Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9
The Gospel: St. Mark 7:31-37

Léonard Gaultier, Christ Healing a Deaf ManArtwork: Léonard Gaultier, Christ Healing a Deaf Man, 1579. Engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

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Prayers and liturgy

Robert Wolfall, Presbyter

The collect for bishops and other pastors, in commemoration of Robert Wolfall, Priest (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Robert Wolfall to proclaim thy glory
by a life of prayer and the zeal of a true pastor:
keep constant in faith the leaders of thy Church
and so bless thy people through their ministry
that the Church may grow into the full stature
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 Rev. Robert Wolfall was vicar of the Parish of West Harptree, Somerset, when he became chaplain to Martin Frobisher’s third Arctic expedition to Canada. On 3 September 1578, Rev’d Wolfall presided at the first recorded Holy Eucharist in what is now Canadian territory: Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island.

The service was held on the ship Anne Francis, whose captain later wrote:

Master Wolfall …. preached a godly sermon, which being ended he celebrated also a Communion upon the land …. The celebration of the divine mystery was the first sign, seal and confirmation of Christ’s name, death and passion ever known in these quarters. Master Wolfall made sermons and celebrated the Communion at sundry other times in several and sundry ships, because the whole company could never meet together at anyone place.

A few weeks later, Frobisher abandoned the hope of establishing a permanent settlement on Baffin Island and the expeditionary fleet returned home to England. Anglicans would not celebrate Holy Communion in Canada again for almost a century.

A commemoration of Robert Wolfall, written by Dr. William Cooke, Vice-President of the Toronto branch of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, is posted here. (See page 5 of pdf document.)

The Canadian Encyclopedia entry on “The First Thanksgiving in North America” is posted here.

Parish of West Hartree, Robert Wolfall Commemorative PlaqueA plaque commemorating Rev. Wolfall was recently placed on the inside wall of his parish church. The photograph was kindly sent to us by former Royal Navy Chaplain The Rev. Anthony Marks.

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Events

Christ Church Book Club, 2025-26

The new list of discussion books for Christ Church Book Club is now available. The next series will kick off on Tuesday, 23 September, at 7:00pm, when the featured books will be Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis (2024) & Michael Burleigh’s Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror (2006).

Click here for the full schedule of books and other information.

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Events

Calendar of Services and Events, September through December 2025

The Calendar of Services and Events for the period September through December 2025 (tentative) can be downloaded here as a pdf document.

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Prayers and liturgy

Giles, Abbot

The collect for an Abbot, on the Feast of St. Giles of Provence (d. c. 710), Hermit, Abbot (source):

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, The Legend of Saint GilesO God, by whose grace the blessed Abbot Giles, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:15-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:20-23a

All that is known for certain about this saint is that he was born in the early 7th century and that he founded a monastery in what is now the town of Saint-Gilles, southern France, on land given to him by Flavius Wamba, King of the Visogoths.

Giles, accompanied by a hind, had come to live in a hermitage near Arles. During a hunt, King Wamba fired an arrow at the hind, but struck and crippled Giles instead. The king then gave the humble saint land to found an abbey.

The monastery founded by St. Giles became a renowned stopping place in medieval times for pilgrims journeying to Compostela, Rome, or the Holy Land.

A tenth-century Legend attributed important miracles to Saint Giles, which helped make him one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries across Europe are dedicated to him. As well, because he is the patron saint of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers, many hospitals were built in his name. Saint Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, where his memory is honoured by the Church of Scotland High Kirk: St. Giles’ Cathedral.

Artwork: Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, The Legend of Saint Giles, c. 1910. Oil on canvas, Leighton House Museum, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

“His grace …was not in vain.”

“I am the least of the Apostles,” St. Paul famously declares, and goes on to say, just as famously, that “by the grace of God, I am what I am.” The phrase complements, I suggest, the prayer of the humble Publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” It is the very opposite of our culture of self-obsession which is endlessly self-referential; the culture of ‘look at me looking at you looking at me;’ all rather like the proud Pharisee.

