Week at a Glance, 13 – 19 June
Tuesday, June 14th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Sunday, June 19th, First Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Trinity Sunday
The collect for today, the Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee, that this holy faith may evermore be our defence against all adversities; who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Lesson: Revelation 4:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 3:1-15
Artwork: Titian, The Holy Trinity in Glory, c. 1551-54. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.
KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 9 June
The Dance of the Understanding
The Lord of the Dance is the School’s favourite hymn bar none. It works in part because of its catchy refrain and because it is a story song; essentially the story of Christ told in the first person with a hint of its application to us in our lives. The melody is based on the American Shaker song, ‘Simple Gifts’ (1848), immortalized in Aaron Copland’s ballet, Appalachian Spring, originally commissioned for the dancer Martha Graham in 1943-44 and then reconfigured as a suite in 1945.
We come to the end of another School year. When I reflect on Chapel, the image of the dance comes quickly to mind because it suggests the reconciliation of tensions and oppositions in a unity of understanding and purpose. This is part and parcel of our wrestling with the questions about the ethical which requires a willingness to be challenged about our assumptions and those of contemporary culture, a willingness to give a voice to the wisdom of the ages and to let ideas dance in our minds.
It is easy to note the diverse cultures and languages from which our students and faculty come. It is not so easy to discern the morning miracle of our being together united in the struggle to understand the deep questions about reality. To be reminded of the world in its Greek and Hellenic sense as a cosmos, an ordered whole or in its Judeo-Christian and Islamic sense as created and good belongs to the dance of the understanding in which we just might glimpse what C.S. Lewis called the Tao, the path of wisdom. The path of wisdom is the dance of the understanding when sacred truths begin to live and move in us.
Tomorrow at 9am there is the Encaenia service for the graduating class of 2022 and their parents and grandparents. “Lord of the Dance” will resound for one more time in the Chapel and in the hearts and minds of the class of 2022.
My humble thanks to faculty and students for their attention to the things of Chapel in this up and down year. I wish you all a good and restful summer.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Pentecost
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Day of Pentecost.
Sermon for Pentecost
“He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you”
We get it wrong, I am afraid. Pentecost is not some emotive experiential happening, some happy-clapping affirmation of ourselves in our self-assertions. Just as the Resurrection is not a flight from the world and nature, so too, Pentecost is not the celebration of self-identities.
Pentecost is not the celebration of the diversity of our humanity but its unity-in-diversity as grounded in the life of God. Credally or doctrinally speaking, it marks the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples to become the Apostolic Church. In the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Holy Ghost” is followed directly by “The Holy Catholic Church” and “The Communion of Saints;” these are strong statements about our life together as shaped and formed by the Spirit of God. This is explicated more fully in the Nicene Creed. The Holy Ghost is “the Lord, The giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets”; after which comes “I believe One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”
These strong statements locate the unity of the human community in the unity of God because the human community has no unity in itself. The Pentecost story is the redemptive retelling of the story of the Tower of Babel. That story, so often misunderstood, is not a just-so story to explain the diversity of tongues and cultures as something evil which assumes that there should be only one language, only one culture, just as in reverse, in our contemporary world, the claim is that an endless and indeterminate diversity of identities is the good. The binary is false. It may be, however, that the levelling nature of our global technocratic world ultimately excites a desire for diversity and difference as a yearning for some sense of what it means to be an individual, a person, but that only raises the questions about the categories of difference and identity and what they mean in terms of our common humanity. Which categories and upon what basis?
The story of the Tower of Babel is really about human presumption and arrogance which results in confusion. Babel means confusion. The confusion arises out of the agendas of dominance and the abuse of power. “Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” Such is presumption and arrogance, an attempt to rival God. The divine response is to “confuse their language” which means to return things to a respect for the diversity of tongues which are already God-given out of which we may learn a unity of understanding. Babel confuses the things of God with the vanity of ourselves and our human projects. The confusion is us in our competing assertions for dominance and control of one another.
