Thursday, May 19th
7:00pm Capella Regalis concert
Tickets: $25 – door; $20 – advance; $10 – students. Click here for full details.
Sunday, May 22nd, Fifth Sunday after Easter / Rogation Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The collect for today, The Fourth Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15
Artwork: Philippe de Champaigne, The Last Supper, c. 1652. Oil on canvas, Louvre.
The accounts of the Resurrection all turn on the idea of how we come to know and show us that process of a dawning awareness in which we come to see things in a completely new way that illuminates the past and sets us in motion.
Here Christ appears to the disciples on the beach while they are fishing. It begins with the disciples not recognising Jesus, among them Peter, who it seems has returned to his former labor as a fisherman. But they had “caught nothing” until Jesus bids them cast their net on the other side of the boat wherein they enclose a great number of fishes, indeed, one hundred and fifty three without the net breaking! Only then does Jesus say, “come and have breakfast!”
Why 153 and why the unbroken net? Simply another fish story? Exaggerating the size and number of the fish caught? Mathematicians might note that 153 is the triangular number of seventeen but its symbolic meaning is open to interpretation. The Early Church Fathers in various imaginative ways see the number and the broken net as symbolizing the totality of salvation, namely, all who are enclosed in the unbroken net of the Gospel. This leads to a barbecue breakfast on the beach with Jesus. Not so much the last supper as the first breakfast! A strong affirmation of the bodily reality of our spiritual lives, we might say. And another image of our being gathered to God out of our confusions and disappointments. But fish? Well, in the later Christian imaginary, Christians identified themselves by the sign of the fish. Fish in Greek forms an acrostic: ICTHUS (ιχθυς), meaning “Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour,” a prayer and an expression of faith.
All of this suggests how the accounts of the Resurrection bring out a feature common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as other religions and philosophies, a feature which we forget at our peril. It is about a sacramental understanding.
A sacramental understanding has very much to do with the relation between Word and Sacrament and with the way in which the things of the world belong and contribute to our life of faith and to the forms of our participation in the life of God in Christ. In the Christian sense, the sacraments are “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. They are a critical feature of all religions. Something invisible and spiritual is made known through what is material and visible. This is the counter to our gnostic and technological flights from the world and the body as if it were evil.
The collect for today, the commemoration of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), Nurse, Social Reformer (source):
Life-giving God, who alone hast power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of thy servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them thy Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46
Artwork: Sir John Robert Steell, Florence Nightingale, 1862. Bronze, Florence Nightingale Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London. Photograph taken by admin, 25 August 2004.
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cyril (826-69) and Saint Methodius (c. 815-85), Apostles to the Slavs (source):
O Lord of all,
who gavest to thy servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavic people:
we pray that thy whole Church may be one as thou art one,
that all who confess thy name may honour one another,
and that from east and west all may acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and thee, the God and Father of all;
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: Ephesians 3:1-7
The Gospel: St. Mark 16:15-20
St. Cyril and St. Methodius were brothers born in Thessalonica who went to Constantinople after being ordained priests. (Cyril was baptised Constantine and did not become known as Cyril until late in his life.) Around AD 863, Emperor Michael II and Patriarch Photius sent the brothers as missionaries to Moravia, where they translated into Slavonic the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. With his brother’s help, Cyril created an alphabet that later developed into Cyrillic, thus laying the foundation for Slavic literature.
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89), Monk, Bishop, Theologian, Doctor of the Eastern Church (source):
Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.
The Lesson: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St. John 8:25-32
Artwork: Giuseppe Franchi, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, 1575. Oil on canvas, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after Easter.
Jesus comes and goes, it seems, yet he is always in our midst. He is in our midst not as a static presence but in the dynamic of the true meaning of his life captured in the recurring refrain of Eastertide, “because I go to the Father.” That is the radical meaning, in its Christian form, of God as essential life. And while the Passion and the Resurrection open us out to the idea and the reality of God as essential life, they do so only because the joy of the Resurrection is greater than the sorrows of the Passion. Why? Because life and light are greater than death and darkness. The goodness of God and his creation is greater than all sin and evil by definition. It belongs to the good news of Easter to show how this understanding comes to birth in us.
The birthing image is a mothering image. Jesus explains the transformative nature of the radical meaning of the Resurrection by way of an analogy to child-birth. God in relation to us is like a mother; there are a number of mothering images in the Scriptures which signal the deep love of God for our humanity and our world in spite of ourselves.
God is not a reflection of ourselves in the endlessly divisive celebrations of diversity. That is the post-Christian religion of identity politics which endlessly divides us. Rather the wisdom of the Scriptures in the life of the Church is about the redemption of images which unite us and gather us into the essential life of God. We honour our natural derivations, the mothers who bore us, for instance, on this day in our secular culture, Mother’s Day. For there is none who is not born of woman. We honour our mothers best when we place them in the dynamic of God’s life. The image here is about the eternal motion of the Son to the Father. It is the motion of love and sacrifice which conveys joy and delight. It redeems us from ourselves by placing us in the life of God but not in a flight from the world.
We are confused about the images of revelation when we misconstrue them to become reflections of ourselves such as in the competing advocacy agendas of the culture of diversity. “There is,” as Paul so wonderfully puts it, “neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ.” We are one in Christ in spite of differences of identity and not because of them. The Resurrection affirms the categories of creation; it does not negate them but neither does it reduce us to them. It seeks instead for us to know ourselves even as we are known in God. That is very different from seeking self-affirmation.
Friday, May 13th
3:00pm Church Parade with KES Cadet Corps
Sunday, May 15th, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Event:
Thursday, May 19th
7:00pm Capella Regalis concert
Tickets: $25 – door; $20 – advance; $10 – students. Details to come.
The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22
Artwork: Hans Holbein the Younger, The Last Supper, c. 1524-25. Oil on panel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel.
