Author: CCW

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

St. Mark's Basilica, Pentecost Dome

Artwork: Pentecost Dome, 12th century, Gilded mosaic, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Barnabas the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Anonimo Lombardo, San BarnabaO LORD God Almighty, who didst endue thy holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Spirit: Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts, nor yet of grace to use them alway to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 11:22-26
The Gospel: St John 15:12-16

Artwork: Unknown Lombard Painter, San Barnaba, 17th century. Quadreria Archives, Milan.

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Prayers and liturgy

Columba

The collect for today, the commemoration of Columba (c. 521-597) Abbot of Iona, Missionary (source):

St. ColumbaAlmighty God,
who didst fill the heart of Columba
with the joy of the Holy Spirit,
and with deep love for those in his care:
grant to thy pilgrim people grace to follow him,
strong in faith, sustained by hope,
and made one in the love that binds us to 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.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:11-23
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:17-20

Artwork: The St. Columba stained glass was made by the firm of James Powell and Sons, Middlesex, England, and installed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1951. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

The Politics of Confusion?

I have been asked about the decisions of the recent Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island as reported in the media. I can only offer the following observations in what is an attempt to explain what seems to be rather confusing.

The Politics of Confusion?
Some Reflections on the Recent Decisions
of the Diocesan Synod of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

Truth, it is often said, is the first casualty of war. More often than not, there is simply confusion. In the ‘sex-wars’ within the Anglican Communion, confusion reigns supreme. The recent Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island provides a case in point.

The Synod discussed and debated a number of motions regarding the issue of same-sex blessings. The four motions were, one might say, aggressive in their zeal for providing some sort of arrangement, blessing, marriage, or otherwise for same-sex couples. Most remarkable is the degree of confusion about the word, ‘marriage’.

The motions included keeping a roster of parishes and clergy “amenable to the blessing of same-sex civilly married couples”; providing a liturgy for “blessing covenanted or committed unions outside marriage”; requiring clergy to “cease acting as agents of the civil government in performing marriages until such time as the clergy of the Diocese may officiate at the marriage of all legally eligible persons”; and a motion that, on the one hand, called for the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on Human Sexuality (2010) to become an Episcopal guideline, while, on the other hand, seeming to advocate the principle of local option.

Overall the motions are, well, intriguing, ranging from the blessings for those already civilly married, as if the Church were to bless whatever the state has allowed, to forcing parishes and priests to declare themselves on this matter as if such things lay within the purview of either. Not to mention the idea of the clergy going on strike and refusing to marry anybody until everybody in the Church is compliant with what the state has determined are legal marriages. Once again, in this view the church is seen as subservient to the state and not independent.

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Sermons

Sermon for Sunday After Ascension Day

“The end of all things is at hand.”

This might seem rather stern and threatening. The Gospel reading, too, talks about hard things, like persecution and death. But it also tells us about the coming of the Comforter. Somehow, the sense of “the end[ing] of all things” is not just frightening judgement but joy and mercy. Comforting, somehow.

We meet in the Ascension of Christ. I am struck by how relevant and powerful the fundamental creedal principles of the Christian Faith often are with respect to the issues of our post-Christian and post-secular culture. It shouldn’t be surprising, of course, because what we have before us is precisely a way of thinking that empowers and informs a way of living. That is the important insight of the ‘perennial philosophy’ expressed in one way or another in all of the great religions of the world.

In the Christian understanding, the doctrine of the Ascension is especially suggestive and important about our understanding of our humanity and our world. The Ascension signals the completion of the mission of Jesus Christ. He has come forth from the Father and has come into the world and now he leaves the world and returns to the Father. In those motions, we see the comings and goings of God in which there is both revelation and redemption. These comings and goings open out to us a spiritual and intellectual understanding of human life and of the world in which we find ourselves. Christ is not some will ‘o the wisp who comes and goes without reason or purpose.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 6-12 June

Tuesday, June 7th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Sunday, June 12th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion – KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church
7:00pm “An Inspirational Concert with Rachel MacLean”. No admission cost but a food donation for Harvest House is requested.

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Prayers and liturgy

Sunday After Ascension Day

The 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

SantApollinare Nuovo, Last Supper

Artwork: The Last Supper, 6th-century mosaic, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. This is the oldest known representation of the Last Supper.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension

“He ascended into heaven”

A creedal teaching, the Ascension of Christ is one of the most overlooked feasts in the life of the Christian Church. Its meaning, however, is quite radical. In a way, it brings to a kind of completion the radical meaning of Christ’s resurrection.

Death and resurrection constitute the fundamental pattern of Christian life but without the Ascension to say that is to say very little. What the Ascension reminds us is our home with God. The Ascension of Christ is about the homecoming of the Son to the Father which establishes our homeland of the spirit. The Fathers of the early Church grasped this point ever so strongly. The Ascension, as Leo the Great puts it, is “the exaltation of our humanity.” In Christ’s Ascension, the heaven of God becomes our homeland.

The Ascension marks the culmination of the Easter Season. It inaugurates a new spiritual outlook, but one which forever remains grounded in the pattern of death and resurrection. We have an end with God and that homeland of the spirit is something which we participate in now through prayer and praise and through the sacraments.

We ascend in the Ascension of Christ. Somehow we are caught up into that heavenly motion. How? Through prayer, the very thing that has brought us to the Ascension of Christ. “We ascend in the ascension of our hearts,“ as Augustine remarks. The Ascension signals the purpose and meaning of Christ’s being with us. Nothing need stand between us and God except the barriers which we create ourselves. Prayer as the lifting up of our hearts places us in the divine will for our humanity and world. He has the whole world in his hands; never more so than at the Ascension when the Son returns to the Father having accomplished all that belongs to the redemption of the world.

It is in prayer and praise that participate in that work of cosmic redemption and are gathered into the heavenly community. We ascend in the Ascension of Christ.

“He ascended into heaven”

Fr. David Curry
Ascension 2011

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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

Berlinghieri, Ascension

Artwork: Berlinghiero Berlinghieri, Ascension: Christ with angels and apostles, 13th century mosaic, Facade, Basilica di San Frediano, Lucca. Photograph taken by admin, 22 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Justin Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of Justin (c. 100 – 165), Philosopher, Apologist, Martyr at Rome (source):

St. Justin MartyrO God our redeemer,
who through the folly of the cross
didst teach thy martyr Justin
the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ:
free us, we beseech thee, from every kind of error,
that we, like him, may be firmly grounded in the faith,
and make thy name known to all peoples;
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 Corinthians 1:18-30
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:1-8

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