Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Rogation Sunday
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on Rogation Sunday.
Month: May 2024
Sermon for Rogation Sunday
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again,
I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
All our comings and goings find their meaning and truth in the comings and goings of God made visible in Christ, the Word and Son of the Father. Prayer is our life as ordered to God and with God. The pilgrimage of our souls is gathered into the pilgrimage of the life of God in the going forth and return of God in creation and redemption; this makes visible the eternal love of God in himself. Perhaps nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in today’s Gospel for Rogation Sunday.
Rogation means asking. Prayer, in its most fundamental sense, is asking. Asking for what? For this or that commodity or thing? For privilege and prestige, power and domination over others? No. Prayer is our participation in God’s own gathering of all things to himself. It is our seeking or desiring but seeking and desiring what? It is not our seeking and desiring this or that thing in the false infinity of things which never satisfies. It is our seeking and desiring what is the absolute good and our seeking and desiring to do what is right; ultimately the justice of God. That presupposes a world that is not random and arbitrary, chaotic and aimless; it presupposes the goodness of creation as God’s creation and our place within that world as ordered to God. Prayer is nothing less than that complete orientation of ourselves to the will and truth of God. In the Christian understanding, as shown to us in this Gospel, prayer is nothing less than our asking the Father in the name of the Son and in the Spirit of their mutual love. It is Trinitarian.
Richard Hooker notes that “prayer signifies all the service that ever we do unto God.” It is our seeking and desiring what God seeks and desires and as such, in God, as Peter Abelard’s great hymn, O Quanta Qualia, puts it, “wish and fulfillment can severed be ne’er, /Nor the thing prayed for come short of the prayer.” It is a commentary on what Jesus means when he tells us that “the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.” Prayer “testifies,” as Hooker says, “that we acknowledge him as our sovereign good.” But up to now, “hitherto,” as Jesus says, “have you asked nothing in my name.” Prayer in the Christian sense is about asking the Father in the name of the Son in the Spirit of their eternal love: “ask,” Jesus says, “and ye shall receive that your joy may be full.” Peace and joy flow out of the Resurrection of Christ which makes visible what is present in the Passion; the “vision of peace, that brings joy evermore.”
Month at a Glance, May
Thursday, May 9th, Ascension Day
7:00pm Holy Communion
Sunday, May 12th, Sunday After Ascension Day
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, May 14th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Sunday, May 19th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, May 26th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Fifth Sunday After Easter
The collect for today, The Fifth Sunday After Easter, commonly called Rogation Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: St. James 1:22-27
The Gospel: St. John 16:23-33
Artwork: Michael Damaskinos, The Last Supper, c. 1591. Egg tempera on wood, Monastery of Agia Aikaterini, Heraklion, Crete.
Monnica, Matron
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Monnica (c. 331-387), mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo (source):
O Lord, who through spiritual discipline didst strengthen thy servant Monnica to persevere in offering her love and prayers and tears for the conversion of her husband and of Augustine their son: Deepen our devotion, we beseech thee, and use us in accordance with thy will to bring others, even our own kindred, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.
The Lesson: 1 Samuel 1:10-11,20
The Gospel: St. Luke 7:11-17
Artwork: John Nava, Saint Monica, 2003. Jacquard tapestry, Church of Saint Monica, Trenton, N.J.
KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 3 May
Comings and goings
This week in Chapel we had two sets of readings: one from Luke’s Gospel about the widow of Nain for the Junior School and Grade Ten services on Monday and Tuesday; and one from the sixteenth chapter of John’s Gospel read on Thursday and Friday. Each in their own way helps us to think about the radical teaching of the Resurrection that makes visible what is present in the Passion of Christ. It reveals what underlies and gives meaning to the comings and goings of our own lives. Ultimately, the comings and goings of our own lives find their purpose and meaning in the comings and goings of God in the motions of the divine life itself.
The story of Christ’s compassion towards the widow of Nain is quite powerful and moving. It follows immediately upon the story read last week about the healing of the Centurion’s servant by the word of Christ. “Say the word.” God’s word in Christ heals and restores; such is the power of the Word of God in creation and redemption which, unlike our words, creates and restores. In the story of the widow of Nain, we see the power of the Word and Son of the Father who when he “saw her, he had compassion on her.” It is an expression used several times by Luke.
Everything turns on how we see one another. Do we look at one another with hostility and fear? In hatred and envy? As enemies and opponents to be beaten and conquered? The conflict narratives of our world and day diminish the sense of our common humanity. It is the failure to respect one another and ourselves because we have lost sight of who we are in the eyes of God.
Respect is one of those big little words that mean so much more. We forget that respect has very much to do with how we look at things. Looking at things is contained in the word respect itself. In this story, it leads to compassion, another interesting word which refers to the inner being of a person understood in terms of the liver, or the womb or the heart. To have compassion is to take the other into the very being of oneself; in short, to see yourself in the other and the other in you. It means to grasp the essential nature of our humanity. In Christ, compassion means placing the experiences of sorrow and grief, of sin and suffering, in the very heart of God. For that is what the Passion and Resurrection ultimately make visible.
Athanasius, Doctor and Bishop
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Church (source):
Ever-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:5-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:23-28
Saint Athanasius is one of the most inspirational figures of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.
Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under the orthodox Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.
Athanasius became bishop in 328 at age 33 and spent the next five decades fighting for Nicene orthodoxy. For his troubles, he was deposed and exiled five times, spending a total of seventeen years in flight and hiding, often shielded by the people of Alexandria. Six years of exile were spent in Rome, where he gained the strong support of the Western church, and another six years were spent under the protection of monks in the Egyptian desert.
Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles
The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:
O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: St. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14
Artwork: Pompeo Batoni, St. Philip (left) and St. James the Less (right), c. 1740-43. Oil on canvas, National Trust, Basildon Park, Berkshire, England.