Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After The Epiphany

The collect for today, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:16b-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 8:1-13

Sébastien Bourdon, Christ and the CenturionArtwork: Sébastien Bourdon, Christ and the Centurion, 1655-60. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Agnes (c. 291-304), Virgin, Martyr at Rome (source):

Eternal God, Shepherd of thy sheep,
by whose grace thy child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness,
in her life and in her death,
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all thy saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that passeth all knowledge,
even 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 Lesson: Song of Solomon 2:10-13
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-6

Vicente Masip, Martyrdom of Saint AgnesOne of the most celebrated of the early Roman martyrs, Agnes was only twelve or thirteen when she was executed in the Piazza Navona for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. Several early Christian leaders praised her courage and exemplary faith, including Ambrose, Pope Damasus, Jerome, and Prudentius. Although her story was embellished during the Middle Ages, it is certain that Agnes was very young and died as a Christian virgin.

St. Ambrose extolled her in his De Virginibus, written in 377:

[St. Agnes’ death was] A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ.

Because her name resembles agnus (‘lamb’), she is generally depicted in art with a lamb in her arms or by her feet. On her feast at Rome, the wool of two lambs is blessed and then woven into pallia (stoles of white wool) for the pope and archbishops.

Two notable Roman churches have been erected at locations associated with St. Agnes. The church of Sant’Agnese in Agone now stands in the Piazza Navona, the place of her martyrdom. The Basilica of Sant’Agnesi fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) was built at her tomb in a family burial plot along the Via Nomentana, about two miles outside Rome.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls.

Artwork: Vicente Masip, Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, 1540s. Oil on panel, Prado, Madrid.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 January

They found him in the temple

This intriguing Gospel story was read in Chapel this week. It has a special relevance to our School and its history. There was once both the school and the university on this campus; the School founded in 1788 and the University of King’s College in 1789. Edgehill Church School for Girls was founded later in 1891 and in 1976 amalgamated with King’s Collegiate School to become King’s-Edgehill. But what about the University? In 1920, just after the devastations of the First World War and after the Spanish Flu epidemic, there was a fire and the main dorm burnt down. The University was forced to relocate to Halifax where it has been since 1923. So what does this have to do with Luke’s story about Jesus at the age of twelve being found in the Temple at Jerusalem?

The story has influenced the educational project of both School and College. It is one of the few Scriptural stories represented in the stained glass windows of the Chapels of both the School and the College. Why? Because of what the story signifies about education. In our Chapel, the last part of the story is depicted in the central window in the nave on the quad side. It is about Jesus stepping into the life of public service. In the College Chapel, the first part of the story of Jesus being in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking them questions is the central icon in the window above the altar; the emphasis is on teaching and learning. These are images that give us pause to reflect about the purpose of education, about teaching and learning and about service Deo Legi Regi Gregi, for God, the Law, the King and the people, the motto of the School and the College.

This story is an Epiphany on several different levels and one in which we are very much a part of its meaning, again on several different levels. The main Epiphany in the Christian understanding is Jesus as human student, on the one hand, and divine teacher, on the other hand. But it also makes known a central feature of education, namely, the seeking or desire to learn; in short, the love of learning. In the story, there are four references to the idea of seeking, the idea of wanting to know. Without that there can be no learning. What Jesus says here to Mary is particularly instructive. It is captured in the rhetorical question, a question which presupposes the answer, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” meaning the heavenly Father. It highlights the making known of the purpose of the Incarnation. Human redemption is about learning what God seeks for us.

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Prayers and liturgy

Henry, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for a missionary, on the Feast of St. Henry of Finland (d. 1150), Bishop, Missionary, Patron Saint of Finland, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

R. W. Ekman, Bishop Henry Baptises FinnsO GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Henry, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

Artwork: Robert Wilhelm Ekman, Bishop Henry Baptises Finns, 1850-54. Turku Cathedral, Turku, Finland.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 10:30am Holy Communion service, Second Sunday after Epiphany

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 10:30am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Second Sunday after Epiphany.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

“There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there”

In some years there can be as few as two Sundays after Epiphany. This means that the stories of Jesus being found in the Temple and the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee are read every year in the liturgy. They show Epiphany as doctrine. This reminds us that the Scriptures are not simply a random collection of narratives and stories from which we might pick and choose whatever catches our fancy or our disdain but are essentially doctrinal; “a doctrinal instrument of salvation” to coin a phrase from Cranmer and Hooker. The Scriptures are seen as having a unity and an order, a purpose. They are understood credally, we might say. The Creeds come out of the Scriptures and return us to the Scriptures with a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting and understanding them.

