Author: CCW

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 25 – 31 May

Monday, May 25th, Monday after Pentecost
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, May 26th, Tuesday after Pentecost
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, May 28th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 29th, Ember Friday
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, May 31st, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

The Day of Pentecost

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27

Francken Workshop, Descent of the Holy SpiritArtwork: Francken Workshop, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, early 17th century. Oil on panel, Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp. Photograph taken by admin, 13 October 2014.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons

Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2015

KES Cadet Church Parade – Friday, May 22nd, 2015
Reflections on “Home”

Prologue: Where is home? Our homes are from all over the world. Yet our home is here, too.

Section 1

Home is Australia, Barbados, and Bahamas; Home is Bermuda, China, and Germany; Home is Ghana, Japan, and Kazakhstan;

Home is Korea, Luxembourg, and Mali; Home is Mexico, Russia, and Saint Kitts and Nevis; Home is Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Spain;

Home is Taiwan; Home is Uganda; Home is United States; Home is Canada.

Section 2 (Dialogue)

You forgot Antarctica.

Antarctica? Who is from Antarctica?

Well, Jack O’Flaherty is always drawing penguins. He must be from Antarctica!

No. He’s from Newfoundland.

Then why doesn’t he draw seals? They’re cuter.

Section 3

Home is great cities, small towns, and villages; Great cities of the world like Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Barcelona, Dubai, Kampala, Mexico City, Moscow, Toronto, Montreal, and Windsor – not!

Home is other cities, great and small, like Accra, Almaty, Dakar, Bamako, Cancun, Krefeld, Shenzhen, Nassau, Jinan, St. John’s, Nanjing, Cornerbrook, Mississauga, Campeche, Burlington, Monterrey, Duncan, Hamilton, Mainz, Halifax, and Windsor – not!

Home is any number of small towns like Landau in Germany; Basseterre in St. Kitts; Smithers in British Columbia; Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Kippens, and Labrador City in Newfoundland; and in Nova Scotia, towns like Lunenburg, Kentville, Berwick, Wolfville, Antigonish, New Glasgow, Hantsport, Pictou, Mahone Bay, Truro, Parrsboro, and Windsor – yes!

Home is a myriad of villages and communities like Wohltorf and Friedelsheim, Germany; Far Hills, New Jersey; Upper Kingsclear and Charters Settlement, New Brunswick; Miscouche and Cardigan, Prince Edward Island.

Home is a host of scattered villages and communities in Nova Scotia: Aylesford, Bible Hill, Heatherton, Kingston, Springfield, Upper Tantallon, Granville Ferry, Eastern Passage, Merigomish, Brooklyn, Chester, Conquerall Mills, Londonderry, Centreville, New Minas, Fall River, Hammonds Plains, Hubbards, New Ross, Newport, Port Williams, Falmouth, Mount Uniacke, and, last but not least, Hants Border.

And for some, home is Mabou by way of Saudi Arabia, and Lower Sackville by way of Dubai.

(more…)

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Prayers and liturgy

Dunstan, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Dunstan (909-988), Archbishop of Canterbury, Restorer of Monastic Life (source):

Norwich Cathedral, St. DunstanAlmighty God,
who didst raise up Dunstan
to be a true shepherd of the flock,
a restorer of monastic life
and a faithful counsellor to kings:
grant, we beseech thee, to all pastors
the like gifts of thy Holy Spirit
that they may be true servants of Christ and of all his people;
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 Lesson: Ecclesiasticus 44:1-7
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Artwork: Saint Dunstan, stained glass, Norwich Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 3 October 2014.

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Sermons

Sermon for Sunday after Ascension Day, 10:30am Holy Baptism and Communion

“These things have I spoken unto you”

There is something quite wonderful and special about this Sunday juxtaposed between the going up of the Son to the Father in the Ascension of Christ and the coming down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Ascension marks the fortieth day of Easter and signals the culmination of the Resurrection, its fuller meaning, if you will. Pentecost is the fiftieth day after Easter and marks the birthday of the Christian Church.

The special joy of Easter and Eastertide reaches a kind of crescendo in the Ascension. All of the scripture passages, old and new, are full of a sense of joy and wonder. Why? Because the Ascension marks what the Fathers astutely call, “the exaltation of our humanity.” Through Christ’s death and resurrection we have a place, a home with God. It is signalled profoundly and beautifully in the Son’s homecoming to the Father having accomplished all that belongs to the redemption of the world and our humanity. All the themes of Eastertide find their fullest meaning in the Ascension of Christ.

“I go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus says, “that where I am there ye may be also.” The Ascension celebrates the return of the Son to the Father in which return our humanity realizes its end in God, on the one hand, and has its participation in the life of the Trinity through prayer now, on the other hand. The Ascension reveals the true movement of our liturgy. It is the liturgy of the sursum corda, the liturgy of the lifting up of our humanity to God and into God. “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord.”