Week at a Glance, 6 – 12 June
Saturday, June 11th
9:00am Encaenia at KES
Sunday, June 12th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Event:
Tuesday, June 14th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
The Day of Pentecost
The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27
Artwork: Oleg Supereco, Pentecost, 2009-10. Fresco, Cathedral of St. Nicholas, Noto, Sicily.
KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 2 June
Last Chapel!
The last Chapel service for this year was on Monday with the Junior School who have had to contend with more ups and downs and changes than all other students at the School in terms of Chapel. Despite the irregularities of schedules and vagaries of restrictions, Junior Chapel has been exceptional in terms of enthusiasm and singing, in attention and commitment to this important aspect of the educational programme of the School. The leadership of the students has been extraordinary. Some of the best readers in the School are those in the Junior School. It suffices to mention Will Larder and Vinnie Armstrong. It was also the last Chapel service with Head Boy, Will Ahern, playing the organ, something which began when he was in the Junior School!
So it was wonderful to end this up and down year with a Junior School Chapel service and to reflect with them about the importance of the ethical by way of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story is actually framed by Jesus’ questions about “what is written in the Law?” and about “how do you read?” and the story of Martha and Mary which immediately follows it. In other words, our actions expressed in the injunction to “go and do thou likewise” are shaped and informed by our thinking. There is an essential interplay between the practical and theoretical, between the active life and the contemplative. That Mary has “chosen the better part,” the unum necessarium, signals the priority of wisdom which is found in contemplation but only as the principle which governs and guides human actions.
To think about the ethical is to consider what is the Good and how is it to be realised in our lives. What is especially important about the parable of the Good Samaritan is that it highlights that the ethical demand for compassion is required of us towards everyone in spite of and not because of various particular identity claims. It is not by accident that Jesus uses the Samaritans to underscore what belongs to the truth and dignity of our common humanity. The Samaritans were despised in the Jewish world. There were deep divisions between Jews and Samaritans about the Mosaic Law. And yet, the actions of “a certain Samaritan” illustrate precisely what it means to fulfil the Law in terms of the love of neighbour, the one who is the stranger, the proverbial other, as oneself. It is about the recognition of our common humanity regardless of cultural, linguistic, social, and political identities which are constantly in motion.
Platinum Jubilee Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II
Platinum Jubilee Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II – King’s-Edgehill School
June 2nd, 2022
Thank you. It is, perhaps, especially appropriate that we honour our Queen and Governor here at King’s-Edgehill School in this the seventieth year of her service. The School in its history and life has existed under the reign of nine monarchs over its 233 year history since its founding in 1788 during the reign of George the Third and who bestowed a royal charter upon the College and School in 1802. But in that long history of the School under monarchical rule and governance, the longest reigns were those of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth who together constitute 134 years out of those 233 years, and who embody the very model of steadfastness and devotion to duty for which we can only be thankful. Let us pray.
O God, the King of Glory, who raises up Kings and Queens as the instruments of your justice and mercy, we give thanks to you for the seventy years of faithful, compassionate, and dedicated service of Elizabeth II, Queen of England, of the Commonwealth of Nations, and of this country Canada, and we beseech your strengthening grace upon her in her witness to truth and order, to peace and good government, and to the flourishing of all who are under her reign, and upon those who serve in her name, especially the Governor General of Canada, the Right Honourable Mary Simon, and the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, the Honourable Arthur J. Leblanc, and upon us in our service to her and to one another in love and compassion, in service and sacrifice, ever mindful that the hearts and minds of Kings and Queens are ever in your sight to the praise and glory of your Name and for the good of your church and people; through Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end Amen.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain
Justin Martyr
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Justin (c. 100 – 165), Philosopher, Apologist, Martyr at Rome (source):
O God our redeemer,
who through the folly of the cross
didst teach thy martyr Justin
the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ:
free us, we beseech thee, from every kind of error,
that we, like him, may be firmly grounded in the faith,
and make thy name known to all peoples;
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: 1 Corinthians 1:18-30
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:1-8
Artwork: Execution of St. Justin the Philosopher, Mosaic, Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Israel.