Author: CCW

Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday in Lent

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11

Temptation of Jesus in the WildernessArtwork: Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness, 1965. Stained glass, Cathedral of St John the Baptist, St John’s, Newfoundland. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Prayers and liturgy

Ash Wednesday

The collect for today, the First Day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Colombe, Penance of DavidALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St James 4:6-11a
The Gospel: St Matthew 6:16-21

Artwork: Jean Colombe, “The Penance of David”, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1485-89. Illumination, Musée Condé, Chantilly.

Jean Colombe’s miniature illustrates Lauds in the Office of the Dead, which begins with David’s psalm of repentance: “Miserere mei, Deus”: “Have mercy on me, O God”.

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Sermons

Sermon for Quinquagesima, Choral Evensong

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God”

“If music be the food of love, play on” (Twelfth Night). And no doubt, we shall! “Dance me to the end of love.” Music, food, & dance, it seems, all come together tonight. But how? Through love. The question is not about what kind of music, whether Mozart or Villa-Lobos, not about what kind of food, whether Iberian or Brazilian, not about what kind of dance, whether minuet or samba, but about love. What kind of love?

What? Isn’t love, well, love? A little word pressed into the service of many and great things, I fear. Yet we cannot not think about love. It is the challenge of this day and a challenge for our culture. Nothing speaks more profoundly to our assumptions about love than the Scripture readings for this day and this season.

Our assumptions about love? Hey, isn’t it Valentine’s day? Isn’t love romantic and sensual, sexual and emotional? It is not something to think about. Feel the love! Yet:

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
(not, perhaps, the best of opening lines for Romeos and Juliets!)
But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted,
(this is not getting any better, is it?)
Nor tender feelings to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone.

There’s a challenge. Somehow love might be something more than the sensual and the physical, something more than just the erotic. Yes, but, note, neither less nor other than the sensual and the erotic, perhaps, and certainly not without romance.
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Sermons

Sermon for Quinquagesima, 10:30am service

“Set love in order in me”

It is a wonderful phrase from that great love-song of the Old Testament, the Song of Songs. It serves as a governing principle for the season of Lent. Today is Quinquagesima Sunday. We have already had occasion to talk about these curious names which adorn the three Sundays before Lent. Quinquagesima Sunday, is also commonly known as Love Sunday. It brings us to the very threshold of the season of Lent, to that concentration of the pilgrimage of our lives into the space of forty days. Lent, above all else, is the pilgrimage of love. Love’s journeying ways shape us in love and bring us to love’s end, to the peace and joy and blessedness of Jerusalem redeemed.

Quinquagesima is called Love Sunday principally because of today’s Epistle reading at Communion. It is St. Paul’s great love-song: “If I have not love I am nothing worth…and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity”, love. The theme is captured wonderfully in the Collect, but its profounder meaning is presented in the Eucharistic Gospel in the words of Jesus to the disciples that “we go up to Jerusalem.”

This day illustrates the business of Lent; the business, if you will, of setting love in order in us, both individually and collectively. All the readings on this day illuminate the path of our Lenten journey. It is the pilgrimage of love.

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Sermons

Sermon for Quinquagesima, 8:00am service

“If I have not love, I am nothing”

Love is everything and without it we are nothing. Tough love, it seems. What is this love? Quite simply, it is the love of God, the divine love which seeks the perfection of our human loves.

But isn’t love, love? Love of what, in what way and for what end, we have to ask. Love is not static but dynamic. It is the desire or the eros of our souls, “the still more excellent way” that transcends and transforms our human attempts at justice and right.

Divine charity perfects human charity. In the divine fellowship, the true desire of our souls for the unity that unites all differences is accomplished and concluded. Such love cannot be an indifferent love, a love that is indifferent to the realities of our lives and the lives of others around us. Love indifferent is not love. The love that is sung in this Hymn of Love is the divine love which seeks our good, individually and collectively.

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Anglican issues

Motions passed at Annual Parish Meeting

Several motions were presented at today’s Annual Meeting of the Parish of Christ Church, Windsor, including two motions, posted below, that may be of interest to Anglicans beyond our Parish.  Both of these motions passed unanimously.

