Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Fourth Sunday after Trinity in the Octave of the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.
Suffering and glory. Mercy and justice. They seem to stand in opposition one to the other yet our readings suggest otherwise and illuminate the nature of the Christian pilgrimage of the soul. It is nothing less than our participation in what has been fully and completely accomplished for us in Christ’s sacrifice but which remains to be more fully realized in us. We live by faith in what we have been given to know. We live by hope in what belongs to the truth and end or purpose of our humanity in God. We live by love that unites faith and hope and sustains us in the journey of our souls to our homeland in God both now and evermore. In short, we await “our full adoption as sons.”
That sense of participation highlights a sense of agency in our taking a hold of the life of Christ. Our seeking is our finding in order to seek all the more. It is not about possessing the truth, as if it were a thing, a consumer product, or simply a fantasy of our own devising; rather it is about being possessed by the truth. What that means is further illustrated in the witness of John the Baptist whose nativity was this week. In the tradition of the church we meet within the Octave of that feast precisely because of the significance of John the Baptist in the pilgrimage of sanctification.
An intriguing and challenging figure, his life and story is only about one thing and one thing only: he points us to the truth of God in Christ. The whole purpose of his being from his birth to his death is to point to the one who is greater than himself, the one whom he names as “the Lamb of God”. John the Baptist prepares the way of Christ by preaching of repentance. Repentance is our constant turning to God, a twofold turning, a turning towards God and a turning away from our sins which separate us from God; in short, conversion and contrition. John the Baptist preaches a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; Christ is that forgiveness. Christ’s baptism by John in Jordan reveals the truth of God and the meaning of that truth for us in the restoration of the image of God as Trinity in us, for that is the radical meaning of our pilgrimage, our sanctification in embracing and growing into Christ.
Sunday, June 28th, Fourth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(Followed by a time of fellowship & refreshment – Parish Hall)
Monday, June 29th, St. Peter & St. Paul
10:00am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 5th, Fifth Sunday after Trinity (In the Octave of SS. Peter & Paul)
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 12th, Sixth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 19th, Seventh Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, July 26th, Eighth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Thursday, July 30th, Comm. of St. John Vianney (transf.)
9:00am Holy Communion, SSC Chapter Meeting -Parish Hall
The collect for today, the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Romans 8:18-23
The Gospel: St Luke 6:36-42
Artwork: Jan Christiaensz Micker, The Narrow Road of Virtue and the Wide Road of Sin, c. 1650. Oil on oak panel, National Museum, Warsaw.