Month: September 2023

Prayers and liturgy

Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Cyprian (c. 200-258), Bishop of Carthage, Martyr (source):

Master of Meßkirch, St. CyprianO holy God,
who didst bring Cyprian to faith in Christ
and didst make him a bishop in the Church,
crowning his witness with a martyr’s death:
grant that, following his example,
we may love the Church and her doctrine,
find thy forgiveness within her fellowship,
and so come to share the heavenly banquet
which thou hast prepared for us;
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 St. Peter 5:1-4,10-11
The Gospel: St. John 10:11-16

Artwork: Master of Meßkirch, Saint Cyprian, 1535-40. Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

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

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

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

“One of them turned back, … giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”

Thanksgiving belongs to our sanctification; in short, to “the increase of faith, hope and charity” or love in us, as the Collect prays. As such it is about our living and walking in the Spirit which, as Paul emphasizes in Galatians, is about “bearing one another’s burdens” as well as “bearing our own burdens.” Thanksgiving frees us to God and to one another in God.

The Gospel story for today illustrates the radical nature of thanksgiving as an integral and critical part of our life in the Spirit. There were ten lepers all of whom sought healing from Jesus. All ten were healed, restored to the human community from which they had been exiled and shut out, spurned because of their contagion. Only one returned to give thanks.

Our redemption is accomplished once and for all in Christ’s sacrifice and passion; hence all ten were healed. It is whole and complete in Christ. But our sanctification, itself an integral part of human redemption, is a continuing work in progress. It is about growing into who we are in Christ while in via ad patriam, in pilgrimage to God. Our sanctification is not complete and inherent in us. But to be whole is about that constant work of thanksgiving which turns entirely upon our participation in Christ’s sacrifice through “this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving”; in short, our constant attention to Christ wanting him to “make us love that which thou dost command” in order “that we may obtain that which thou dost promise.” What he promises is illustrated in the remarkable exchange between Jesus and the one who turned back.

“And he was a Samaritan,” Luke tells us, at the same time as being named by Jesus as “this stranger.” Once again we have a Gospel story which illustrates the qualities of our life in Christ by way of the example of a Samaritan. Last week we had the parable of the Good Samaritan, the great illustration of the Christian ethic of compassion. In the Evening Offices for this week, we had as well the story of Jesus at the well of Samaria; his encounter with the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel.

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

September at a Glance

Fr. Curry away to the Parish of St. Anthony of Padua, Hackensack, New Jersey to give a paper at the SSC (Society of the Holy Cross), Tuesday, September 12th to Thursday, September 14th, 2023

Sunday, September 17th, Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, September 19th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, September 21st, St. Matthew
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, September 24th, Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Holy Communion – KES Chapel

Tuesday, September 26th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World by Jennifer Rogan-Lefebvre (2022); and I drink, therefore I am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine by Roger Scruton (2009).

Thursday, September 28th, Eve of Michaelmas
7:00pm Holy Communion

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

The Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:25-6:5
The Gospel: St. Luke 17:11-19

Giuseppe Bertini, Christ and the LeperArtwork: Giuseppe Bertini, Christ and the Leper, 1855-60. Oil on canvas, Galleria Giannoni, Novara, Italy.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:39-49

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Birth of the VirginArtwork: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Birth of the Virgin, 1660. Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris.

Print this entry

KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 9 September

Chapel beginnings ( and endings)!

“In the beginning God … In the beginning was the Word.” These are two of the greatest opening lines in all literature; the one from the beginning of the Hebrew Book of Genesis, the other from the Prologue which marks the beginning of The Gospel according to St. John. For quite a few years, it has become a tradition at King’s-Edgehill School for the Head Boy and Head Girl (Spencer Johnson & Ava Shearer) to read Genesis 1.1-5 and John 1.1-5 at the first Chapel services of the School year. Why?

Because they are such powerful foundational and formative passages which place us within the spiritual understanding of education which speaks to the whole person. Thus they provide a ground of unity and purpose to all four pillars of the School in its educational philosophy: the academic, the artistic, the athletic, and the idea of service in leadership. These are not merely a list of things, like boxes to be checked off. They are all interrelated. What gives them a deeper sense of connection and unity of purpose is the spiritual experience of Chapel. It recalls us to the idea and reality of how we are all part of something greater than ourselves and to the idea of an education which constantly calls us out of ourselves.

There is something quite wonderful and quite challenging about the first Chapels. Each year we have a whole lot of new students, many of whom have never been in a sacred space and have never encountered religion – itself a challenging word – as something that is to be thought about as belonging to education. There is no subject or discipline in our schools which does not have in some way or another a connection to the religions of the world. The greater challenge, perhaps, lies in addressing the most prevalent misconception about religion in contemporary culture: the idea that religion is, first and foremost, a private or personal matter.

Chapel is not about an affirmation of the various and indeterminate forms of personal identity and/or personal faith or non-faith that are part of our current culture. Like education, religion cannot be coerced or forced. It is more a question about ideas and questions that cannot be ignored or denied; at best, my task is to offer and to point out the ways in which religious traditions in their richness and philosophical truth address questions about the world and about our humanity. It is all about the questions. Students and faculty come from all sorts of different ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and ideological backgrounds with a whole host of assumptions and opinions. Regardless of our claims to identity and personal faith, we all enter into the life of the School which is prior to us all. Chapel is simply an integral part of the history and life of the School, an integral part of the educational project and experience.

The School’s origins and history are Christian and Anglican. The Chapel service is not ‘non-denominational’ but neither is it something narrowly sectarian. A simplified version of Mattins or Morning Prayer, it belongs very much within the orbit of the forms of worship common to a great number of religious traditions both Christian and non-Christian: two hymns, a Scripture sentence, confession and absolution, the Lord’s Prayer, a Scripture reading, a homily, intercessory prayers, the School prayer, and a blessing. All pretty basic. My challenge is to speak out of the Christian understanding but with a view towards the forms of its connection and engagement with other religious and philosophical traditions regardless of the faith or non-faith claims of students and faculty.

(more…)

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:25-37

Francesco Bassano the Younger, The Good SamaritanArtwork: Francesco Bassano the Younger, The Good Samaritan, c. 1575. Oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Giles, Abbot

The collect for an Abbot, on the Feast of St. Giles of Provence (d. c. 710), Hermit, Abbot (source):

O God, by whose grace the blessed Abbot Giles, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:15-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:20-23a

Andrea Camassei, St Giles and the HindAll that is known for certain about this saint is that he was born in the early 7th century and that he founded a monastery in what is now the town of Saint-Gilles, southern France, on land given to him by Flavius Wamba, King of the Visogoths.

Giles, accompanied by a hind, had come to live in a hermitage near Arles. During a hunt, King Wamba fired an arrow at the hind, but struck and crippled Giles instead. The king then gave the humble saint land to found an abbey.

The monastery founded by St. Giles became a renowned stopping place in medieval times for pilgrims journeying to Compostela, Rome, or the Holy Land.

A tenth-century Legend attributed important miracles to Saint Giles, which helped make him one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries across Europe are dedicated to him. As well, because he is the patron saint of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers, many hospitals were built in his name. Saint Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, where his memory is honoured by the Church of Scotland High Kirk: St. Giles’ Cathedral.

Artwork: Andrea Camassei, St. Giles and the Hind, c. 1600. Oil on canvas, Civitavecchia, Italy.

Print this entry