Author: CCW

Events

About Holy Week

We enter into the intensity and the mystery of Christ’s Passion with Palm Sunday. It marks the beginning of Holy Week. In the Passion of Christ our humanity is on display in all of its varied array and disarray, in all of our faults and failings, in all our sins and foolishnesses, in all the betrayals and deceits of our hearts. And yet there is a great good that is shown here as well, a greater good which ultimately speaks to our dignity restored. Holy Week shows the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of God’s love for us. Do we care enough to enter into what we are given to behold?

I encourage you ever so strongly to make the effort. The fullness of the Passion is set before us this week from all four Gospels. This week, in a way, is one continuous liturgy. What kind of Easter can there be without Good Friday, without the fullness of the Passion, which this week presents us?

Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God.

I remind you of the schedule of services for this week: Wednesday Night, 9:00pm, Tenebrae, meaning shadows or darkness, is a short service of mostly psalm readings which anticipate the Passion; Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum Sacrum – the three great holy days –  in which we gather with Christ in the Upper Room and then go with him to Gethsemane (the 1 hour watch); Good Friday takes us to the Cross with Mattins at 7:00am; the 11:00am Ecumenical Service at Windsor United Church and The Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday at 7:00pm; Holy Saturday gathers us first at the grave with Mattins & Ante-Communion at 10:00am and then to watch with a short Vigil at 7:00pm ending with the Lauds of Easter Day leading us to the grand and glorious pageant of the Resurrection on Easter Day beginning with the 7:00am ecumenical sunrise service at Fort Edward, followed by 8:00am & 10:30am Holy Communion services and Evening Prayer at 4:30pm.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,
therefore let us keep the feast!

Fr. Curry
Christ Church ’09

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

All Glory, laud and honour

All Glory, laud and honour

Refrain:

All glory, laud and honour
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s Name comest,
The King and Blessèd One.

Refrain:

The company of angels
Are praising Thee on High,
And mortal men and all things
Created make reply.

Refrain:

The people of the Hebrews
With palms before Thee went;
Our prayer and praise and anthems
Before Thee we present.

Refrain:

To Thee, before Thy passion,
They sang their hymns of praise;
To Thee, now high exalted,
Our melody we raise.

Refrain:

Thou didst accept their praises;
Accept the prayers we bring,
Who in all good delightest,
Thou good and gracious King.

Refrain:

This 9th century hymn by St. Theodulph of Orleans has, from its beginnings, been associated with Palm Sunday and thus with Holy Week. An apocryphal legend claims that Theodulph sang it from a prison window as King Louis the Pious was processing on Palm Sunday, and was freed as a result of the King’s pleasure! In any event, the hymn, along with its 17th century tune by Melchior Teschner, first published in Leipzig in 1615, has become a memorable feature of the Palm Sunday liturgy. As J.M. Neale, the 19th century translator of many Latin hymns, noted “another verse was usually sung until the 17th Century, at the quaintness of which we can scarcely avoid a smile“:

Be Thou, O Lord, the Rider,
And we the little ass,
That to God’s holy city
Together we may pass.

We sing this hymn in procession, out of the ‘prison’ of the Hall, as it were, on our way to the Church (minus the verse above, though without disrespect to all and any little asses!) Gloria, laus et honor.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for Passion Sunday

The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for The Fifth Sunday in Lent/Passion Sunday.

“By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place”

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,” Jesus said at the approach of Lent on Quinquagesima Sunday, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. And he told us exactly what that “going up” means, that “all things concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death; and on the third day he shall rise again.” In short, he tells us about his Passion and Resurrection. (more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 30 March – 5 April 2009

Monday, March 30th
4:45-5:15pm Confirmation Class – King’s-Edgehill School, Rm. 204

Tuesday, March 31st
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Meditation: “Seven Deadly Sins: What and Why?” IV
Thursday, April 2nd
1:30-3:30pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, April 5th, Palm Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Litany (with Bp. S. Moxley & Interpreter for the Deaf)
Soup & Bread luncheon to follow
4:30pm Evening Prayer or Holy Communion at King’s-Edgehill School

Print this entry

Sermons

Lenten Meditation: Envy

Lenten Meditation on The Seven Deadly Sins
Envy

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Envy and anger complete the triad of perverted love, the first of Dante’s threefold classification of the Seven Deadly Sins as forms of disordered love: love perverted, love defective and love excessive. From the standpoint of the theology of amor, everything comes down to what and how we love. That we love belongs fundamentally to our identity as spiritual beings.

