is significant with respect to theological anthropology, namely, how we understand our humanity in the sight of God, particularly in terms of the idea of the integration of heart and mind as distinct from their separation and antagonism, what T.S. Eliot famously termed “the dissociation of intellect and sensibility” which defines our modern dystopia in many of its confusions. The seven gifts of the Spirit suggest the mutual co-inherence and inter-dependency of heart and mind, of intellect and sensibility. That they are associated with the Messiah is also significant; they derive from the Word and the Spirit of God and as uniting us with God. As such they offer a profound vision about the greater dignity and truth of our humanity as grounded in God.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, The First Sunday in Advent

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.

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

“The night is far spent”

The far spent night is an arresting and compelling metaphor. It seems to speak to the unease and uncertainty that belongs to the disorder and disarray of all the institutions of our current culture in the sense of ‘endism’ and collapse. Yet it is really a profound reflection on the fallenness of the human condition in all its limitations and follies, its sins and evils, more generally speaking. To put it in another way, it reminds us that it is always the far spent night. It is a wake-up call to the principle of the knowing and being of things which is always coming to us but which we neglect at our peril. The day is always at hand; the everlasting day of the Lord.

I love Advent not so much because of its anticipation of Christmas, so overblown and coloured over with the sentimental moralism of the 19th century, but in its own integrity as a season and a doctrine. Advent reminds me of an essential feature of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are all religions of the Word, of the logos. They all draw, in one way or another, upon the intellectual traditions of ancient Greek philosophy which contribute to the distinctive framing of their spiritual understanding.

Advent shows the strong objectivity of God’s Word coming to us as Light and Life. It highlights the primacy of the intellectual and the spiritual which alone redeem the sensual and the material. Advent awakens us to God whose eternal truth and being is always ‘coming towards us’, as it were, in the ways in which we are turned to it. In this sense, Advent, it seems to me, is the counter to the modern “dissociation of intellect and sensibility”, as T.S. Eliot terms it, which belongs to all of our current confusions and contradictions. Such is the falling apart and separation of heart and mind, of body and soul, of our humanity and the natural world, and thus of the brokenness of our institutions. It means a loss of the intellectual and spiritual integration that belongs to the truth of our humanity, a loss of the sense of the co-inherence of all things as proceeding from the co-inherence of the Trinity and the return of all things into unity with God; in short, the co-inherence of our lives with one another as gathered to God.

Advent in its integrity celebrates God’s Word coming in Law and Prophecy through the mediation of the Scriptures; God’s Word coming as Justice and Judgement; God’s Word coming in sacrament and liturgy, in prayer and praise, in acts and deeds of service and sacrifice. These are the motions that define and dignity our humanity. The far spent night is the occasion for our awakening to our lack of awareness about these motions.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 28 November – 4 December

Tuesday, November 29th
7:00pm Missions to Seafarers, packaging of shoeboxes – Parish Hall

Friday, December 2nd
2:15pm Junior School Service of Advent/Christmas Lessons & Carols – KES Chapel

Sunday, December 4th, Second Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Grade 12 Service of Advent/Christmas Lessons & Carols – KES Chapel

Upcoming Events:

Monday, December 5th
2:30pm Grades 10 & 11 Service of Advent/Christmas Lessons & Carols – KES Chapel

Advent Programme 2022:
Thursday, December 8th, Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme I

Thursday, December 15th, Eve of Ember Friday
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme II

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Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday in Advent

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

Rossano Gospels, The Cleansing of the TempleArtwork: The Cleansing of the Temple, Illumination from the Rossano Gospels (Codex Purpureus Rossanensis), 6th century.

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Prayers and liturgy

Catherine, Virgin and Martyr

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

Paolo Veronese, Saint Catherine of Alexandria in PrisonAccording 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: Paolo Veronese, Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison, c. 1580-85. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 24 November

The Gentleness of Wisdom

“But where shall wisdom be found?” It is Job’s great question (Job 28. 12) and yet it is a question for the ages. It is really a question about character, about the qualities of the soul known classically as the virtues. Religion is about philosophy as life. Thus, in Chapel we have attended to some of the great ethical teachings that belong to our religious and philosophical traditions. The great Latin poet, Horace, bids us “interrogate the writings of the wise” in the pursuit of a tranquil life even in the midst of a world of distractions and disturbances. He asks “where is it virtue comes from, is it from books? Or is it a gift from Nature that can’t be learned? What is the way to become a friend to yourself? What brings tranquility?” (trans. David Ferry).

The question about from where virtue comes echoes Meno‘s question in Plato’s dialogue by that name. He wanted to know whether virtue can be taught or is it acquired through practice or by some other means? Socrates famously replies that he can’t answer the question because he would have to know what virtue is and, as he explains, neither he nor anyone else seems to know exactly what virtue is. The point of the dialogue is to consider what would make for a proper definition, a question about the adequacy of the categories of our discourse and understanding. Certainly a question for our times. Yet if virtue can be taught, Socrates suggests, then somehow it belongs to knowledge and thus to something teachable. But the deeper insight of the ethical traditions, it seems to me, is that to be able to teach virtue is not the same thing as to make people virtuous. Thinking it is one thing, doing it is another.

For Aristotle virtue requires good habits of life, good practices, but as Plato had already pointed out in the Myth of Er that concludes The Republic, that is not quite enough. You can, after all, be brought up in a virtuous state but if you don’t know what virtue is then you may make huge mistakes. You may in fact choose the life of a tyrant! In short, you may choose evil over good.

This is, perhaps, why we need to hear the great lessons about ethical life over and over again. One of the definitions of the word religion, as Cicero observed, is about re-reading, re-legere. The great ethical teachings are inexhaustible in their wisdom and understanding.

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Prayers and liturgy

Clement, Bishop of Rome

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

Juan Correa de Vivar, Saint Clement PopeSaint 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: Juan Correa de Vivar, Saint Clement, Pope, 1540-45. Oil on panel, Prado, Madrid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Cecilia (3rd century), Virgin, Martyr (source):

Gracious God, whose servant Cecilia didst serve thee in song: Grant us to join her hymn of praise to thee in the face of all adversity, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 15:1-4
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:38-42

Pietro da Cortona, St. CeciliaArtwork: Pietro da Cortona, St. Cecilia, c. 1620-25. Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London.

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