Month: June 2023

Prayers and liturgy

St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles

The collects for today, the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul the Apostles, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle Saint Peter many excellent gifts, and commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock: Make, we beseech thee, all Bishops and Pastors diligently to preach thy holy Word, and the people obediently to follow the same, that they may receive the crown of everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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 manifold labours 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 Epistle: 1 St. Peter 1:1-9
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:13-19

Charles Poerson,The Preaching of St. Peter in JerusalemEustache Le Sueur, The Preaching of St. Paul at Ephesus

Artwork: (left) Charles Poerson, The Preaching of St. Peter in Jerusalem, 1642. Oil on canvas, St. Joseph Chapel, Notre Dame de Paris; (right) Eustache Le Sueur, The Preaching of St. Paul at Ephesus, 1649. Oil on canvas, Louvre.

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Prayers and liturgy

Irenaeus, Bishop and Doctor

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Irenaeus (d. 202), Bishop of Lyon, Doctor of the Church (source):

Carl Rohl-Smith, St. IrenaeusO God of peace,
who through the ministry of thy servant Irenæus
didst strengthen the true faith and bring harmony to thy Church:
keep us steadfast in thy true religion
and renew us in faith and love,
that we may ever walk in the way
that leadeth to everlasting life;
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: 2 Timothy 2:22b-26
The Gospel: St. Luke 11:33-36

Artwork: Carl Rohl-Smith, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, 1883-84. Frederik’s Church, Copenhagen.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

“The God of all grace … shall himself restore, stablish, strengthen you.”

The epistles, especially of the Trinity season, lay out the doctrine of our abiding in Christ. They focus on the qualities of our being in Christ. The First Sunday after Trinity sets before us the principle of abiding in God and God abiding in us; it belongs entirely to God as love and that love as shaping our loves and our lives. The Second Sunday showed us something of its radical meaning in terms of how that divine love overcomes the animosities, divisions, and condemnations of both others and ourselves. Both those epistles were taken from John’s First Epistle. Today, the epistle reading is from 1st Peter from which the epistle for the Fifth Sunday will also be taken. Next Sunday, the epistle reading is from Paul’s letter to the Romans. These so-called ‘catholic’ epistles of John and Peter, meaning that they are addressed to the whole or universal church, along with Romans 8 next week, emphasize the theme of our sanctification in and through “the sufferings of this present world” and thus provide an introduction to a series of readings from Paul’s epistles that will instruct us in our life in Christ over the rest of the Trinity season. “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,” as Peter will tell us.

The emphasis on the doctrine of our abiding in God and God in us is sanctification. The pageant of justifying grace in what Christ has done for us from Advent through to Trinity Sunday now gives over to the qualities of its realization in us, the pageant of sanctifying grace which belongs to our life in Christ. The Gospels illustrate the meaning of the doctrine or teaching and in often vivid ways.

Today’s epistle reading exhorts us to humility as the necessary condition of our being “restored, stablished and strengthened” which the Gospel illustrates in “this parable” which “[Jesus] spake unto them.” Who are they? Well, the motley crew of our wounded and broken humanity! Publicans and sinners, on the one hand, and Pharisees and Scribes, on the other hand. In a way, it embraces the whole range of our humanity. Publicans here refer to tax-collectors who are linked to the more general aspect of our humanity as sinners. The Pharisees and Scribes, the religious leaders and authorities in the Jewish world with their different approaches to the law, murmur against Jesus. Why? Because the Publicans and sinners “drew near … for to hear him.” The context is again the ways in which the human community is divided against itself and in particular against others; the Pharisees and Scribes against the publicans and sinners. But even more, there is the reality of our opposition to God.

The positive lies in the drawing near of the publicans and sinners to hear Jesus. This suggests the desire of our souls for the teaching of God beyond the divisions and divides in our worldly lives. But the condition is repentance; something which the witness of John the Baptist also highlights “by preaching of repentance.”

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Events, Month at a Glance

June / July at a Glance

(Fr. Curry away at the Atlantic Theological Conference, Charlottetown, PEI, Mon., June 26th – Wed., June 28th)

Sunday, July 2nd,, Fourth Sunday after Trinity (in the Octave of SS. Peter & Paul)
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, July 9th, Fifth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, July 16th, Sixth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, July 23rd, Seventh Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, July 30th, Eighth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Fr. Curry is priest-in-charge for Avon Valley Parish and Hantsport during July; Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge for Christ Church during August when I will be on vacation.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 5:5-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 15:1-10

Trygve Skogrand, FoundArtwork: Trygve Skogrand, Found (from The Cobblestone Gospel Series), 2020, Digital drawing.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

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

ALMIGHTY God, by whose providence thy servant John Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour, by preaching of repentance: Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching, and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 40:1-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:57-80

Tintoretto, Birth of St. John the Baptist, c. 1554Artwork: Tintoretto, Birth of St. John the Baptist, c. 1554. Oil on canvas, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

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Prayers and liturgy

Alban, Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Alban, First Martyr of Britain, d. c. 250 (source):

St. Alban the Martyr Holborn, St. AlbanAlmighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-16
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:34-42

Artwork: Saint Alban, Church of St. Alban the Martyr, Holborn, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity

“Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”

Something of the charity of Christ is at work in our dealings with one another. It is about more though not less than good manners and civility.

This is a central theme in the Trinity season. We participate in what is proclaimed. “God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him,” as John says in his 1st Epistle and which becomes the recurring refrain of the Trinity season. There is a necessary, inescapable and intimate relation between the making known of God in Jesus Christ and the form of our life in Christ. In today’s Epistle, John drives home a very hard lesson that follows from that understanding. It is about our love towards those towards whom we may feel anything but love and affection, kindliness and concern. There may be things about our brother or sister (let’s not be gender exclusive!) that are quite unlovely, even hateful.

What, then, are we called to love in those whom, quite frankly, we can’t stand? Simply this, we honour their being made in the image of God, howsoever much that image has been obscured, denied and derided, howsoever much we ourselves may be confused and deluded in our judgment. This provokes the equally salutary thought. Our awareness of our judgmentalism leads to self-judgment. Yet that, too, can be quite destructive; self-condemnation easily leads to despair. But here is the strong counter: “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.” In every way, we are being encouraged, if not actually catapulted into the mystery of God which we have been privileged to hear and receive. This is the astounding teaching: we are more though not less than our thoughts and actions. To be catapulted into the mystery of God is to know that we are loved and known in God; a check upon our own presumption.

It belongs to the joy of the Trinity season to place us in the intimacy of the Blessed Trinity. Trinity season is about going through the open door or, at the very least, standing on the threshold of that open door of the kingdom of heaven. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it, but we don’t always see it, do we? Yet, the realities of the kingdom are here and now, present in our daily lives, before our very eyes. Thus we have a parable about the kingdom told by Jesus: “A certain man made a great supper and bade many.”

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