Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

Hilda, Abbess

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilda (614-680), Abbess of Whitby (source):

O eternal God,
who madest the abbess Hilda to shine as a jewel in England
and through her holiness and leadership
didst bless thy Church with newness of life and unity:
so assist us by thy grace
that we, like her, may yearn for the gospel of Christ
and bring reconciliation to those who are divided;
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: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 19:27-29
St. Hilda

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Prayers and liturgy

Margaret, Queen

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Margaret (1046-1093), Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church (source):

Shaw, Queen Margaret of ScotlandO God, the ruler of all,
who didst call thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gavest to her both zeal for thy Church and love for thy people,
that she might advance thy heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints;
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 31:10-11, 20, 26, 28
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:44-52

Click here to read more about St. Margaret.

Artwork: Henry Shaw, Queen Margaret of Scotland (after a painting by Hugo van der Goes of about 1483 at Hampton Court Palace), 19th century, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hugh, Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hugh (1135-1200), Bishop of Lincoln (source):

Connor, St. HughO God,
who didst endow thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and didst teach him to commend to earthly rulers
the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Titus 2:7-8,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Artwork: Kathleen Connor, St. Hugh, mid-20th century processional banner, Lincoln Cathedral.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am service

“For God created man for incorruption, and made him
in the image of his own eternity”

In the narthex of the Church, in the entrance porch above the second set of doors, there is inscribed the following: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God”. I wonder how many of you have ever noticed it or have ever wondered what it means. It comes from The Book of Ecclesiastes, the most philosophical book of the Old Testament, a book which belongs to a form of ancient literature known as Wisdom Literature.

There are, of course, many things that escape our attention and many things that puzzle and confuse us. They are often things which are set before us for our reflective consideration. It belongs to our wisdom, collectively and individually, to ponder them. Not every thing is simple and self-evident.

November is the grey month of our remembering. There is the remembering of All Saints’, signaling our vocation in the perfection and unity of our humanity in the Trinity of God. There is the remembering of All Souls’ in our common passing, the mortality which confronts us all. There is the secular or civil remembering of all those who gave their lives in the great conflicts of the 20th century, a bloody and terrible century, for the sake of the rational freedoms of our political and social life, if indeed we are worthy of such things.

These remembrances have in them an inescapably contemplative quality. In one way or another, we contemplate our end; our end, that is to say, in the sense of purpose. What are we here for, individually and collectively? This sense of end or purpose appears in the Scripture readings at this time of the year which have a contemplative quality to them. We are reading from books, either within or without the canonical Scriptures, which are generally known as Wisdom Literature.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am service

“Go thy way, thy son liveth”

Seeing is believing, it is commonly said, but here is the story of someone who having heard, believed, and having heard again, believed yet again – all without seeing. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us since “faith cometh by hearing,” except that what is heard and believed stands in such stark contrast to what is wanted to be seen. “Except ye see signs and wonders,” Jesus says, “ye will not believe.” He names our expectation and its consequence – our unbelief. For where God is wanted to be tangibly present, immediately there for us, subject to us, as it were, faith has no meaning. The Word has no resonance in us.

In the Gospel, the demand is that Jesus should be physically present for an act of healing to be effective: “Come down ere my child die.” Something divine in Jesus is at once acknowledged and denied in the request. For where the Word is made captive to our desires, there the sovereign freedom of the Word can have no play upon our understanding. To acknowledge the sovereign freedom of the Word means that our understanding is made captive to the Word and not the Word to the immediacy of our desires. Such acknowledgement is faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” It has its play primarily upon our understanding and not upon our senses.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 14 – 20 November

Thursday, November 17th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Saturday, November 19th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper

Sunday, November 20th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, November 22nd
7:30pm Christ Church Book Club: Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul, by David Adams Richards

The next Choral Evensong will be on Sunday, November 27th, the First Sunday in Advent. The Advent/Christmas Services of Carols and Lessons with King’s-Edgehill will be on Sunday, December 4th, the Second Sunday in Advent, at 4:30pm, here at Christ Church (Gr. 7-11) and at 7:00pm at the Chapel (Gr. 12). On Sunday, December 18th at 7:30pm there will be a special Christmas Concert featuring Paula Rockwell and others.  Come and join us!

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-First Sunday After Trinity

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

GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-20
The Gospel: St. John 4:46-54

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Prayers and liturgy

Remembrance Day Prayer

A prayer of The Very Rev Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), Dean of York:

Lest We ForgetO Lord our God, whose name only is excellent and thy praise above heaven and earth: We give thee high praise and hearty thanks for all those who counted not their lives dear unto themselves but laid them down for their friends; beseeching thee to give them a part and a lot in those good things which thou has prepared for all those whose names are written in the Book of Life; and grant to us, that having them always in remembrance, we may imitate their faithfulness and with them inherit the new name which thou has promised to them that overcome; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Source: Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2004.

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Prayers and liturgy

Martin of Tours

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Martin (c 316-397), Monk, Bishop of Tours (source):

Almighty God,
who didst call Martin from the armies of this world
to be a faithful soldier of Christ:
give us grace to follow him
in his love and compassion for those in need,
and empower thy Church to claim for all people
their inheritance as the children of God;
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: Isaiah 58:6-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:34-40

Read more about St. Martin here.

St. Martin and the Baggar, Lucca Cathedral

Artwork: Saint Martin and the Beggar, replica of 13th-century limestone sculpture, West Facade, Cathedral of San Martino, Lucca. (The original has been placed inside the cathedral.) Photograph taken by admin, 22 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Willibrord of York

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Willibrord (658-739), Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, Patron Saint of the Netherlands (source):

St. WillibrordO Lord our God, who dost call whom thou willest and send them whither thou choosest: We thank thee for sending thy servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve thee, the living God; and we entreat thee to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of thy service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-9

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