Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

Holy Cross Day

The collect for today, Holy Cross Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O BLESSED Saviour, who by thy cross and passion hast given life unto the world: Grant that we thy servants may be given grace to take up the cross and follow thee through life and death; whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship and glorify, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11
The Gospel: St John 12:31-36a

Sant'Apollinare, Apse Mosaic Cross

Artwork: Apse mosaic (detail), mid-6th century, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Italy. Photo taken by admin 20 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Cyprian

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

Saint Cyprian of CarthageO 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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am service

“Her sins, which are many are forgiven, for she loved much”

It is hard to imagine a more amazing statement. It dovetails wonderfully with the lesson from Ezekiel which speaks about “one heart” and “a new spirit” within us, “a heart of flesh” and not of stone; in short, a living heart, a heart that is alive to the presence of God. That lesson along side of this gospel story of the unknown and unnamed and utterly silent woman about whom Jesus says, “your sins are forgiven” is astounding. We see something of what that living heart of God in us really means.

What it doesn’t mean is the end of struggle and persecution, at least in this vale of tears. The story in Luke’s Gospel is particularly poignant and real. The woman who came to the house of Pharisee came because she learned that Jesus was there at table. She is described in the most wonderful economy of language by Luke as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner.” She is, in other words, a prostitute. She comes to Jesus.

She says nothing, yet her silence speaks volumes. Her heart is fully on display, fully transparent, a heart of flesh, we must say, though it is Jesus who has to teach us, hard-hearted ones such as we are, just what her actions mean. Her action is, perhaps, even more extreme and extravagant than the action of the one leper who was a Samaritan about whom we heard last Sunday. She brings a precious alabaster flask of ointment; she weeps, wetting his feet with her tears, and wiping them with the hair of her head, kissing them and anointing them with oil. It is an amazing act of devotion and love, an amazing scene of love-in-forgiveness.

Yet, it is the occasion of scandal. Doesn’t Jesus know who she really is? What kind of a religious hot-shot is he if he can’t recognise the garden-variety example of a sinner in this common “woman of the city?”

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am service

“Be not anxious”

What is Jesus saying here? Simply this. He wants us to look at the world with new eyes. Look at the sequence of strong verbs here: behold, consider and seek.  “Behold, the fowls of the air”. “Consider the lilies of the field”. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”.

It makes all the difference for us in our lives. To behold what he wants us to behold, to consider what he wants us to consider, to seek what he wants us to seek counters the paralysis of our fears, the terror of our anxieties and most importantly, perhaps, our anxiety about our anxieties.

Jesus says “be not anxious” more than once in this gospel. He knows our anxieties and how prone we are to being anxious, quite literally, about “a multitude of things”. It is “the Martha Syndrome” as diagnosed elsewhere by Jesus. “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about a multitude of things” (Luke 10.41). We all have our fears and our worries, our troubles and our concerns, our heart-aches and our despairs. And we can worry ourselves, quite literally, to death about them. What are we anxious about? What are our anxieties? Quite simply, they are our cares, the things which, quite literally, occupy our thoughts.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13-19 September

Tuesday, September 14th, Holy Cross Day
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30 Brownies’ Mtg. in Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, September 16th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, September 19th, Trinity XVI
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Family Service – Holy Communion
1:00-3:00pm Parish Picnic (Potluck), 220 Grey Mountain Road, Falmouth
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity

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

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18
The Gospel: St Matthew 6:24-34

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Events

Dr Edith Humphrey to speak at Acadia University

Dr Edith HumphreyRenowned New Testament scholar and theologian Dr Edith M. Humphrey will be the featured speaker for the 2010 Hayward Lectures at Acadia University. She will deliver a series of three public lectures on “What You Have Received: What the Bible Really Says About Tradition”. The lecture schedule is as follows:

Monday, 18 October
The Problem with Tradition
Tuesday, 19 October
Lost In Translation?
Wednesday, 20 October
Tradition, the Bible and the Personal

All lectures will take place at 7:30pm in the K.C. Irving Auditorium, Acadia University, Wolfville.

Dr Humphrey is William F. Orr Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Before coming to Pittsburgh, she served as Professor of Scripture and Dean at Augustine College, Ottawa. She previously taught at many universities and colleges, including Regent College, Vancouver.

As a member of the Anglican Church of Canada for almost 25 years, Dr Humphrey spoke persuasively in support of traditional Anglican beliefs in such current controversial issues as worship and human sexuality. She served on the Primate’s Theological Commission from 1996 to 2004.

In June 2009, after 13 years of study and discernment, Dr Humphrey was chrismated and received into the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Dr Humphrey’s website has much information about her life and work, including her journey to Orthodoxy.

Acadia’s brochure outlining the 2010 Hayward Lectures and related events can be downloaded here as a pdf document.

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Prayers and liturgy

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, 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

Duccio, Madonna and ChildArtwork: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna and Child, 13th century. Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Servi, Montepulciano. Photo taken by admin, 27 May 2010.

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Prayers and liturgy

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

“And one…turned back…giving him thanks”

In returning and giving thanks we are made whole. Such is salvation. It is also our freedom. The burden of thanksgiving, we might say, is precisely our freedom. It is our freedom in Christ.

The giving of thanks cannot be coerced. In the story of the ten lepers, one, and only one, as Luke is at pains to remind us, “returned to give thanks”. All were healed but only the one who returned and gave thanks is said to be made whole. His returning is a free act by which he signals that he is more than just the recipient of an healing act. He acknowledges the God who heals and restores, the God who has mercy and saves. But even more, his action brings him into the presence of God.

His returning and giving thanks puts him in the presence of Christ in his love for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. Thus he enters into the radical meaning of his healing. Its radical meaning is that our ultimate good for both soul and body is found in the presence of Christ in his will for us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 6-12 September

Tuesday, Sept.7th, Eve of the Nativity of the BVM
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion
7:30pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: “Vermeer’s Hat” by Timothy Brook

Sunday, September 12th, Trinity XV
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

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