Prayers and liturgy

Paulinus, Missionary and Archbishop

Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Saint PaulinusThe collect for today, the Feast of St. Paulinus (c. 584-644), Monk, first Archbishop of York, Missionary (source):

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Paulinus, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the people of northern England. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

With the Epistle and Gospel for a Bishop or Archbishop, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

The St. Paulinus stained glass was made by the firm of C.E. Kempe of London and installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1913. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Denys, Bishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Denys (d. c. 258), Bishop of Paris, Patron Saint of France, Martyr (source):

O GOD, who as on this day didst endow thy blessed Martyr and Bishop Saint Denys with strength to suffer stedfastly for thy sake, and didst join unto him Rusticus and Eleutherius for the preaching of thy glory to the Gentiles: grant us, we beseech thee, so to follow their good example; that for the love of thee we may despise all worldly prosperity, and be afraid of no manner of worldly adversity. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lesson: Acts 17:22-34
The Gospel: St Luke 12:1-9

Jean-Guillaume Carlier, Martyrdom of Saint Denis of ParisArtwork: Jean-Guillaume Carlier, Martyrdom of Saint Denis of Paris, c. 1660-75. Oil on canvas, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.

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Prayers and liturgy

Robert Grosseteste, Bishop and Scholar

The collect for today, the commemoration of Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, Scholar (source):

William Morris from a design by Edward Burne-Jones, Bishop Robert GrossetesteO God our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Robert Grosseteste to be a bishop and pastor in thy Church and to feed thy flock: Give to all pastors abundant gifts of thy Holy Spirit, that they may minister in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Acts 20:28-32
The Gospel: St. Luke 16:10-15

Artwork: William Morris from a design by Edward Burne-Jones, Bishop Robert Grosseteste, 1896. Stained glass, St. Paul’s Church, Morton, England.

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Prayers and liturgy

Harvest Thanksgiving

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

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional prayers of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God and heavenly Father, we glorify thee that we are once more permitted to enjoy the fulfilment of thy gracious promise, that, while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not fail. Blessed be thou, who hast given us the fruits of the earth in their season. Teach us to remember that it is not by bread alone that man doth live; but grant that we may feed on him who is the true bread which cometh down from heaven even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; to whom with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

O ALMIGHTY God, whose dearly beloved Son, after his resurrection, sent his Apostles into all the world, and, on the day of Pentecost, endued them with special gifts of the Holy Spirit, that they might gather in the spiritual harvest: We beseech thee to look down from heaven upon the fields, now white unto the harvest, and to send forth more labourers to gather fruit unto eternal life. And grant us grace so to help them with our prayers and offerings, that when the harvest of the earth is ripe, and the time for reaping is come, we, together with them, may rejoice before thee, according to the joy in harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson Isaiah 55:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 6:27-35

John La Farge, Angels Representing ThanksgivingArtwork: John La Farge, Angels Representing Thanksgiving, c. 1890-1900. Watercolour, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Harvest Thanksgiving/Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on Harvest Thanksgiving on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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Sermons

Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving / Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

“One turned back … giving him thanks”

Austin Farrer once summed up the Gospel according to St. Mark in three sentences: “God gives you everything. Give everything back to God. You can’t.” Except, it must be said, by the grace of Christ in thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the highest form of prayer, a kind of adoration. Thanksgiving is really a kind of thoughtfulness, our thoughtfulness towards God and towards the unity of all things in God. It is the counter to the idea of entitlement and privilege, to our tendency to take everything for granted and to think that we are owed the things we want. Thanksgiving speaks to the highest dignity of our humanity.

The readings for Thanksgiving Day from Deuteronomy and Luke capture the quintessential features of thanksgiving as a kind of thoughtfulness. They are complemented by the readings for Harvest Thanksgiving from Isaiah about God’s Word going forth and returning not empty but with purpose and in joy and from the Bread of Life discourse in John’s Gospel about our sacramental participation in Christ. Thanksgiving in all senses is really about our participation in the motions of God’s Word and Will.

Deuteronomy’s wonderful litany about the good land flowing with the abundance of good things, “a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing” is grounded in the idea of “keeping the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him”; in short, honouring God. There is something quite wonderful about our being gathered to God in the gathering of the fruits of the harvest into the Church where even the lowly zucchini, squash, and pumpkins not to mention the little gourds proclaim the goodness of God.

