Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Day of Pentecost.

“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”

“And having said thus,” Luke tells us, “he gave up the spirit;” literally, expired or breathed out his last. This seventh and last word of the Crucified complements the sending of the Spirit of the Son and the Spirit of the Father, the Holy Spirit, on the Feast of Pentecost. A Greek word, it means the fiftieth day after Easter but has been commonly called Whitsunday, which is a bit confusing since the liturgical colour for the day is red as honouring the tongues of fire that rested upon the disciples. Whitsunday or White Sunday makes sense when you realize that this was one of the premier times for baptism as well, the baptizands robed in white robes, as it were, “made white in the blood of the Lamb.” It is ‘the feast of weeks’ or Shavuot in the Jewish calendar marking the wheat harvest, on the one hand, and the commemoration of the giving of the Torah to Israel, on the other hand. In the Christian understanding, it celebrates the descent of the Holy Ghost bestowing the gifts of the Spirit upon the Church.

It marks an ending and a beginning. In the ordering of the seven last words of Christ by the Peruvian Jesuit priest, Fr. Alonso Messio Bedoya, in the 17th century, this seventh and last word reveals the underlying dynamic of God as Trinity and, ultimately, the doctrine of co-inherence: the co-inherence or mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the co-inherence or mutual indwelling of the human and divine natures of Christ, and the co-inherence or mutual indwelling between Christ and the Church.

Pentecost is, as Lancelot Andrewes emphasizes, the “festum charitatis,’ the feast of love. Pentecost is the manifestation, the making visible of the Holy Spirit at the same time as it is the making known or revelation of the Trinity. Like the story of Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan, Pentecost is “the visible descending of the Holy Ghost … so that all might see and so take notice of the Holy Ghost, and indeed of the whole Trinity”. It has everything to do with the mystery of God and our incorporation into the divinum mysterium, the mystery of divine love.

“The Holy Ghost is the Alpha and Omega of all our solemnities,” Andrewes notes. This highlights the significance of Pentecost and its connection to all of the credal and doctrinal moments that belong to our lives in faith. We move from the ascension of Christ to the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is “the essential love and love-knot” of the Father and the Son, “the love-knot between God and man” in the person of Christ, and “yet more specifically on this day the love-knot between Christ and his Church”. The Son gives up his spirit into the hands of the Father on the Cross and now the Holy Spirit descends upon the Church as the body of Christ inspiring and infusing the Church with the gifts of grace, things which we do hear and see in the wonder of Pentecost. “A sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind” – something heard – “and cloven tongues, like as of fire” – something seen. These rather elusive and dynamic images from the material and physical world help us to think about the reality of spiritual life as that which contains and holds all reality together in God, the reconciliation of matter and spirit, of God and man.

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Sunday, June 4th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 11th, St. Barnabas / First Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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

Saturday, June 17th
9:00am Encaenia at KES

Sunday, June 18th, Second Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 25th, Third Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
9:00am Reunion Service at KES
10:30am Holy Communion

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27

Artwork: Juan Bautista Maíno, Pentecost, 1612-14. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

“Have you condemned a daughter of Israel without examination
and without learning the facts?”

The conclusion to the outstanding short story of Susanna and the elders read in the two senior Chapels this week following the May long weekend is dramatic and powerful. Daniel speaks up and identifies the problem: the arbitrary misuse and miscarriage of justice not only by the judges in their wickedness but by the assembly itself. The assembly has condemned Susanna simply on the authority of the judges without an examination of the case. Such is injustice and a betrayal of Israel itself in ignoring the Law.

This complements the famous ‘myth of Gyges’ in Plato’s Republic which launches the inquiry into the nature of justice. Instead of just one ring of invisibility, we are asked to imagine two rings, one in the possession of someone who is just and one who is unjust. Show us, Socrates, Glaucon asks, why justice is better than injustice in all cases. The idea of the ring of invisibility raises the perennial question: wouldn’t we all cheat and lie if we could get away with it? In other words, power without wisdom, without virtue, leads to injustice in the individual and in the community. “The state is the soul writ large” is Plato’s equally famous analogy.

The assembly allows Daniel to examine the judges who have falsely accused Susanna. The approach is classic. He separates them from each other and asks them under which tree did they see Susanna and the purported young man she was supposed to be with. There is a wonderful ironic wordplay in the Greek about the two trees, perhaps best rendered in English as a clove tree and a yew tree, suggesting the verbs ‘cutting’ or ‘cleaving’, and ‘sawing’ or ‘hewing’ apart. The point is that they are caught out in a lie and in so doing become subject to the very same penalty which they had wrongly sought to inflict upon Susanna. We might call it poetic justice. They have betrayed Israel and themselves in seeking to harm Susanna.

We might note, too, how the argument brings out the significance of empirical evidence in the way the wicked judges are caught out. This kind of tree, says the one; that kind of tree, says the other. The empirical – what belongs to sense perception – goes together with the rational. Their own words convict them.

The deeper ethical principle is that justice cannot be arbitrary. The deliberate misuse of justice for their immediate self-interest comes back upon them. They are caught in the web of their own deceit and evil. They have, as the text makes explicit, betrayed the idea of the love of neighbour which we learned about from the Book of Leviticus which goes together with the love of God.

We have read the conclusion to the story of Susanna in Ascensiontide. In the Christian understanding, the Ascension of Christ to the right hand of God the Father is the homecoming of the Son having accomplished all that belongs to human redemption. As the Fathers of the early church emphasize, this is “the exaltation of our humanity,” an image of the dignity and virtue of our humanity as found in God. The Ascension is not a flight from the world as if it were evil. It points us to the reconciliation of spirit and matter and reveals the greater truth of our humanity as found in communion with God.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the story of Susanna serves as a counter to our cynical despair about our institutions and political life. It recalls us to the principles that properly dignify and ennoble our lives, the principles that make us truly human.

