Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

The Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:13-21
The Gospel: St. Luke 7:11-17

Hans von Aachen, Raising of the Widow's Son at NainArtwork: Hans von Aachen, Raising of the Widow’s Son at Nain, c. 1600. Oil on canvas, Seitenstetten Abbey, Austria.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Francis of Assisi

Bernardo Strozzi, St. FrancisThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor (source):

O God,
who ever delightest to reveal thyself
to the childlike and lowly of heart,
grant that, following the example of the blessed Francis,
we may count the wisdom of this world as foolishness
and know only Jesus Christ and him crucified,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:14-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 11:25-30

Artwork: Bernardo Strozzi, St. Francis, c. 1610-15. Oil on canvas, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings, Theology

Robert Crouse: “The Essence of Anglicanism”

The Essence of Anglicanism

A Transcription of a Lecture delivered October 3. 2002 at Regent College, Vancouver, by Dr. Robert Crouse (For a pdf version of this lecture, click here.)

It is a great honour to be the first lecturer in this proposed lecture series, and I thank the sponsors for the opportunity. And I cannot resist complimenting Regent College on the production of ordinands. It holds promise for a speedy reformation of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The Anglican Communion, the fellowship of Anglican Churches throughout the world, exists by virtue of a voluntary allegiance to a common tradition of Christian faith and worship. Faithfulness to that tradition, and that alone, constitutes the definition of Anglicanism, and that tradition is its principle of cohesion. It has, after all, no racial unity. People of Anglo Saxon origin who once dominated its membership are now a small proportion of it. It is not a linguistic unity. Its liturgies have been translated into many languages and most of the world’s Anglicans nowadays are not English speakers. It is not even really an organizational unity, not really. The Archbishop of Canterbury has a primacy of honour and the Lambeth Conferences bring together Bishops for consultation from all over the world. But no Primate, no Conference, no Council has any legislative authority over the Anglican Communion. So the Communion adheres only by faithfulness to a common tradition, and if that faithfulness falters it moves toward disintegration. No one can legislate for the Anglican Communion. Insofar as its member churches fail in their allegiance to the common tradition the communion disintegrates. And that, I think, is the nature of the current crisis in global Anglicanism.

Signs of disintegration are, as you well know, manifold. The Primates at their meeting in ler Portugal several years ago deplored the fact that repudiations of the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference have come, as they said, to threaten the unity of the Communion in a profound way. And they strongly urged those repudiating Lambeth “to weigh the effects of their actions and to listen to the expressions of pain, anger, and perplexity from other parts of the Communion.” Another sign of the times was, of course, the consecration of bishops to be missionaries to the Episcopal Church in the United States. And, of course, we have all become familiar with the phenomenon of separated or Continuing Anglican Churches in our own country and elsewhere and we have learned to live, somehow, with the condition of what is somewhat euphemistically called “impaired communion,” a condition brought about by unilateral decisions on the part of some Provinces of our Communion.

But these and other disquieting phenomena are merely symptoms of a malaise which threatens the continued existence of the Anglican way. The fundamental issue, I would insist, is faithfulness to a tradition of Christian faith and worship. But just what is that common tradition, and what precisely are its elements? What is the essence of Anglicanism?

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Prayers and liturgy

Remigius, Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Remigius (c. 438-533), Bishop of Reims, Apostle to the Franks (source):

O God, who by the teaching of thy faithful servant and bishop Remigius didst turn the nation of the Franks from vain idolatry to the worship of thee, the true and living God, in the fullness of the catholic faith; Grant that we who glory in the name of Christian may show forth our faith in worthy deeds; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. John 14:3-7

Remigius was consecrated bishop of Reims, France, at age 22. The pagan Clovis I, who had married the Christian princess Clotilde, began his reign as king of the Franks about 20 years later, in 481.

Before entering combat against German tribes at Tolbiac, Clovis prayed to “Clotilde’s God” for victory. His soldiers won the battle, and Clotilde asked Remigius to teach the king about Christianity. Clovis was amazed by the story of “this unarmed God who was not of the race of Thor or Odin”. In the words of Remigius, the king came “to adore what he had burnt and to burn what he had adored”.

In 496, Remigius baptised Clovis in a public ceremony at Reims Cathedral. Three thousand Franks also became Christians. Under the king’s protection, Remigius was able to spread the gospel and build churches throughout Gaul.

Daphné Du Barry, Baptism of ClovisArtwork: Daphné Du Barry, Baptism of Clovis, 1996. Bronze, Basilica of Saint-Remi, Reims, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Jerome, Doctor and Priest

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Jerome (c. 342-420), Priest, Monk, Translator of the Scriptures, Doctor of the Church (source):

O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant Jerome, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 3:14-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 24:44-48

One of the most scholarly and learned early church fathers, St. Jerome devoted much of his life to accurately translating the Holy Bible from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek into Latin.

Born near Aquileia, northeast Italy, of Christian parents, Jerome travelled widely. He received a classical education at Rome and travelled to Gaul where he became a monk. He later moved to Palestine, spending five years as an ascetic in the Syrian desert. In 374, he was ordained a priest in Antioch. He then pursued biblical studies at Constantinople under Gregory Nazianzus and translated works by Eusebius, Origen, and others.