But what does Paul mean? Is it by the grace of God that Paul is a sinner? No. But by the grace of God Paul knows that he is a sinner. Why is he the least of the Apostles? In his eyes and in his words, “because I persecuted the Church of God,” he confesses.

Do we do much better or any less when in our pride and arrogance, in our folly and deceit, we deny the very truth of God upon whom our life depends? Are we not also persecutors, when like the proud Pharisee, we do nothing more than pray with ourselves in despising the real prayers of others, giving mere lip service to the presence of God by calling attention to ourselves? The empty words of our empty selves?

Jesus names the quintessential nature of pride in the figure of the Pharisee. “He prayed thus with himself,” not to God. What that means is made clear in the content of his ‘prayer.’ He claims to be better than everyone else. “I thank God that I am not like them.” Who? “Other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” and if that was not enough, “or even as this Publican.” He goes on to boast of his good works. None of this is prayer. It is really all about calling attention to oneself in stark contrast to others.

There can be no prayer when we are not open to the omnipresence of God and so to one another. There can be no prayer when we are closed in upon ourselves, standing upon the ground of our own self-righteousness. There can be no prayer without humility which alone is the counter to all pride.

Dante prescribes the antidote to pride. It is the prayer at the heart of all prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. On the cornice of the proud in his Purgatorio are engraved “the image[s] of the great humilities”: Mary’s Annunciation, King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant, and, strikingly, the Emperor Trajan in the story of his promise of justice to a grieving mother – understood as an act of mercy; power not as domination but as “mercy and pity,” as the Collect puts it. The images are visibile parlare, visible speech; things seen and heard. But most significantly, the proud whose heads were held high in the world are here bent down towards the dust of our common humanity. They pray the Lord’s Prayer while contemplating the examples of humility, not the least of which is Mary. She is defined not by self-assertion but by God’s grace. “Be it unto me according to thy word,” saying in effect what Jesus himself prays in Gethsemane to the Father, “not my will but thine be done.” Is this not in turn what we are given to pray, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? Significantly, the petitions, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” are prayed not for themselves but importantly and symbolically for others, for all of us.

(more…)

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, August – September 2025

Sunday, August 31st, Trinity 11
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, September 7th, Trinity 12
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(followed by refreshments & reception in the Hall honouring Owen Stephens)

Tuesday, September 9th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Sunday, September 14th, Trinity 13
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

(Fr. Curry away Monday, Sept. 15th – Friday, Sept. 19th, SSC conference in Dunwoody, Georgia)

Sunday, September 21st, St. Matthew / Trinity 14
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(We welcome Michael Gnemmi as our new organist!)

Tuesday, September 23rd
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: ‘Reading Genesis’ by Marilynne Robinson (2024) & ‘Sacred Causes’ by Michael Burleigh (2006)

Sunday, September 28th, Trinity 15
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Fr. Curry is priest-in-charge for Avon Valley Parish and Hantsport from August 4th until September 8th 2025 while Fr. Tom Henderson is on vacation.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

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

Peter Gallen, The Pharisee and the PublicanO GOD, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Gospel: St Luke 18:9-14

Artwork: Peter Gallen, The Pharisee and the Publican, 1981, Oil on cardboard.

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Prayers and liturgy

Beheading of St. John the Baptist

The collect for today, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O God, who didst send thy messenger, John the Baptist, to be the forerunner of the Lord, and to glorify thee by his death: Grant that we, who have received the truth of thy most holy Gospel, may bear our witness thereunto, 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: Jeremiah 1:17-19
The Gospel: St. Mark 6:17-29

Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri, Beheading of St John the BaptistArtwork: Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri, Beheading of St John the Baptist, c. 1630. Oil on canvas, Galleria Nazionale di Parma, Italy.

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