Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

Benedict, Abbot

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-550), Abbot of Monte Cassino, Father of Western Monasticism (source):

Fra Angelico, St. BenedictO eternal God,
who made Benedict a wise master
in the school of thy service,
and a guide to many called into the common life
to follow the rule of Christ:
grant that we may put thy love above all things,
and seek with joy the way of thy commandments;
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: Proverbs 2:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:27-33

Artwork: Fra Angelico, Saint Benedict (detail from Crucifixion and Saints), 1441-42.. Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Archbishop of Canterbury, Reformation Martyr (source):

Hensley Chapel, Cranmer WindowFather of all mercies,
who through the work of thy servant Thomas Cranmer
didst renew the worship of thy Church
and through his death
didst reveal thy strength in human weakness:
strengthen us by thy grace so to worship thee in spirit and in truth
that we may come to the joys of thine everlasting kingdom;
through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:9-14
The Gospel: St. John 15:20-16:1

Artwork: Thomas Cranmer, stained glass, Hensley Memorial Chapel, King’s-Edgehill School, Windsor, N.S.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Cuthbert, Missionary and Bishop

Cuthbert window, St. Philip's VancouverThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cuthbert (c. 634-87), Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary (source):

Almighty God,
who didst call thy servant Cuthbert from following the flock
to follow thy Son and to be a shepherd of thy people:
in thy mercy, grant that we may so follow his example
that we may bring those who are lost home to thy fold;
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: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St. Matthew 6:24-33

Artwork: St. Cuthbert, stained glass, St. Philip’s Anglican Church, Vancouver.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

St. Joseph of Nazareth

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Joseph of Nazareth, Guardian of Our Lord, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron Saint of Canada, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who from the family of thy servant David didst raise up Joseph the carpenter to be protector of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we may so labour in our earthly vocations, that they may become labours of love and service offered unto thee, our Father; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 4:1-7
The Gospel: St. Matthew 1:18-25

Ribera, St. Joseph and the Christ ChildArtwork: Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Joseph & the Christ Child, c. 1632. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Ken, Bishop and Poet

The collect for today, the commemoration of Thomas Ken (1637-1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells, Non-Juror, Hymn Writer (source):

O God, from whom all blessings flow,
by whose providence we are kept
and by whose grace we are directed:
assist us, through the example of thy servant Thomas Ken,
faithfully to keep thy word,
humbly to accept adversity
and steadfastly to worship thee;
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.

With the Epistle and Gospel for a Bishop, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962)
The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-44

Bishop Ken windowOrdained an Anglican priest in 1662, Thomas Ken served as rector in several parishes before becoming chaplain to members of the royal family and, in 1685, Bishop of Bath and Wells. A man of principle and strong conviction, he was one of seven bishops imprisoned for refusing to sign King James II’s “Declaration of Indulgence”, the purpose of which was to allow Catholics to resume positions of political power in England. After strong expressions of popular support by the people of London, Bishop Ken was quickly tried and acquitted.

King James II was forced to flee the country when King William and Queen Mary were invited to become co-monarchs of England. William and Mary demanded oaths of allegiance from all persons holding public positions, including the bishops. Thomas Ken and others (known as the Non-Jurors; the older meaning of “juror” is “one who takes an oath”, hence “perjurer” as “one who swears falsely”) refused to take the oath on the grounds that they had sworn allegiance to James and could not during his lifetime swear allegiance to another monarch without making such oaths a mockery. Bishop Ken took this stand as a matter of principle despite his strong disagreement with much that James had done. In 1690, he and the other surviving non-jurors were deposed.

(Most of the bishops of Scotland also refused the oath; William and Mary retaliated by disestablishing the Episcopal Church in Scotland and making the Presbyterian Kirk the established state church there instead.)

Bishop Ken was also a poet and hymn-writer. He wrote the text for the well-loved doxology “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow“, which is actually the last verse of his longer hymn, “Awake My Soul, and with the sun“.

A prayer of Thomas Ken:

God, our heavenly father, make, we pray, the door of this Cathedral Church wide enough to welcome all who need human love and fellowship and a Father’s care; but narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride, and lack of love. Here may the temped find help, the sorrowing receive comfort, the careless be awakened to repentance, and the penitent be assured of your mercy; and here may all your children renew their strength and go on their way in hope and joy; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Artwork: Thomas Ken window, Wells Cathedral, installed in 1885 to celebrate the bicentenary of his consecration as Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Print this entry

Sermons

The Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio: Meditation I

This is the first of three Lenten meditations on the Beatitudes in Dante’s Pugatorio. The second is posted here and the third here.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

They are the blessednesses. The quintessential expression of Christian ethical teaching. They form the beginning of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew’s Gospel; and are found in a different tone and register in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. Matthew presents us with the classical eight beatitudes; Luke with four together with four contrasting notes of warning, the woes that are the counter to the blessings. Felicity and misery are wonderfully juxtaposed.

But what are the Beatitudes and what do they mean? At once well-known and yet strange; at once compelling and confusing; the Beatitudes concern the summum bonum, the highest good for our humanity. Yet, in the Common Prayer tradition, it may seem that we encounter them rather infrequently, liturgically speaking. The Beatitudes from St. Matthew are appointed to be read on The Feast of All Saints’ which despite its significance only rarely occurs on a Sunday; parts of The Sermon on the Mount including the Beatitudes are read at Evening Prayer on The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity  in Year One; hence they are read every two years. It might seem that they are either overlooked or taken for granted, much like the Ten Commandments.