The Ascension is the necessary counter to the spirit of accommodationism so dominant in our church and culture, the idea that the Christian Gospel must accommodate itself to the fads and fancies of each and every passing age. To engage our world in all of its confusions is not the same thing as catering to every passing fad and fancy. The Ascension signals the real meaning of the engagement between God and Man. “We ascend in the ascension of our hearts” as Augustine so memorably puts it. We ascend in prayer and praise, in Word and Sacrament. We are gathered into the divine life. It is the very opposite of supposing that the divine life is collapsed into our world and day; such an idea would be a perversion of the Incarnation.

(more…)

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Sermons

Sermon for Sunday after Ascension Day, 8:00am Holy Communion

“These things have I spoken unto you”

There is something quite wonderful and special about this Sunday juxtaposed between the going up of the Son to the Father in the Ascension of Christ and the coming down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Ascension marks the fortieth day of Easter and signals the culmination of the Resurrection, its fuller meaning, if you will. Pentecost is the fiftieth day after Easter and marks the birthday of the Christian Church.

The special joy of Easter and Eastertide reaches a kind of crescendo in the Ascension. All of the scripture passages, old and new, are full of a sense of joy and wonder. Why? Because the Ascension marks what the Fathers astutely call, “the exaltation of our humanity.” Through Christ’s death and resurrection we have a place, a home with God. It is signalled profoundly and beautifully in the Son’s homecoming to the Father having accomplished all that belongs to the redemption of the world and our humanity. All the themes of Eastertide find their fullest meaning in the Ascension of Christ.

(more…)

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 18 – 24 May

Monday, May 18th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 19th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The Art Forger, by B.A. Shapiro; The Forger’s Spell: The True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Edward Dolnick; The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser.

Thursday, May 21st
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 22nd
3:00pm KES Cadet Corps Church Service

Sunday, May 24th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

The Ascension and the Session of Christ, his ascending to and his sitting on the right hand of the Father, are two of the creedal mysteries of the Christian Faith. Through these powerful and suggestive images we are reminded of the spiritual nature of our humanity. As the ancient fathers of the Church express it, the Ascension is “the exaltation of our humanity.” These doctrines speak to the spiritual understanding of our lives in faith.

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Prayers and liturgy

Sunday After Ascension

Ward and Hughes, Last SupperThe collect for today, Sunday After Ascension Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:7-11
The Gospel: St. John 15:26-16:4a

Artwork: Ward and Hughes, The Last Supper, stained glass, St. Martin’s Church, Bowness-on-Windermere.

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Sermons

Sermon for Ascension Day

“He was received up into heaven”

“We ascend in the ascension of our hearts,” Augustine memorably says, capturing in a phrase the doctrinal meaning of Christ’s Ascension. The fortieth day of Easter marks the Ascension of Christ, itself the culmination of the Resurrection. It opens us out to its deeper meaning and truth.

There is a wonderful sense of joy which belongs to Easter and Eastertide that reaches a kind of crescendo in the Ascension. All of the scripture passages, old and new, are full of a sense of joy and wonder. Why? Because the Ascension marks what the Fathers astutely call, “the exaltation of our humanity.” Through Christ’s death and resurrection we have a place, a home with God. It is signalled profoundly and beautifully in the Son’s homecoming to the Father having accomplished all that belongs to the redemption of the world and our humanity. All the themes of Eastertide find their fullest meaning in the Ascension of Christ.

“I go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus says, “that where I am there ye may be also.” The Ascension celebrates the return of the Son to the Father in which return our humanity realizes its end in God, on the one hand, and has its participation in the life of the Trinity through prayer now, on the other hand. The Ascension reveals the true movement of our liturgy. It is the liturgy of the sursum corda, the liturgy of the lifting up of our humanity to God and into God. “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord.”

The Ascension is the necessary counter to the spirit of accommodationism so dominant in our church and culture, the idea that the Christian Gospel must accommodate itself to the fads and fancies of each and every passing age. To engage our world in all of its confusions is not the same thing as catering to every passing fad and fancy. The Ascension signals the real meaning of the engagement between God and Man. We ascend in the ascension of our hearts in prayer and praise, in Word and Sacrament. We are gathered into the divine life. It is the very opposite of supposing that the divine life is collapsed into our world and day.

(more…)

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Prayers and liturgy

The Ascension Day

The collect for today, The Ascension Day, being the fortieth day after Easter, sometimes called Holy Thursday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continuously dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-11
The Gospel: St. Mark 16:14-20

Kolozsvári, AscensionArtwork: Tamás Kolozsvári, Ascension, 1427. Tempera on wood, Christian Museum, Esztergom, Hungary.

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