(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy

The collect for today, the Feast of The Venerable Bede (673-735), Monk, Historian, Doctor of the Church (source):

Almighty God, maker of all things,
whose Son Jesus Christ gave to thy servant Bede
grace to drink in with joy
the word which leadeth us to know thee and to love thee:
in thy goodness
grant that we also may come at length to thee,
the source of all wisdom,
and stand before thy face;
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.

For The Epistle: Wisdom 7:15-22
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:47-52

Saint Bede the Venerable was born and, as far as we know, lived his entire life in the north of England, yet he became perhaps the most learned scholar in all of Europe. At the age of 7, he was sent to Wearmouth Abbey for his education; at age 11, he continued his education at the new monastery at Jarrow, eventually becoming a monk and remaining there until his death. He lived a routine and outwardly uneventful life of prayer, devotion, study, writing, and teaching.

Bede’s writings cover a very wide range of interests, including natural history, orthography, chronology, and biblical translation and exposition. He was the first to translate the Bible into Old English. He considered his 25 volumes of Scripture commentary to be his most important writings. His best-known book is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. This work earned him the popular title “Father of English History”, and not just because it was the first attempt to write a history of England. His historical research was thorough and far-reaching. For example, he asked friends traveling to Rome to bring him copies of documents relevant to English history, and he made use of oral traditions when written materials were not available. The book provides much historical information that can be found in no other source.

His pupil Cuthbert, later Abbot of Jarrow, has left a moving eyewitness account of St. Bede’s last hours. Bede fell ill shortly before Easter 735, when he was in the midst of translating the Gospel of John into the Anglo-Saxon language. Everyone realised that the end was near, but he was determined to complete the translation. Between Easter and Ascension Day, he persisted in the task while continuing to teach his students at his bedside.

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The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Augustine (d. c. 605), first Archbishop of Canterbury (source):

O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 5:17-20a
The Gospel: St. Luke 5:1-11

Celtic Christianity had taken root in Britain and Ireland by the end of the third century. In the fifth century, however, Britain was overrun by non-Christian invaders from northern Europe: the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

In 596, Pope Gregory the Great chose Augustine, prior of a monastery at Rome, to head a mission to convert the pagan English. After Gregory consecrated Augustine bishop, the missionary party landed in Kent in 597. The dominant ruler of Anglo-Saxon England was the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, whose wife Bertha was a Christian princess of the Franks. The king, although initially uninterested in Christianity, allowed Augustine and his companions to live in his territory and freely preach the gospel. Within four years, the king and several thousand of his people had been converted and baptised.

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The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, on the Feast of Saint Aldhelm (c. 639-709), Abbot of Malmesbury, Bishop of Sherborne, Poet, Scholar, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Aldhelmb to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Aldhelm became the first Bishop of Sherborne in AD 705. Before then he had been Abbot of Malmesbury for some thirty years. He was born in about AD 639 and died in 709 in Doulting, Somerset. Saint Aldhelm is buried at Malmesbury. His name translated from the old English means “Old Helmet”. For more information, click here.

Photograph: St. Aldhelm, Sherborne Abbey, Dorset, U.K.
© Copyright Sarah Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

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

“It is finished.”

The sixth word of the Crucified in Fr. Alonso Messio Bedoya’s ordering of the last words of Christ on the Cross is from St. John’s account of the Passion. John’s last word of Christ is the penultimate word in the sequence of the seven last words. “It is finished,” Jesus says, “and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.” It is a profound and moving moment.

“The end of all things is at hand,” Peter tells us in the Epistle for today while the Gospel speaks about the Comforter, “the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,” who “shall testify of me,” Jesus says, even as we also are to bear witness in the face of hostility and persecution. What kind of ending is this?

“It is finished” signals the completion and ending of all that belongs to human redemption in terms of the overcoming of sin and evil through the perfect sacrifice of the Son to the Father. It expresses the meaning of the coming of Christ to “do the will of him who sent him.” What is that will? To redeem the whole of creation. All that goes forth from God returns to God. Such is the radical truth of creation even in the face of negation of God’s will by sin and death. There is no truth apart from the will of God.

Ascension Day marks the ending of the mission of the Incarnate Son in his going forth and his return. It is his homecoming but one which establishes our homeland. Here we have, as Hebrews famously puts it, “no continuing city” (Heb. 13.14). We have our true abiding in God. Christ’s return to the Father is the completion of the work of redemption accomplished in his body. His return is the exaltation of our humanity, as the Fathers’ note, as well as the restoration of the whole of creation to its truth in God. Christ’s Ascension then leads to his Session, to his being seated at the right hand of the Father. This is a powerful image, a way of representing God’s providential rule made manifest in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. They end or culminate, we might say, with the Ascension and the Session.

But the radical meaning of these Scriptural and Credal doctrines so easily escapes us. We forget that it happens in the body of our humanity which Christ assumes from Mary. It means that we in our humanity are given a vision of our place with God in Christ; in short, that as he is so shall we be also. What that means exactly is beyond our conceiving and imagination. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” Yet it is enough to say that as he is so shall we be also for it is about our being gathered to God, not God being collapsed into the confused agendas of our day. The Ascension testifies to the truth of creation and its redemption in Christ. As the great Ascension hymns emphasize, the risen and ascended Christ shows the marks of the Cross. They are the marks of divine love, the testimony of the Son to the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit.

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