Motion # 4

Preamble:  Parishes have been asked to send to the Diocese [of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island] a parochial Mission Statement. The following expresses the intent and purpose for the continuing existence of the Parish, captures the intent and purpose of the Covenant in Ministry between the Rector and Parish, and establishes the principles that define an Anglican identity and witness.

Re: Mission Statement of the Parish of Christ Church:

To be a visible witness, in the community of Windsor and beyond, to the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God in Christ and in his body, the Church, according to the principles of our Anglican spiritual identity expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Solemn Declaration of 1893.

Motion # 5

Preamble: In the current distresses of the Anglican Communion and in the attempts to find a mechanism to hold the communion together, the Archbishop of Canterbury has sponsored an ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’.  The Covenant is attached in Appendix # 2 [and is posted online here].  The motion affirms the ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’ as consistent with the understanding of our identity, polity and life that the Parish has articulated from time-to-time as well as signaling our continued commitment tot eh Anglican Communion via the Archbishop of Canterbury regardless of the actions of local and national synods.

Re: Endorsement of the ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’

The Parish of Christ Church endorses the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’ as a mechanism for maintaining the unity of the Anglican Communion, in accord with the foundational principles of our Anglican identity expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, and the Thirty-nine Articles and as consistent with the Solemn Declaration of 1893 in Canada.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

Rector’s Annual Report, 2009

Click here to download the Rector’s Annual Report for 2009 (pdf document).

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2008 can be accessed via this page.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 15-21 February

Monday, February 15th
4:45-5:15 Confirmation Class – Rm. 204, KES

Tuesday, February 16th, Shrove Tuesday
3:30pm Holy Communion – Windsor Elms
4:30-6:00pm Pancake Super – Parish Hall

Wednesday, February 17th, Ash Wednesday
7:00am Penitential Service with Ashes
1:00pm Holy Communion with Ashes
2:30pm Imposition of Ashes at KES Chapel

Thursday, February 18th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, February 21st, First Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Family Service – Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES

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Prayers and liturgy

Quinquagesima

The collect for today, Quinquagesima, being the Fiftieth Day before Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
The Gospel: St Luke 18:31-43

Leyden, Healing of the Blind Man of JerichoArtwork: Lucas van Leyden, The Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho, 1531. Oil on canvas, transferred from panel, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

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Sermons

Dust and Ashes: Meditation for Ash Wednesday

Dust and ashes

Ash Wednesday reminds us with words that we are dust while ashes are placed on our foreheads. The dust recalls us to our creation as the dust into which God has breathed his life-giving spirit. The ashes are the ashes of repentance because of our having turned away from God in sin. They turn us to redemption.

The ashes are made from burning last years’ palm crosses. Fire ends in ashes. But these ashes mark a new beginning, a renewal in love. Lent is the pilgrimage of love. That love is the perfecting grace of Christ, the divine love incarnate who goes the way of our imperfect loves to make perfect our loves. There must be in us the continual purgation and purification of our loves. They are purged and purified in the passion of Christ, in the pilgrimage of his perfect love for us. That is the intent of Lent and the significance of beginning in ashes.

We are called to repentance. This requires an awareness of our imperfect loves. The ashes mark a beginning with a twofold emphasis. There is conversion from sin and there is contrition for sin. Fire ends in ashes but God’s love is the greater fire which makes something out of the ashes of our lives. We are to arise from the ashes in the renewal of faith, hope and love.

It is the joy of renewing love. There is the joy of knowing that we have a gracious God to whom we may return, yet again. Repentance is the gracious stirring of his love in us recalling us to the truth of ourselves as found in him.

The ashes placed on our foreheads signify at once the rational faculty by which we are made in God’s image and the misuse of that divine image in us by our willful disobedience. The ashes are placed on our foreheads with the words that recall the dust of our origins but also our end, namely, dust dignified with divinity.

Lent is the season of renewal in love. The fire of Christ’s love is “that most burning love for the crucified” (St. Bonaventure). It does not end in ashes.

Fr. David Curry

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