Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Coleridge Patteson (1827-71), Missionary, First Bishop of Melanesia, Martyr (source):

O God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who didst call thy servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear thy call to service
and to respond with trust and joy
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:34-38

John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary, Bishop, MartyrJohn Coleridge Patteson was a curate in Devon when Bishop of New Zealand George A. Selwyn persuaded him to go out to the South Pacific as a missionary. In 1856 he journeyed to Melanesia. He encouraged boys to study at a school Selwyn had founded in New Zealand and later set up a school in Melanesia. He was very proficient in languages and eventually learned twenty-three different languages and dialects spoken in Melanesia and Polynesia.

In 1861 Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia; he travelled across his diocese constantly, preaching, teaching, confirming, building churches, and living among the people. On the main island of Mota most of the population were converted.

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Prayers and liturgy

Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St Theodore of Tarsus (602-690), Archbishop of Canterbury (source):

St_TheodoreAlmighty God, by the faithful ministry of your bishop Theodore you bound up the wounds of the English Church and renewed its vigour in the works of peace. Teach us, we pray, the art of your healing grace, that we may know the true balm and remedy for the divisions which afflict your Church; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-5,10
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

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Prayers and liturgy

Ninian, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Ninian (c. 360 – c. 432), Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who didst call thy servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land,
heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom,
that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 49:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 28:16-20

Saint Ninian windowNinian was the first apostle of Christianity in Scotland. Born in Cumbria to Christian parents, he went to Rome for his education. After being ordained a priest and then a bishop, Ninian was commissioned by Pope Siricus to return to Britain to preach the Christian faith.

Tradition holds that Ninian’s mission to Scotland began in 397, when he landed at Whithorn on Solway Firth. The stone church he built there was known as Candida Casa (“White House”). Recent archaeological excavations in that area have found white masonry from what could be an ancient church.

Saint Ninian’s ministry was centred in the Whithorn and Galloway areas of Scotland, but he is also remembered for bringing the gospel to the “southern Picts”—people living in the areas now known as Perth, Fife, Stirling, Dundee, and Forfar.

As early as the 7th century, Christians were making pilgrimages to St. Ninian’s shrine. By the 12th century, a large cathedral had been built at Whithorn, but it fell into ruins after the Reformation. Yet today, pilgrims still travel there to visit St Ninian’s Cave, where the saint would go when he needed to pray in solitude.

During his 2010 visit to the United Kingdom, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Scotland on Saint Ninian’s Day.

Saint Ninian’s Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia (“New Scotland”), is the Episcopal Seat for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish. This prayer is posted at the Cathedral Parish website:

Lord our God, You brought to Scotland the faith of the apostles through the teaching of St. Ninian. Grant that we, who have received from him the light of your truth, may remain strong in faith. We ask this through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.

Artwork: Saint Ninian, stained glass, Saint Margaret’s Chapel, Edinburgh Castle. Photograph taken by admin, 24 July 2004.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity/Holy Cross Day

“They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh,
with the affections and lusts” … “Go and do thou likewise”

A double text. Words from today’s Epistle and Gospel, yet words, too, which illumine and are illumined in turn by another feature of this day, namely, Holy Cross.

I have often been struck by the coincidence of the early beginning of Fall and the return to School with The Feast of the Holy Cross on September 14th, and especially, with one of its early and associated titles, namely, the Invention of the Holy Cross. It speaks profoundly and yet paradoxically to the nature of the intellectual enterprise. Inventio crucis.

Invention? Yes, but not in the sense of something fabricated out of our fevered imaginations. The feast derives from the historical and celebrated visit of Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, to Jerusalem, and from her so-called discovery of the Holy Cross in the early fourth century as well as the exposition or “Exaltation” of the supposed true cross in the seventh century. Inventio does not suggest fabrication and invention so much as discovery and disclosure.

In the Christian understanding, humility and sacrifice are de rigueur in the passionate search for understanding, the eros of intellectual and spiritual life. The cross is the meeting place of lovers which demands our action of loving service, our acting out of the charity of Christ, something which belongs to the deep meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who is the true neighbour? “He that showed mercy on him.” But what is that mercy except exactly that which is ultimately seen on the Cross of Christ.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 15 – 21 September

Monday, September 15th
6-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, September 16th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny, and Crow Lake, by Mary Lawson.

Thursday, September 18th, Eve of Ember Friday
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00 Holy Communion

Sunday, September 21st, St. Matthew/Trinity XIV
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, September 27th
7:00-9:00pm Newfoundland & Country Evening of Musical Entertainment – Parish Hall

Sunday, September 28th
4:00pm Eve of St. Michael & All Angels: Choral Evensong, St Mary’s, Crousetown. Sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, Nova Scotia and PEI Branch.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:25-37

Delacroix, Good Samaritan, 1852Artwork: Eugène Delacroix, The Good Samaritan, 1852. Oil on canvas, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Cyprian (c. 200-258), Bishop of Carthage, Martyr (source):

Sir Ninian Comper, St. CyprianO holy God,
who didst bring Cyprian to faith in Christ
and didst make him a bishop in the Church,
crowning his witness with a martyr’s death:
grant that, following his example,
we may love the Church and her doctrine,
find thy forgiveness within her fellowship,
and so come to share the heavenly banquet
which thou hast prepared for us;
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: 1 St. Peter 5:1-4,10-11
The Gospel: St. John 10:11-16

Artwork: Sir Ninian Comper, Saint Cyprian, 1903, St. Cyprian Clarence Gate, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Edmund J. Peck, Missionary

The collect for today, the commemoration of Edmund J. Peck (1850-1924), Priest, Missionary to the Inuit, Translator (source):

Edmund J. PeckGod of our salvation, whose servant Edmund James Peck made the testimony of the Spirit his own and gladly proclaimed the riches of Christ among the Inuit people, give the joy of your gospel to us also, that we may exalt you in the congregation of all peoples and praise you in the abundance of your mercies; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 5:6-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 28:16-20

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Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:39-49

Francesco Solimena, Birth of the VirginArtwork: Francesco Solimena, The Birth of the Virgin, 1690. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

“He hath done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear
and the dumb to speak”

In the days of the closing down of summer, to use Alistair MacLeod’s compelling phrase and image, the title of his most reflective short story, we make a turn to new beginnings, to the renewal of patterns and programmes in our various lives. On the Sunday after Labour Day, in the Maritimes, at any rate, the cottages have begun to be closed down for the winter, schools and colleges have resumed, vacations are over and done, and even summer seems already a distant and nostalgic memory. We are back, it might seem, to our usual lives.

But are we? Is it really about merely returning to the drudgery and the boring sameness of week after week, day after day, even Sunday after Sunday? It needn’t be, it seems to me. Not only are there the beginning hints of changes in the air but there are the deeper challenges of the Scripture readings. This Sunday marks the notional mid-way point of the Trinity Season and it signals important things to us. We are being challenged to be open – “Ephphatha”, Jesus says, in one of those rare but precious moments where Aramaic appears in the Scripture and is immediately translated by the Evangelist, in this case Mark, into Greek. For us, of course, there is the further translation into English, yet the Aramaic word remains in our text, a quiet witness to another aspect of the reality of the Incarnate Christ. His spoken words were in all likelihood Aramaic, a variant of Hebrew, but we only know his words through the Greek and subsequent translations. His saving word for all humanity is revealed through a particular culture and language; the universal in and through the particular.

“He has done all things well”, Mark concludes, having detailed a healing miracle. What is that all about? In a way, we are being opened to the very thing that St. Paul is saying in the Epistle reading from 2nd Corinthians. “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life”.

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