And yet, the Beatitudes are directed to be read in the Penitential Service for use on Ash Wednesday, “if there be no Communion” and an instruction to be given. They are, in other words, part of our Lenten pilgrimage and belong to our Christian vocation, our call to blessedness. It is altogether about what God seeks for us.

The Beatitudes are a necessary part of any consideration of Christian ethics. They challenge and compel as much as they confuse and even mystify. They seem to turn the world on its head. But, as G.K. Chesterton notes “it is because we are standing on our heads that Christ’s philosophy seems upside down.” To ponder the mystery of the Beatitudes is to stand on our feet and to think with Christ. It will challenge us.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick

“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”

There are, I suppose three great saints of the western imagination whose commemorations have become the occasions of popular secular celebrations. There is St. Nicholas, transmogrified into Santa Claus, whose spirit dominates the season of Christmas, for better or worse. There is St. Valentine, the patron saint of romance in the bleak mid-winter who keeps the florists, the chocalatiers, the lingerie makers, and Hallmark Cards in business and, then, there is St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and green beer whose commemoration lightens Lent and makes March almost bearable, the herald of Spring and the promise of green amid the white of winter and the mud of March. Of the three, Patrick has the greater claim to being an historical figure, all legends and myths notwithstanding.

A figure of the late 4th and mid 5th centuries, he belongs to a remarkable moment in the story of Christianity, the story of Celtic Christianity. He is the bearer of the great light of Christ to the Irish, lighting the paschal fire on Tara’s hill to drive away the pagan darkness of the Druids. We forget how powerful conversion is, especially the conversion of entire peoples and lands to a whole new way of thinking and living. And yet, that is the crucial thing about the story of St. Patrick. We forget, too, that the story of Celtic Christianity is bigger than the Celtic peoples; it contributes to the shaping of Europe and beyond.

Thomas Cahill in his intriguing work, How the Irish Saved Civilisation, juxtaposes the image of a silver cauldron and a silver chalice to capture the transformation of a culture in its conversion to Christianity; the one, beautifully carved and deliberately broken, symbolic of the culture of pagan human sacrifice; the other beautifully engraved and whole, inscribed with the names of the apostolic fellowship. The one, dated a century or two before Christ, is known as the Gundestrop Cauldron and depicts animal and human sacrifice; the other, late seventh or early eighth century AD is known as the Ardagh Chalice and is symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice and our participation in his sacrifice sacramentally. There is, I suppose, all the difference between a cauldron and a chalice; in this case, the juxtaposition captures the transformation of a culture.

(more…)

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

St. Patrick, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Patrick (c. 390-c. 461), Bishop, Missionary, Patron of Ireland (source):

Almighty God,
who in thy providence chose thy servant Patrick
to be the apostle of the people of Ireland:
keep alive in us the fire of faith which he kindled,
and in this our earthly pilgrimage
strengthen us to gain the light of everlasting life;
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 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
The Gospel: St Matthew 28:16-20

Click here to read the prayer known as St Patrick’s Breastplate.

Tiepolo, Miracle of Saint PatrickArtwork: Giambattista Tiepolo, Miracle of Saint Patrick (detail), 1746. Oil on canvas, Museo Civico, Padua.

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent

“O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

You get what you want sometimes, it seems. Let’s hope that we really know what we want and that what we want is what is right and good and, ultimately, what God wants for us. But is that all that is required, namely, a certain clarity about our desires and wishes? No.  There is something more than mere clarity about the desires of our hearts, important as that is.

Lent seeks the clarification of our minds and the purification of our wills. Purgation and illumination are fundamental features of the classical understanding of Christian pilgrimage, the pilgrimage concentrated for us in the season of Lent, but which is really the pilgrimage of our souls to God. The third part of the classical understanding of Christian pilgrimage has to do with the perfection and unity of our wills with God. Purgation, illumination, and perfection or unity. These three classical aspects of pilgrimage are the Trinitarian principles of our journeying to God, in the sense that you can’t have one without the others. But there is a necessary prerequisite. It is humility, the note sounded in our liturgy in The Prayer of Humble Access, the note, too, signaled in today’s gospel.

The Prayer of Humble Access is familiar to you all, I am sure. At once poetic and theological, it speaks directly to the nature of our engagement with all things divine, especially with respect to the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

“We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord; Trusting in our own righteousness, But in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy So much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, Whose property is always to have mercy…”

We pray this as a necessary part of our preparation and approach to the Sacrament of the altar. The prayer echoes the Gospel for this day – the story of the Canaanite woman who approaches Jesus so resolutely and yet so humbly.

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 17 – 23 March

Monday, March 17th, St. Patrick
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion – Coronation Room

Tuesday, March 18th
6:00 ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme I: The Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio – Parish Hall

Thursday, March 20th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, March 21st
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, March 23rd, Lent III
8:00am Holy Communion – Parish Hall
10:30am Morning Prayer – Parish Hall
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf

Upcoming events:

On Tuesday evenings throughout Lent, there will be Lenten Services of Holy Communion with reflections on the Beatitudes in Dante’s Purgatorio. The services are at 7:00pm on the following Tuesday evenings:

Tuesday, March 18th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, March 25th, 7:00pm
Tuesday, April 1st, 7:00pm

Print this entry