Prayers and liturgy

St. Philip of Caesarea, Apostolic Man

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Philip of Caesarea, Deacon, Apostolic Man (source):

Claude Vignon, St Philip Baptising the Eunuch of CandaceAlmighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Philip the Deacon, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the peoples of Samaria and Ethiopia. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom, that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Acts 8:26-40
The Gospel: St. Matthew 28:18-20

Artwork: Claude Vignon, St. Philip Baptising the Eunuch of Candace, 1638. Engraving, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

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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

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/Seventeenth 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/Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

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Sermons

Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving

“For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven,
and giveth life unto the world”

Harvest festivals are an ancient and integral feature of the civilizations of the world. They belong to the universal acknowledgment of “the givenness of things” in Marilynne Robinson’s apt phrase. Harvest festivals celebrate in one way or another the nature of our human interaction with the created order and the recognition that the harvest cannot be taken for granted. The harvest is a gift, not a right, not an entitlement.

Harvest festivals belong to human reflection about ourselves in relation to the natural world. We are essentially intellectual and spiritual beings embodied and embedded in cultures. Harvest festivals are one of the ways in which that intellectual and spiritual reality about our humanity shows itself culturally and historically. The great Medieval cathedrals, for instance, often depict the labours of the months as tagged to the signs of the zodiac thus showing the interaction of human labour with the seasons of the year in terms of planting, vine-dressing, and harvesting, especially of grain and grapes; hence the symbolic and sacramental significance of bread and wine.

It might come as a bit of a surprise, then, to discover that there were no provisions for Harvest Thanksgiving services in the classical Books of Common Prayer. Such services were only introduced in 1862 in England. The provisions for “A Form of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest” only appeared in Anglican Prayer Books in the 20th century. In other words, it is an entirely modern development.

Why? The classical and traditional pattern of the church year by no means ignores the cycles of nature: there is Rogation Sunday and the days of Rogation, there are the Ember Days in each of the four seasons, August 1st is Lammas Day or ‘Loaf-Mass day’ which celebrates the first-fruits of the grain harvest. Various prayers and Collects reference the goodness of creation as an expression of the goodness of God. There are prayers ‘For Rain’, and ‘For Fair Weather’, prayers, too, ‘In Time of dearth and famine’. And there are Thanksgiving prayers ‘For Rain’, ‘For Fair Weather’, and ‘For Plenty’ in terms of the “special bounty” of “our land yield[ing] to us her fruits of increase” (BCP, 1662).

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 10 -16 October

Sunday, October 16th, Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
October 14th, 2022 marks the 140th Anniversary of the Building of Christ Church (1882-2022)

Upcoming Events:

Friday, November 11th, Remembrance Day
11:00am Service at Windsor Cenotaph
12noon Service at KES Cenotaph

Saturday, November 19th
4:30-6:00pm Ham Supper, Parish Hall

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Prayers and liturgy

The Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity

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

LORD, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:1-11

Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, Christ Healing the SickArtwork: Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, Christ Healing the Sick, 1742. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 6 October

Giving thanks

Luke’s story of the one who turned back giving thanks is the classical and quintessential thanksgiving story. In Canada, the Thanksgiving Weekend is associated with Harvest Thanksgiving as well as the forms of National Thanksgiving. With the first, we give thanks for the harvest and with the second, we give thanks for the spiritual and rational freedoms which properly belong to our lives as citizens. Both forms of thanksgiving point us to the radical nature of thanksgiving as something spiritual and intellectual. A check on the idea of taking things and one another for granted.

Thanksgiving is the counter to all of the forms of privilege and entitlement, to the idea that somehow we are owed things like life and pleasure. It is profoundly about giving not getting and only through a recognition of what the American theologian and novelist Marilynn Robinson wonderfully calls “the givenness of things.” Thanksgiving recognises the spiritual nature of the natural world and of human affairs. As such it opens us out to a larger understanding of our humanity universally considered regardless of the particular cultures from which we come. It is an interesting point. We can only arise to things universal through the particularities of our cultures and lives. Thanksgiving reminds us that we are embodied beings and embedded in certain cultures with their distinctive histories and characteristics.

Thanksgiving, like learning, cannot be forced. It can only come from within as a result of a recognition of things without which belong to life itself. In the theological understanding it is really about God as life and the source of all the forms of life in which we find ourselves.

I am reminded of St. Francis of Assissi’s lovely Canticle of the Sun (c. 1225), one of the earliest literary works written in Italian. It is a lovely hymn of “praise to God with all his creatures”, Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water and Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth and even Sister Death. The canticle looks back to Genesis, to creation understood as distinguishing one thing from another, as well as echoing the ancient Greek ‘physicists’, like Empedocles who saw nature in terms of a combination of complementary material elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire, for example. The canticle reminds us of the deep connection between the Creator and creation in ways that complement many of the indigenous cultures of Canada. There is a kind of intimacy and warmth to St. Francis’s Canticle of prayer and praise. It is humbling. “Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks and serve him with great humility”, it concludes.

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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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Prayers and liturgy

St. Francis of Assisi

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor (source):

O God,
who ever delightest to reveal thyself
to the childlike and lowly of heart,
grant that, following the example of the blessed Francis,
we may count the wisdom of this world as foolishness
and know only Jesus Christ and him crucified,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:14-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 11:25-30

Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in the DesertArtwork: Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in the Desert, c. 1480, Tempera and oil on panel, The Frick Collection, New York,

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