Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 8 – 14 May

Tuesday, May 9th
7:00 Parish Council Meeting

Saturday, May 13th
1:00-3:00pm Mother’s Day Tea – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 14th, Fifth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

(The Currys are away for the burial of Marilyn’s mother, Bernice,
Thursday, May 18th to Saturday, May 20th)

Sunday, May 21st, Sunday after Ascension Day
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, May 28th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Fourth Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15

Agostino Carracci, Last SupperArtwork: Agostino Carracci, Last Supper, 1593-94. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 4 May

Mercy seasons justice

The story of the raising of the only son of the widow of Nain and the raising of Lazarus provided the context for reflection this week on the Coronation of King Charles III and its significance with respect to the history and life of the School. How? Because these stories contribute to our understanding of the Resurrection as the opening out of essential life. They do so by showing us mercy and compassion in action.

“When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, weep not.” It is a powerful and poignant scene. Out of that look of compassion comes the raising of the young man and his being restored to his mother. We are not left in misery and grief; in short, to endless weeping. “Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted.” And Jesus weeps with Mary and Martha, deeply moved at the loss of their brother Lazarus. He bids the company to take away the stone and says, “Lazarus, come out.” Literally, these are ‘resuscitations’ but they belong to the thinking about the Resurrection as revealing the underlying principle of essential life.

In every case there is a transformation from grief and sorrow, from ignorance and uncertainty, from sin and death to joy and life. God is essential life. In these stories we see the motions of compassion and mercy which are greater than the limits of our hearts and minds. “Lazarus, come out” speaks to the nature of education. It is about being led out of the prisons or tombs of our minds. These stories provide us with a way to face the difficult things of our world and day. They are not about a flight from reality. They are about the possibilities of mercy and compassion alive in us in our lives with one another.

The Coronation of King Charles III marks a significant and symbolic moment in the history and life of the School. He is the tenth monarch in the history of the School and the first King named Charles in its history. The School was born out of the American Revolution in its rejection of the English monarchy and was founded by a loyalist bishop, Charles Inglis. At issue were competing ideas about the nature of sovereignty: republican or monarchical? The idea of sovereignty refers to the fundamental principle of authority with respect to our lives in political communities. In a Republic, the principle of ultimate authority is diffused among the members of the community. In a Monarchy, it is concentrated in the person of the Monarch and its family dynasty. But it is not absolute monarchy. It is constitutional monarchy for England and the countries of the Commonwealth world-wide.

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Events

2023 Mother’s Day Tea

Christ Church is pleased to announce that a Mother’s Day Tea will be held at the Parish Hall on Saturday, 13 May, from 1:00pm until 3:00pm.

Mother's Day Tea, 13 May 2023

Click here for a larger version of the poster suitable for downloading and printing.

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Prayers and liturgy

Monnica, Matron

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Monnica (c. 331-387), mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo (source):

O Lord, who through spiritual discipline didst strengthen thy servant Monnica to persevere in offering her love and prayers and tears for the conversion of her husband and of Augustine their son: Deepen our devotion, we beseech thee, and use us in accordance with thy will to bring others, even our own kindred, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 1:10-11,20
The Gospel: St. Luke 7:11-17

Luca Giordano, Saint Augustine and Saint MonicaArtwork: Luca Giordano, Saint Augustine and Saint Monica, 1657. Oil on canvas, Real Monasterio de la Encarnación (Royal Monastery of the Incarnation), Madrid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Athanasius, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Church (source):

St. Athanasius, Mar Musa FrescoEver-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:5-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:23-28

Saint Athanasius is one of the most inspirational figures of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.

Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under the orthodox Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.

Athanasius became bishop in 328 at age 33 and spent the next five decades fighting for Nicene orthodoxy. For his troubles, he was deposed and exiled five times, spending a total of seventeen years in flight and hiding, often shielded by the people of Alexandria. Six years of exile were spent in Rome, where he gained the strong support of the Western church, and another six years were spent under the protection of monks in the Egyptian desert.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles

The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14

Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian, Saints Philip and JamesArtwork: Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian and Associates, Saints Philip and James (from Hours of Queen Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain), c. 1500. Illumination (ink, tempera, and gold on vellum), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Third Sunday after Easter

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after Easter.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

“Woman, behold thy Son … and to the disciple, behold thy mother”

The seven last words of Christ on the Cross begin and end with the address of the Son to the Father in the Peruvian Jesuit Fr. Bedoya’s ordering of the words. Everything is gathered into the life of God as Trinity. This, too, is the point of emphasis in the Gospel readings for the third, fourth and fifth Sundays after Easter, all taken from the 16th chapter of John’s Gospel with the repeated refrain, “because I go to the Father,” on the one hand, and the explicit teaching of the Son about the Spirit as the bond of truth and love, on the other hand. In every way we are being opened out to the reality of essential life which is the triumph of love over sin and death.

This is profoundly transformative not in the sense of becoming other than who we are but in discovering the truth of our humanity and our world as grounded in the essential life of God. The resurrection stories show us how we are transformed from sorrow and suffering into joy and gladness. Today’s gospel provides us with a wonderful maternal image of that change. “A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world.” The analogy is made explicit. “You now therefore have sorrow” Jesus says to the disciples in anticipation of his Passion, “but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” It is joy known in the face of a world of suffering not in flight from it.

What does this mean for us? A new way of thinking that is the birth of new life in us. There is the possibility as the American writer and theologian Marilynne Robinson beautifully puts it, of “acknowledging the miraculous privilege of existence as conscious beings,” and thus a way of engaging the world not only in terms of the power and authority of kings and governors but most profoundly in honouring everybody as 1st Peter 2 tells us. The teaching is transformative and transcends the limited agendas of human rights and identity claims which privilege some at the expense of others and divide more than they unite. Instead we discover a way of seeing ourselves and one another in the embrace of divine love, the love which changes everything. Love gives of itself and is never exhausted.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 1 – 7 May

Sunday, May 7th, Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, May 9th
7:00 Parish Council Meeting

Saturday, May 13th
1:00-3:00pm Mother’s Day Tea – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 14th, Fifth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

(The Currys are away for the burial of Marilyn’s mother, Bernice,
Thursday, May 18th to Saturday, May 20th)

Sunday, May 21st, Sunday after Ascension Day
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, May 28th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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