As Dante sees it, pride, envy and anger constitute the forms of perverted love, the love that swerves to evil. Sloth is lukewarm love, a defective love, while avarice, gluttony and lust are the forms of excessive love, “love too hot of foot.”

We have already seen how pride is in all of the seven deadly sins. But of all of the seven sins, envy is the most unique and in some ways the most destructive. Why? Because, as one commentator (Graham Tomlin) puts it, there is no joy in it, no fun in envy at all. It is singularly perverse. Its only satisfaction is endless self-torment. (more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Lenten Meditation: Pride

Lenten Meditation on The Seven Deadly Sins
Pride

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

“Pride goeth before a fall,” the old saying goes, and of course, it is true. “Ante ruinam exaltur,” Augustine says, “the heart is exalted before its destruction,” its ruin. But it a way, it is worst than that. Pride is the Fall in us. That is why pride is not only the first and the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is what is deadly in all of them!

Augustine called pride the foundation of sin. “Pride made the soul desert God to whom it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself as the source of its own life.” Pride always signals a kind of obsession with self.

Aquinas speaks about pride as “inordinate self-love [which] is the cause of every sin.” This is the point. Pride is in every sin. (more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Annunciation

The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Be it unto me according to thy word”

The Annunciation is a feast of great joy that falls this year in the mid-point of our Lenten journey of penitence and sorrow. It complements Sunday’s theme of rejoicing and refreshment, the theme of Mothering Sunday or Laetare Sunday as it is sometimes called. Laetare means to rejoice. In a way, here is all our joy, all our sorrows notwithstanding. As Mark Frank puts it:

A feast it is to-day, – a great one, Christ’s Incarnation, – a day of joy, if ever any; and Lent a time of sorrow and repentance, – a great one, the greatest fast of any. How shall we reconcile them? Why thus: The news of joy never comes so seasonable as in the midst of sorrow; news of one coming to save us from our sins, can never come more welcome to us, than even when we are sighing and groaning under them”.

“Until they are good Marians, they shall never be good Christians” avowed Anthony Stafford in 1637, words which apply to every age of Christianity. (more…)

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Annunciation, by Sir Edward Burne-JonesThe collect for today, The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canada, 1962):

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For The Epistle: Isaiah 7:10-15
The Gospel: St Luke 1:26-38

Artwork: Edward Burne-Jones, The Annunciation, 1879. Oil on canvas, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Wirral, England.

c/p: Nova Scotia Scott

Print this entry

Events

Upcoming Event – Music Night

Newfoundland & Country Music Night

Please join us for an evening of music entertainment featuring:
Harold Hunt
Stanley Drake and Friend
John & Jason Caldwell and Friends
Carroll Edwards

Saturday, April 18th, 2009, 7:00-9:30 pm
Christ Church Parish Hall
Corner of King Street and Wentworth Road, Windsor

Adults: $5.00; children under 14 free.
Light refreshments and door prizes
Everyone is encouraged to contribute an item to our Parish Food Bank.

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23-29 March 2009

Monday, March 23rd
4:45-5:15 pm Conformation Class – Parish Hall

Tuesday, March 24th
10:30 am Valley Clericus – St. Mary’s, Auburn
6:00 pm Prayers & Praises – Haliburton Place
7:00 pm Holy Communion and Lenten Meditation: “The Seven Deadly Sins: What and Why?” III

Wednesday, March 25th, Annunciation
7:00 pm Holy Communion
7:30 pm Regional Eucharist with Bishop Moxley – St. Mary’s, Auburn

Thursday, March 26th
1:30-3:30 pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Friday, March 27th
11:00 am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30 pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, March 28th, Lent V/Passion Sunday
8:00 am Holy Communion
10:30 am Holy Communion
4:30 pm Evening Prayer or Holy Communion at King’s-Edgehill School

Print this entry