Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Feast of St. Peter & St. Paul / Second Sunday after Trinity.
The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul commemorates the twin pillars of Christ’s Church. Their joint commemoration is itself a work of Providence. It draws together into one festival two prominent figures from the Scriptures of the New Testament, and a later tradition about their martyrdom and the subsequent translation of their remains to a common resting place in Rome. It suggests a spiritual connection between Scripture and Tradition; namely, how we think about what is received and given to us in Revelation.
The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul places us with Christ in his body, the Church, but only insofar as it stands upon the Word of God revealed and written, hence the primacy of Scripture as the Revelation of the Word of God. Therein is the important connection. The preaching and teaching of Saul, renamed Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, is about the primacy of the Scriptures, “things written for our learning (ad nostram doctrinam)” about our life in Christ. This is the basis for the understanding of our life in the body of Christ, the Church, established by Jesus upon Simon, renamed Peter, the rock, upon which he will build his Church against which ”the gates of hell shall not prevail.” The Church is not primarily or simply a human or social construct.
This feast also marks the 40th anniversary of the ordination of Fr. John Park to the sacred priesthood, to his ministry within the sacred body of Christ. We are delighted and honoured to have him as our celebrant this morning. It speaks to all of us about our life in Christ. The ministry is nothing less than sacrifice and service, nothing less than the motions of Christ in him and for us. The ministry is not self-referential, not a celebration of individuals in their various skills and talents, but a reminder to all of us about our vocation to loving service in the body of Christ. “Let no man glory in men,” Paul tells us in the second set of readings provided for use in the Octave of this feast. Ordination is not about the person in the office but the office in the person. The office of Priest is the ministry of Word and Sacrament founded upon nothing less than the Word and Spirit of God. “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and the stewards of the mysteries of God,” as Paul puts it.
And what is the Church? A building? A bishop? A congregation? A denomination? A parish? A diocese? A synod? A national church? No. Those at best are nothing more and nothing less than the outward expressions in one way or another and to some extent or another of “the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,” as we profess in the Creed. What we celebrate today with Fr. Park especially is that reality: the Church’s unity in God as Trinity, the Church’s holiness by the guiding light of the Holy Spirit, the Church’s catholicity in the fulness of the Faith, and the Church’s apostolicity as grounded in the mystery of Pentecost. In short, we are reminded of what we are called to be for that is the role and purpose of the ordained ministry of the Church. Forty years ago, John Park was ordained and enrolled in that understanding that reaches far beyond the mechanics and systems of our human devices. Father, remember that “thou art a Priest for ever” in the high priesthood of Christ, Tu est sacerdos in aeternum.
Sunday, July 6th, Trinity 3
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 13th, Trinity 4
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 20th, Trinity 5
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 27th, Trinity 6
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
I will be on vacation for the month of July. Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge and will officiate at the 10:30am service and be responsible for all priestly and pastoral matters. Fr. Todd Meaker has kindly agreed to celebrate at the 8am services.
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
Artwork: Hans Suess Kulmbach, Arrest of St. Peter & St. Paul, c. 1510. Oil on canvas, Uffizi, Florence.
The collect for today, the Second Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love: Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:15-24
Artwork: Cicely Mary Barker, The Parable of the Great Supper, 1935. Oil on canvas, Lady Chapel, St. George’s, Waddon, Croydon.
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Irenaeus (d. 202), Bishop of Lyon, Doctor of the Church (source):
O 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: Lucien Bégule, Saint Irenaeus, 1901. Stained glass, St. Irenaeus Church, Lyon.
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
Artwork: Massimo Stanzione, The Birth of John the Baptist announced to Zechariah, c. 1635. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the First Sunday after Trinity.
“The rich man also died, and was buried: and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments,” Luke tells us. Wow. Where is the love in that? It seems that we have gone from Heaven to Hell in the blink of an eye, from the wonderful vision of Heaven in the celebration of God as Trinity to a vision of hell. “Behold, a door was opened in heaven.” A door, not a window, a door through which we enter into what we see and hear.
And what did we see and hear? A vision of heaven, a vision of worship through the images of Scripture. The four and twenty elders, symbolic of the witness of the Old Testament to God, and the four living creatures, symbolic of the witness of the four Gospels of the New Testament, united in the worship of the Trinity. But how do we come to such a vision of God as Trinity, as absolute self-giving love? Through Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son, “the Word made flesh [who] dwelt among us” who is in the bosom of the Father and makes God known to us as Trinity. A fullness of Revelation.
In John’s Epistle this morning we hear about God as love, indeed that “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” We know this as the refrain of the Trinity season as the abiding love of God. Abiding and dwelling are synonyms. John’s Epistle is a treatise on love. It opens out to us something which is heavenly in contrast to hell. Why then the Gospel reading from Luke in the parable of Dives and Lazarus? How do we reconcile that story with the idea of becoming what we behold?
“There was a certain rich man,” Dives. That is not his name. Dives simply means the rich man. He is defined by his worldly wealth; not named, but only identified in terms of his economic status, one who is “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.” Who is Lazarus? “A certain beggar,” but he has a name, an identity beyond his circumstance and situation. He lies at the gate of the rich man, “full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.” Yet he is completely ignored by the rich man; only “the dogs came and licked his sores.” It is a graphic picture. There is a compelling contrast between the unnamed rich man and the named beggar, between the compassion of the dogs and the utter indifference of Dives, the rich man. Another dog story, it seems, much like the Canaanite woman who reminds Jesus that “even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table;” what Lazarus desires but more than what he gets. It is all in the contrasts.
Sunday, June 22nd, Trinity 1
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, June 29th, SS. Peter & Paul / Trinity 2
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(Fr. Park will be the celebrant on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his priesting)
I will be on vacation for the month of July. Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge and will officiate at the 10:30am service and be responsible for all priestly and pastoral matters. Fr. Todd Meaker has kindly agreed to celebrate at the 8am services.