The harvest gathering belongs to the greater gathering of prayer. It is intellectus, the gathering of all things into unity in God from whom all good things do come. There is the danger of attending too much to the good things themselves and losing sight of the fact that they are all gifts, the gifts of God in creation of which we too are a part. Bread and wine, after all, are not simply natural creatures. They are the product of our working with God in the good order of his creation. But that belongs to our vocation as “nature’s high priest” (George Herbert). Thanksgiving brings out the deeper meaning of Genesis 1 and 2 about the created order and our place within it. In a way, it highlights the meaning of being made in the image of God and, in a complementary fashion, as the dust into which God has breathed his spirit; connected to God and to the whole order of created beings, from dust to angels.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 9 – 15 October

Tuesday, October 10th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Saturday, October 15th
3:30pm Wedding at KES Chapel: Jabes Benedict & Jessica Sabean

Sunday, October 15th, Trinity 19
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, October 17th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2003); and Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree, David George Haskell (2021).

Saturday, November 18th
4:00-6:00pm Annual Ham Supper – Parish Hall

Also please take note of the annual Missions to Seafarer’s Campaign for 2023.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity

Andrei Rublev, Christ in MajestyThe collect for today, the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 12:28-37

Artwork: Andrei Rublev, Christ in Majesty, 1408. Tempera on panel, Dormition Cathedral, Vladimir, Russia.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 6 October

Thoughtfulness

Thanksgiving is a kind of thoughtfulness. It is profoundly spiritual in its awareness of God “from whom all good things do come” and of the created order as the expression of God’s good will. It is the counter to the arrogance of entitlement and to the ignorance of privilege both of which divide and separate us from one another and from God. We are not owed the good things which we enjoy and seek. We are not better than and superior to everything and everyone else.

Thanksgiving is our thoughtfulness towards God in creation and redemption and towards one another in creation. In this sense, thanksgiving complements our reflections on Genesis 1 and 2 about our being made in God’s image, on the one hand, and about our connection to everything else in creation, from dust to angels, on the other hand. Our readings this thanksgiving week in Chapel pick up on those themes.

The reading from Deuteronomy highlights creation as “the good land” into which “God is bringing you.”It is described as ”a land of brooks of waters, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing”; what will proverbially be called “the land of milk and honey” in other scriptural passages. These are all the things for which we should be thankful in our awareness of the givenness of creation but, as Deuteronomy makes clear, these things depend upon our awareness of God’s Word and Will in creation by “keeping the commandments of God and walking in his ways and by fearing him,” honouring him. Thus thanksgiving is to God as the ultimate author and source of all good things. Prepositions matter! Our ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ activities were also about our engagement with the good land of creation, not as possession but as places of respect and care.

The reading from Luke about the ten lepers who were healed but only one returned to give thanks to Jesus helps us to understand who we are in the sight of God, at once made in his image and the dust into which God breathed his spirit. Only about the one who turned back, “and he was a Samaritan,” an outsider as it were, whom Jesus calls “this stranger,” is it said that he was “made whole” or saved. God seeks our ultimate good, our wholeness which is more than being healed. It is our thoughtfulness towards God. In returning and giving thanks we are being made whole and as such take hold of the truth of our being in God. The one who turned back “giving him thanks” recalls us to the freedom and dignity of our humanity. It is found in recognizing creation not as entitlement but as gift and thus acknowledging God as the giver and sustainer of all life.

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Prayers and liturgy

William Tyndale, Translator and Martyr

Embankment Statue, William TyndaleThe collect for today, the commemoration of William Tyndale (c. 1495-1536), Priest, Translator of the Scriptures, Reformation Martyr (source):

O Lord, grant to thy people
grace to hear and keep thy word
that, after the example of thy servant William Tyndale,
we may both profess thy gospel
and also be ready to suffer and die for it,
to the honour of thy name;
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: St. James 1:21-25
The Gospel: St. John 12:44-50

Artwork: Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, William Tyndale statue, 1884, Victoria Embankment Gardens, London. Photograph taken by admin, 30 September 2015.

Inscription on bronze plaque:
William Tyndale
First translator of the New Testament into English from the Greek.
Born A.D. 1484, died a martyr at Vilvorde in Belgium, A.D. 1536.
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” – “the entrance of thy words giveth light.” Psalm CXIX. 105.130.
“And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son.” I. John V.II.
The last words of William Tyndale were “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes”. Within a year afterwards, a bible was placed in every parish church by the King’s command.

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