December 2022 - Christ Church

31 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

John West, Missionary

The collect for a missionary, in commemoration of The Rev’d John West (1778-1845), Priest, first Protestant missionary to the Red River Valley, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O 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 John West, 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 Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

Print this entry

30 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

John Wycliffe, Scholar and Translator

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wycliffe, (c 1320-84), Scholar, Translator of the Scriptures into English (source):

O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant John Wyclif, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:9-16

Artwork: Ford Madox Brown, John Wycliffe Reading His Translation of the Bible to John of Gaunt, 1847-61. Oil on canvas, Bradford Art Galleries and Museums.

Print this entry

29 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Becket, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Thomas Becket (1117-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

O Lord God,
who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket
grace to put aside all earthly fear and be faithful even unto death:
grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,
may fight against evil,
uphold thy rule,
and serve thee to our life’s end;
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: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Thomas Becket was a close personal friend of King Henry II of England and served as his chancellor from 1155. When the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162, Henry, seeing an opportunity to exercise control over the church, decided to have his chancellor elected to the post. Thomas saw the dangers of the king’s plan and warned Henry that, if he became archbishop, his first loyalty would be to God and not the king. He told Henry, “Several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the church make me fear that you would require of me what I could not agree to.” What Thomas feared soon came to pass.

After becoming archbishop, Thomas changed radically from defender of the king’s privileges and policies into an ardent champion of the church. Unexpectedly adopting an austere way of life in near-monastic simplicity, he celebrated or attended Mass daily, studied Scripture, distributed alms to the needy, and visited the sick. He became just as obstinate in asserting the church’s interests as he had formerly been in asserting the king’s.

Thomas rejected Henry’s claim to authority over the English Church. Relations with the king deteriorated so seriously that Thomas left England and spent six years in exile in France. He realised that he had to return when the Archbishop of York and six other bishops crowned the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, in contravention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rights and authority.

He returned to England with letters of papal support and immediately excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the six other bishops. On Christmas Day 1170 he publicly denounced them from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. It was these actions that prompted Henry’s infamous angry words, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

(more…)

Print this entry

28 December 202230 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”

“Behold the Lamb of God”, we have heard throughout Advent in the witness of John the Baptist. He highlights the deep truth of the meaning of the One who comes. Christ comes as sacrifice. He is the lamb of God.

Perhaps no part of the Christmas mystery is more disturbing and difficult than the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the third of the Christmas troika of celebrations which serve to deepen our understanding of the Christian mystery of the Incarnation. It bids us contemplate the almost unbelievable and unbearable idea of the slaughter of little children, the innocents of the world, those who are the most vulnerable and utterly unable to harm. Such is their innocence.

But in the story of the flight into Egypt and Herod’s endeavour to seek the young child, Christ, to destroy him, that leads to the mindless slaughter of “all the children that were in Bethlehem”, we see something of the radical meaning of Christmas. It speaks to the hardest and darkest things of our world and day, a world which continues to witness to an horrific extent the deaths of countless little ones, both born and unborn, in the dystopia of our world. The Christmas mystery does not hide the realities of human sin and wickedness which implicates us all in one way or another.

What this feast shows us is that the little ones are not unknown or unloved by God despite our evils and despite the limits of human justice and compassion. This feast, like the Feast of Stephen and the Feast of John the Evangelist, reminds us of the greater depth and meaning of Christ’s Incarnation. It reminds in a most poignant and painful way that suffering and sacrifice are inescapably part of the human condition, but, even more importantly, they are part of the story of human redemption.

Herod’s actions are a retelling of Pharaoh’s attempt to control and annihilate the Hebrew people in Exodus through a policy of infanticide. Infanticide is not unknown in our world and takes different forms. They all involve the privileging of some lives over and against others and often the claims to the complete autonomy of ourselves as agents freed to the pursuit of our own immediate interests even at the expense of the lives of others. In other words, Holy Innocents is a strong indictment of our culture and world too.

But the greater lesson of this disturbing yet necessary Christmas feast is what is seen in the lesson from Revelation. What it reveals to us is that the little ones are in Christ and participate by anticipation in the purpose of Christ’s coming. This is to suggest that we are always more though never less than the things which happen to us, whether they are the things over which we have no control, such as the little ones who are most vulnerable, or the things for which we do bear some responsibility or other. The striking feature of this feast is that nothing falls outside of the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In other words, “nothing can separate us from the love of God”.

We confront in this feast one of the most difficult and horrific aspects of our humanity and yet we confront as well the idea that these little ones participate in the sacrifice of Christ. The one whom they precede they follow. The love of God in Christ defines us even as it defines them.

“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of Holy Innocents, Xmas 2022

Print this entry

28 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

The Innocents’ Day

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

O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 14:1-5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13-18

When wise men from the East visited King Herod in Jerusalem to ask where the king of the Jews had been born, Herod felt his throne was in jeopardy. So, he ordered all the boys of Bethlehem aged two and under to be killed. On this day, the church remembers those children.

The Massacre of the Innocents is recorded only in St Matthew’s Gospel, where it is said to be fulfillment of a prophecy of Jeremiah.

The church has kept this feast day since the fifth century. The Western churches commemorate the innocents on 28 December; the Eastern Orthodox Church on 29 December. Medieval authors spoke of up to 144,000 murdered boys, in accordance with Revelation 14:3. More recent estimates, however, recognising that Bethlehem was a very small town, place the number between ten and thirty.

This episode has been challenged as a fabrication with no basis in actual historical events. James Kiefer has a point-by-point presentation of the objections with replies in defence of biblical historicity.

This is an appropriate day to remember the victims of abortion.

Artwork: Giotto di Bondone, Massacre of the Innocents, 1304-06. Fresco, Capella Scrovegni, Padua.

