Category: Statements and other writings

Dear Friends,

This is a pastoral letter to you about two things: summertime and parish finances.

First, I want to thank and commend you for your commitment and diligence. There has been a noticeable increase in the regularity and amount of the committed givings. We asked you to consider giving $3.00 more per week and many of you have responded. Thanks be to God. It has helped us to keep on an even keel in the post-winter season.  A marvel and a miracle!

It never ends, of course. We have been making a concerted effort to stay on top of both operational and maintenance costs. We have at least one major roofing concern that needs to be taken care of, in the short term, we hope. It is the reshingling of the roof of the large part of the Church on the Parish Hall side – the last of the major roofing matters. There are, as well, material concerns about the pointing of the chimney and the repair to the corner foundation of the Hall, not to mention some interior work with respect to the plaster. All maintenance issues, as it were. I want you simply to know about these things because they go to the core of our being here faithfully and with a sense of purpose and joy.

There are so many, many things about which to be grateful. I look forward to another year of activity and witness to the Gospel of Christ by our Parish in our life and work together. It is astounding to think about how many things as a Parish we do. For that may God be praised.

This brings me to the summer. I know, it is a kind of miracle in the Maritimes to arrive at summer! June 23^rd is the first Sunday of the Summer, following upon the summer solstice which is always very close to the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24^th), the one whose birth points us to Christ and to his holy birth and sacrifice, birth and death, we might say. But the summer is often a difficult time for Parishes, such as ours. There was a time, perhaps in relatively recent memory, when at least a certain portion of the town of Windsor decamped (I use the term advisedly) to Martin’s River and the Chester area, sometimes called the Windsor Shore, for the summer months. The result in terms of the Parish was pretty slim collections.

We have promoted and encouraged the programme of special summer offerings, recognizing that people’s lives are complicated and that travel and extended families make for very different summer habits. My request is that you realize that the Church carries on and that we need your support during the summer months as well.

I encourage you to take this into account and to contribute as generously as possible towards the special summer envelope. This will help us both in terms of the summer and in terms of the Fall and Winter.

On a personal note, a very personal note, Marilyn and I are very happy to announce that Elizabeth, our eldest child, is to be married this summer on August 17^th. She and her fiancé, Evan King, have many friends in Halifax and so the wedding will take place at St. George’s, Halifax.

Looking ahead to the next year, there are a couple of events that are in the works. First, 2013 marks the 225^th anniversary of the School, King’s-Edgehill. The connection between the School and the Parish is not only historical but real and significant. The actual anniversary is November 1^st, 2013. There will be a special commemorative service at 4:00pm on that day and with special dignitaries in attendance. It signals, yet again, the larger dimensions of the Parish’s life and mission.

I am also pleased to announce that on Friday, December 20^th, 2013, Capella Regalis will be back as part of our Christ Church Concert Series, To Bethlehem with Kings! An outstanding programme last year, it will be so again. So take note of the date and spread the word.

I would also remind you of the last concert in this season’s series, Ensemble Seraphina on Saturday, July 20^th at 7:30pm here at Christ Church.

“THE ROAD TO THE ISLES” – Chamber & Folk Music from the Isles – Ensemble Seraphina: Susan Toman harpsichord/Celtic harp, Dawn Bailey  soprano, Andrew Pickett counter-tenor; Composers: Thomas Moore, John Playford, Robert Burns, Henry Purcell, others TBA). Admission: $ 10.00.

These are but a few of the things that belong to our life and witness. They require, of course, your support and commitment. I thank you for all you help and service.

The Trinity Season, now before us, provides with wonderful reminders of the nature of our life in Christ. It is always about being clothed in humility and ultimately about being clothed in Christ. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” His life defines us and it is all our joy and all our blessedness.

Do not lose heart but rejoice in Christ and in his Church.

Many blessings upon all of you for your commitment and service and, again, many, many thanks.

May His Holy Name be praised.

In Christ,

(Fr.) David Curry

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The Advent 2012 issue of the parish newsletter, Christ Church Chronicles, can be downloaded as a pdf document via this link. Previous issues can be downloaded via this page.

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Note on Finances

Our offerings are down this year thus far, both regular weekly offerings as well as Special Offerings such as Easter, Summer and Thanksgiving. We are looking at an overall drop of approximately $10,000 for the year, and while our expenses are also down, this presents a serious concern about the stability of the Parish and its future apparently. We have continued with fund-raising events but such things can never be the basis of the Parish’s operations and existence. The times are not easy economically; nor is this the first time that the Parish has faced the harsh realities of financial short-falls. I can only call your attention to this and prevail upon your generosity.   It is, to be sure, a difficult time for Churches and indeed for all organisations that depend entirely upon volunteer commitment.

At issue is our commitment and our confidence in what we believe and what it means, not just for ourselves but beyond ourselves. We live for God in Jesus Christ and live in his body, the Church. The challenge is to be the Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Address

The challenge to be the Church is, I think, the burden of a wonderfully thoughtful address by the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, presented to the Council of Bishops in Rome in October. It touches upon a number of themes which we have explored and to which I remain committed. The following quote from his address is especially important. What he means by contemplation here has to do, in part, with the primacy of worship and prayer, the primacy of our thoughtful  attention to the things of God rather than mimicking the culture in its preoccupations, fantasies and, indeed, insanities (see below). There is always something theologically revolutionary about the Church; it shapes cultures, to be sure, but it is also profoundly counter-culture because the Gospel challenges our assumptions. His insights at least give us pause for thought. He writes:

To be contemplative as Christ is contemplative is to be open to all the fullness that the Father wishes to pour into our hearts. With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin to grow. And the face we need to show to our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth towards love, a humanity so delighted and engaged by the glory of what we look towards that we are prepared to embark on a journey without end to find our way more deeply into it, into the heart of the trinitarian life. St Paul speaks (in II Cor 3.18) of how ‘with our unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord’, we are transfigured with a greater and greater radiance. That is the face we seek to show to our fellow-human beings.

And we seek this not because we are in search of some private ‘religious experience’ that will make us feel secure or holy. We seek it because in this self-forgetting gazing towards the light of God in Christ we learn how to look at one another and at the whole of God’s creation. In the early Church, there was a clear understanding that we needed to advance from the self-understanding or self-contemplation that taught us to discipline our greedy instincts and cravings to the ‘natural contemplation’ that perceived and venerated the wisdom of God in the order of the world and allowed us to see created reality for what it truly was in the sight of God – rather than what it was in terms of how we might use it or dominate it. And from there grace would lead us forward into true ‘theology’, the silent gazing upon God that is the goal of all our discipleship.

In this perspective, contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom – freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.

The full text of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s address is posted here.

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