Epiphany as a concept or idea is very much about the things that are made known to us: God revealing himself and his purpose for our humanity. Jesus, as we heard last week, “must be about [his] Father’s business”. He is both God and Man who reveals to us the things of God through his essential humanity as taken from Mary who, in turn, reveals the essentially Marian character of the Christian Faith and the Church; “keeping all these sayings in her heart”. Thus these two Gospel readings highlight two dialogues between Jesus and Mary that belong to Epiphany as manifestation, a making known.

The wedding feast at Cana of Galilee is unique to John’s Gospel. It is, we are told, the “beginning of signs” in which he “manifested forth his glory” and awakened faith in the disciples. It is an Epiphany of the divinity of Christ and of human redemption; in short, what God seeks for our humanity. It has very much to do with the concept of marriage theologically understood as an image or symbol of the union of God and man in Jesus Christ, “the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church”, as the Marriage service so aptly puts it just before making explicit reference to this Gospel story about Christ’s “presence, and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee”.

The exchange between Mary and Jesus brings out the radical nature of this Epiphany. It reveals to us not simply the beginning of a series of miracles or wonders but the end or meaning of all miracles as belonging to the greater miracle of God’s revelation of himself. God seeks the good of our humanity which ultimately has to do with our social joys as found in communion with God and with one another. Most of the miracle stories concern the healing of our humanity wounded and broken by sin and suffering. But not “this beginning of signs”. It sets before us the end or purpose of all the miracles.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 January

Tuesday, January 17th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) by David Graeber and David Wengrow & A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam by Thomas Bauer (2011, tr. 2021)

Sunday, January 22nd, Third Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

All services to be held in Parish Hall, January through March.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

The collect for today, The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Leandro Bassano, Marriage at Cana (Prado)Artwork: Leandro Bassano, Marriage at Cana, 16th century. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hilary, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilary (c. 315-368), Bishop of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church (source):

Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed thy Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:18-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:8-12

Courtois, St. HilaryHilary was born in Poitiers, Gaul, of wealthy pagan parents. After receiving a thorough education in Latin classics, he became an orator. He also married and had a daughter. At the age of about 35, he rejected his former paganism and became a Christian through a long process of study and thought. Robert Louis Wilken describes his path to conversion in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (p. 86):

[Hilary] found himself turning to more spiritual pursuits. In his words he wished to pursue a life that was “worthy of the understanding that had been given us by God.” Like Justin [Martyr] he began to read the Bible, and one passage that touched his soul was Exodus 3:14, where God the creator, “testifying about himself,” said, “I am who I am.” For Hilary this brief utterance penetrated more deeply into the mystery of the divine nature than anything he had heard or read from the philosophers. Shortly thereafter he was baptized and received into the church.

Around 353 he was chosen bishop of Poitiers and became an outspoken champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. St. Augustine praised him as “the illustrious teacher of the churches”. St. Jerome wrote that Hilary was “a most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians”. Hilary became known as “Athanasius of the West”.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 12 January

After me comes one who is mightier than I

They are the words of John the Baptist at the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan. The story marks the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. It has usually been interpreted to signal the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry – itself a kind of epiphany. Yet in the Christian understanding, it is an Epiphany at once of the Trinity and also of the essential divinity of Christ revealed in and through his humanity. Pretty powerful ideas are revealed to us and in ways that engage us in terms of different ways of knowing.

First, there is the witness of John to the coming of Jesus as one greater than himself, one who will baptize not with water, he says, but with the Holy Spirit. In other words, one who is God with God and in God and God with us. John bears witness to one who is greater than himself who comes with a sense of purpose that belongs to a greater good for our humanity. Secondly, there is the witness of God himself to himself, we might say, God as Trinity. We behold the figure of Christ in his humanity in the water; we see the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove; we hear the voice of the Father who declares that “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Powerful images.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the great and essential teaching of the Christian Faith. It is about the mystery of God in Himself which underlies all the ways of God’s engagement with our humanity; God for us, as it were. Without the first there is always the danger of collapsing God into the world or into the vain imaginations of our hearts and minds. What does this mystery mean? It suggests the mutual indwelling and interpenetration of the persons of the Trinity revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This idea of being in and with another deepens the mystery of ourselves as individuals. In other words, it challenges the contemporary notion of the completely independent self, the autonomous individual, alone in oneself as utterly disconnected from the world and even from oneself. As if we were perfect and complete. As if we were God.

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