Print this entry

27 December 202230 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist

“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist belongs to the Christmas mystery and deepens our understanding of the Christmas Gospels about the Word made flesh proclaimed by John himself and about Christ’s nativity conveyed to us by Luke and Matthew. The point of emphasis is on his testimony and by extension on the witness of the Scriptures themselves to the Revelation of God in Christ.

Something great and wonderful is revealed to us. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life”, John states in his 1st Epistle. It is the strongest possible affirmation of the Incarnation and here he signals to us the end or purpose of what is revealed and made known to us: “that your joy may be full”.

And yet, as John himself also reminds us, what is made known of the mystery of God with us in Jesus Christ in no wise captures the fullness of the mystery of God himself. It is an important cautionary note, a recognition that the truth of God is by definition always greater and more than human knowing. We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. We are opened out to the inexhaustible mystery of the wonder of God, a mystery which the world cannot contain and possess. “The world itself could not contain the books that should be written”, he says, about the “many other things which Jesus did”.

Yet what has been manifested to us and what he says, “we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you” is “that eternal life, which was with the Father”. It belongs to our fellowship with the fellowship of the Trinity, “that ye also may have fellowship with us”. This is the deep joy of the Christmas mystery: our fellowship with one another in fellowship with God.

This is what the Collect means about our “being enlightened by the doctrine”, the teaching of John. His teaching illuminates the wonder and mystery of Christmas, the wonder and mystery of what is revealed in all of the images that belong to the scenes of Christ’s holy birth. There is more to what we see than what meets the eye. We behold in all of the stories of Christmas nothing less than the Word made flesh. We are enfolded in the mystery of God himself. This is our joy and end, the light of everlasting life.

“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist, Xmas 2022

Print this entry

27 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Saint John the Evangelist

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 21:19-25

John and his brother James (St. James the Greater) were Galilean fishermen and sons of Zebedee. Jesus called the two brothers Boanerges (“sons of thunder”), apparently because of their zealous character; for example, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans. John and James, together with Peter, belonged to the inner group of the apostles who witnessed the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. It was John and Peter whom Jesus sent to prepare the final Passover meal.

In the lists of disciples, John always appears among the first four, but usually after his brother, which may indicate that John was the younger of the two.

According to ancient church tradition, St. John the Evangelist was the author of the New Testament documents that bear his name: the fourth gospel, the three epistles of John, and Revelation. John’s name is not mentioned in the fourth gospel (but 21:2 refers to “the sons of Zebedee”), but he is usually if not always identified as the beloved disciple. It is also generally believed that John was the “other disciple” who, with Peter, followed Jesus after his arrest. John was the only disciple at the foot of the cross and was entrusted by Christ with the care of his mother Mary.

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, John, together with Peter, took a leading role in the formation and guidance of the early church. John was present when Peter healed the lame beggar, following which both apostles were arrested. After reports reached Jerusalem that Samaria was receiving the word of God, the apostles sent Peter and John to visit the new Samaritan converts. Presumably, John was at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). He is not mentioned later in the Acts of the Apostles, so he appears to have left Palestine.

(more…)

Print this entry

26 December 202230 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Stephen

“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”

The readings for the Feast of Stephen are in stark contrast, it might seem, to the feelings of good will and good cheer associated with Christmas. How strange that the wonder of Christmas night and Christmas morn should be followed by the stoning of Stephen as recorded in Acts and by the dire words of Jesus about “kill[ing] the prophets, and ston[ing] them which are sent unto you”? Images of stark and disturbing violence. How is this good news, we might ask? How to reconcile this with the Christmas messages of peace on earth and good will toward men? And yet, the Gospel insists that these things are really all a blessing.

“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord”. The three holy days of Christmas illuminate the radical meaning of Christ’s birth. It is not about ignoring and denying the realities of sin and evil, the realities of the cruel suffering inflicted by humans upon humans. Rather what we see is what is proclaimed in carol and song: “Christ was born for this!” Born for what? Born to bring redemption and healing to a broken world, born to suffer and die that we might have life in him.

In a profound sense, St. Stephen’s Day illustrates the meaning of the Christmas anthem from 1st John. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him”. The love of God means loving your enemies and blessing those that persecute you. Such is the radical nature of divine love which alone transcends the divisions and animosities of our hearts and world in disarray.

Stephen is the proto-martyr, the archetype of Christian witness, not simply by being killed, but by the spirit in him by which he faces death. Another lives in him, we might say, and that other is Christ. Christmas is really about our lives as lived in the love of God; God with us and we with God, we in him and he in us. That sense of co-inherence and mutual indwelling establishes an entirely different perspective on how we think about the darkness and evil of our souls and our world. Stephen’s words deliberately echo Christ’s words on the Cross, the words of forgiveness. Those are the words of love conveyed towards us as sinners which in turn shape our words towards those who seek our harm.

(more…)

Print this entry

26 December 202230 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Saint Stephen the Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 7:55-60
The Gospel: St. Matthew 23:34-39

All that is known of St. Stephen’s life is found in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7. He is reckoned as the first Christian martyr–the proto-martyr. Although his name is Greek for “crown”, he was a Jew by birth; he would have been born outside Palestine and raised as a Greek-speaking Jew. The New Testament does not record the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity.

Stephen first appears as one of the seven deacons chosen in response to protests by Hellenist (Greek-speaking) Christians that their widows were being neglected in the distribution of alms. The apostles were too busy preaching the word of God to deal with this problem, so they commissioned seven men from among the Hellenists “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom”, then prayed and laid hands on them. Stephen, the first among the seven, is described as “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”. A few verses later, Stephen is said to be “full of grace and power [and] doing great wonders and signs among the people”.

(more…)

Print this entry