Christ Church

The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles I (1600-1649), King of England, Martyr (source):

King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for his persecutors
and died in the living hope of thine eternal kingdom:
grant us, by thy grace, so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
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:
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Artwork: William Dobson, Charles I, c. 1642-46. Oil on canvas, Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.

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

“Why are ye so fearful?”

Today’s Gospel marks the end of the Epiphany season this year. And it ends, appropriately enough, with an Epiphany of Christ as Pantokrator, the ruler of all. “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

But the manifestation of Christ as Pantokrator is not some imperious display of power and domination. It is more about divine compassion, a form of love. This sensibility is seen visibly in our icon of Christus Pantokrator. The icon is a Russian copy. The words around the figure written in the Cyrillic script are part of the so-called Comfortable Words in the liturgy. “Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you,” Jesus says. The icon includes the words which immediately follow: “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”(Mt. 11.29a). For as Jesus says, “I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt. 11. 29b,30).

“For there is no power but of God,” Paul tells us in Romans 13, again the continuation of the readings from Romans 12 that we have had on these Epiphany Sundays. This is all part of the doctrine of the Epiphany, not the narrative. It is all part of what is manifested so that we may learn about God and his will and purpose for our humanity.

The image of Christus Pantokrator seen in relation to this Gospel story counters the great fearfulness of our culture and world. “Master, carest thou not that we should perish”, captures something of the ‘catastrophism’ of our time and the default to a kind of despairing hedonism, a retreat into immediate pleasures and emotions having despaired of thought. But in having despaired of thought, our loves, too, are in disarray and disorder. It is a kind of solipsistic nightmare, the idea that reality is just what we feel in our minds.

This is more than just the fall-out from Covid, the new ‘cancer’ fear word of our times. Catastrophism concerns our world environmentally, economically, politically and socially but in each case there is a kind of philosophical despair borne of the assumption that the good can only be simply something material and physical, pleasing and comforting, hyggelig, as it were. Our catastrophism assumes that now is the end of the world, that the failure of the modern liberal project is the absolute end of nature and our humanity. Will it end with a big bang or a whimper? This was already raised by T.S. Eliot, “this is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper” in his 1925 poem, The Hollow Men.

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Thursday, February 2nd, Candlemas
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, February 5th, Septuagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Looking ahead:

Sunday, February 12th, Sexagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, February 19th, Quinquagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Followed by Potluck Luncheon & Annual Meeting of the Parish of Christ Church

Tuesday, February 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (2022) by David Hackett Fischer & Out of the Sun (2021) by Esi Edugyan

Wednesday, February 22nd, Ash Wednesday
12 noon Holy Communion & Imposition of Ashes
2:35-2:50 Imposition of Ashes at KES

Sunday, February 26th, First Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

All services to be held in Parish Hall, January through March.

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

O GOD, who knowest us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant to us such strength and protection, as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 13:1-7
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:35-41

Artwork: Jules Joseph Meynier, Christ Asleep in His Boat on the Sea of Galilee, 1870. Oil on canvas, Musée Municipal, Cambrai, France.

From the Prayer Book Society of Canada, the collect “For Reconciliation with the Jews”:

O GOD, who didst choose Israel to be thine inheritance: have mercy upon us and forgive us for violence and wickedness against our brother Jacob; the arrogance of our hearts and minds hath deceived us, and shame hath covered our face. Take away all pride and prejudice in us, and grant that we, together with the people whom thou didst first make thine own, may attain to the fulness of redemption which thou hast promised; to the honour and glory of thy most holy Name. Amen.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Preacher, Doctor of the Church, Archbishop of Constantinople (source):

O God of truth and love,
who gavest to thy servant John Chrysostom
eloquence to declare thy righteousness in the great congregation
and courage to bear reproach for the honour of thy name:
mercifully grant to the ministers of thy word
such excellence in preaching
that all people may share with them
in the glory that shall be revealed;
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 Lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10
The Gospel: St Luke 21:12-15

Artwork: Oleg Supereco, San Giovanni Crisostomo, Oil on canvas, 21st century (source).

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

There is the greatest difference between wanting to control the world and seeking to understand it. The love of learning which we talked about last week is about seeking to understand rather than presuming to control. Epiphany is the making known of things but that can only happen in part because of the desire to learn on our part. It has very much to do with a respect for learning and for the quest to know. Only so is it transformative.

This week the readings were the story of the “beginning of signs” at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and the “conversion” of Paul on the proverbial road to Damascus. Both are Epiphanies, as it were, and both challenge us about what we claim to know and seek to know. We might like the idea of having a kind of control over nature that allows us to change water into wine. Such is one of the illusions and fantasies of our technocratic world. But the point of the story is not about human manipulation of nature for so-called human ends but about what God seeks for our humanity in all of the ‘miracles’. He seeks the ultimate good for our humanity which is, perhaps not surprisingly, found in social joys. Most of the miracle stories are about healings but what are we healed for? For what end? Our good as found in God, in our delight in the goodness, the beauty and the truth of God which does not negate our humanity by turning us into machines, into automatons and bots, but perfects our humanity.

The story reveals at once the human predicament as named by Mary, “they have no wine.” We lack the means of our own sufficiency and joy. Jesus’ response is intriguing. “What is that to thee and to me? Mine hour has not yet come.” This may puzzle us but Mary gets it. “Whatever he tells you to do, do it,” she says, an echo of her own fiat mihi, “be it unto me according to thy word.” God seeks what is good for us according to his word and will, not according to human dictates and desires in all of their confusion and incompleteness. His hour refers to his passion, death and resurrection; in short, to the purpose of his Incarnation, his coming in the flesh of our humanity to recall us to our truth in God. There is perhaps no greater lesson than learning how to take delight in one another rather than using and manipulating one another in the illusions of control.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Apostolic Man, Martyr (source):

Almighty God,
who gavest to thy servant Polycarp
boldness to confess the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ
before the rulers of this world
and courage to suffer death for his faith:
grant that we too may be ready
to give an answer for the faith that is in us
and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 2:8-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 20:20-23

Church tradition holds that Polycarp was born c. AD 69 of Christian parents and was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, who ordained him Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was arrested during a pagan festival in Smyrna (present-day Izmir, Turkey) and brought before the Roman pro-consul.

[W]hen the magistrate pressed him hard and said, “Swear the oath, and I will release you; revile the Christ,” Polycarp said, “Eighty-six years have I been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

But on his persisting again and saying, “Swear by the genius of Caesar,” he answered, “If you suppose vainly that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as you say, and feign that you are ignorant of who I am, hear you plainly: I am a Christian. But if you would learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and give me a hearing.”

He was burned at the stake for refusing to renounce Christ.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written down by the church of Smyrna and sent as a letter to the church at Philomelium. It is the first Christian martyrology. Several translations of the text can be accessed via this page.

Artwork: Niccolò Circignani, Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, c. 1583. Fresco, Basilica of Santo Stefano al Monte Celio, Rome.

The collect for today, the Feast of The Conversion of Saint Paul, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who, through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 21:40-22:16
The Gospel: St. Luke 21:10-19

Artwork: Guido Reni, Conversion of St Paul, c. 1615-20. Oil on canvas, Monasterio El Escorial, San Lorenzo del Escorial, Spain.