Travelling to Rome in 382, Jerome became secretary to the aged Pope Damasus. By the time the pope died three years later, Jerome had become involved in theological controversies in which he antagonised many church leaders and theologians. He left Rome under a cloud, returning to Palestine where he lived as a monk in Bethlehem for the rest of his life.

Over several decades, Jerome wrote biblical commentaries and works promoting monasticism and asceticism. Most importantly, he produced fresh Latin translations of most of the Old and New Testaments, based on the original biblical languages. This work formed the basis of the Vulgate, which remained the standard Scriptural text of the western church for over a millennium.

Lionello Spada, St. JeromeArtwork: Lionello Spada, St. Jerome, 1610s. Oil on canvas, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Michael and All Angels

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 12:7-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-10

Francisque Joseph Duret, Archangel Michael defeats SatanThe name Michael is a variation of Micah, and means in Hebrew “Who is like God?”

The archangel Michael first appears in the Book of Daniel, where he is described as “one of the chief princes” and as the special protector of Israel. In the New Testament epistle of Jude (v. 9), Michael, in a dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, says, “The Lord rebuke you“. Michael appears also in Revelation (12:7-9) as the leader of the angels in the great battle in Heaven that ended with Satan and the hosts of evil being thrown down to earth. There are many other references to the archangel Michael in Jewish and Christian traditions.

Following these scriptural passages, Christian tradition has given St. Michael four duties: (1) To continue to wage battle against Satan and the other fallen angels; (2) to save the souls of the faithful from the power of Satan especially at the hour of death; (3) to protect the People of God, both the Jews of the Old Covenant and the Christians of the New Covenant; and (4) finally to lead the souls of the departed from this life and present them to our Lord for judgment. For these reasons, Christian iconography depicts St. Michael as a knight-warrior, wearing battle armor, and wielding a sword or spear, while standing triumphantly on a serpent or other representation of Satan. Sometimes he is depicted holding the scales of justice or the Book of Life, both symbols of the last judgment.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

“Be not anxious about your life”

“Be not anxious,” Jesus tells us three times; the word itself appears six times in in today’s Gospel. Anxious about what? About our life, about “what we shall eat, what we shall drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed.” These are all the things about which our humanity has always worried. Thus these anxieties or “cares,” to be more precise, belong to the long, long story of what it means to be human.

Our anxieties, ancient and modern, are about how we think about ourselves and our world. What Jesus says in this Gospel belongs to that story and offers a fuller view of what it means to be human. If we are anxious about our life, as Jesus says, it is because we have become disconnected from the very source of life itself. Yet this is all part of the biblical story of creation, fall and redemption, of our being restored to the truth and purpose of our humanity as made for God and for one another, made in God’s image. Our anxieties are us in our separation from ourselves, from creation and above all, from God. Our anxieties are us in the disorder and disarray of ourselves.

To be not anxious is to be recalled to ourselves. Why? Because in Christ Jesus we are “a new creation,” as Paul puts it in Galatians. This is wonderfully illustrated for us in the baptisms of Samuel and Mary this morning. They make visible for us in “large letters,” as it were, who we are in Christ. They remind us of our own calling and vocation that is the true antidote to the pressing anxieties of our anxious age. How? By being born again, as John makes clear in the Gospel reading for the Holy Baptism for those of Riper Years, namely those who can answer for themselves in the vows that express the true nature of human agency in responding to God’s grace received.

To be born again is to be born anew, born upward into the things of God; literally, born from above (γεννηθη ανωθεν). That being born anew is the counter to all our anxieties and concerns. Why? Because it is about ourselves in Christ and Christ in us and that makes all the difference. We are given a new way to look at life by being gathered back to the source and end of all life in God. It means death and resurrection; the radical new life in Christ. This is given to us through revelation in the witness of the Scriptures and the life of the apostolic Church. It does not negate or destroy nature and human experience but perfects and restores all that belongs to our humanity.

It belongs to the theological task of the recapitulation or gathering of all things back to God from whom all things come. Baptism is the sign and the thing signified of that gathering of ourselves to God. The Gospel teaches us that this is cosmic in its scope; it concerns the whole created order and our place in it, a strong reminder of our connection to everything in the good order of God’s creation and, above all, to our place in that order. And what is that? It is about how we are loved by God as being uniquely and especially made in his image as rational and spiritual beings.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, October 2025

Sunday, October 5th, Trinity 16
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, October 12th, Harvest Thanksgiving/Trinity 17
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, October 14th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Sunday, October 19th, Trinity 18
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, October 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Peter Harrison’s Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (2024) & Carlo Rovelli’s Anaximander and the Birth of Science (2009/2011 Eng. trans.)

Sunday, October 26th, Trinity 19
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity

Monogrammist A.I., The Rich Man and DeathThe collect for today, the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 6:24-34

Artwork: Monogrammist A.I., The Rich Man and Death, 1553. Hand-coloured woodcut, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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