Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, December 2025

Tuesday, December 23rd, St. Thomas (transf.)
7:00pm Holy Communion

Christmas at Christ Church 2025

Wednesday, Dec. 24th, Christmas Eve
7:00pm Children’s Crèche Service
9:30pm Christmas Eve Communion Service

Thursday, December 25th, Christmas Day
10:00am Christmas Morn

Friday, December 26th, St. Stephen
10:00am Holy Communion

Saturday, December 27th, St. John the Evangelist
10:00am Holy Communion

Sunday, December 28th, Holy Innocents
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Christmas Lessons & Carols

(Move to our Winter Retreat in the Parish Hall, January – March,
Return to ‘Big Church’ for Palm Sunday, March 29th, 2026)

Sunday, January 4th, 2026, Second Sunday after Christmas
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Fourth Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

RAISE up, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 4:4-7
The Gospel: St John 1:19-29

Paolo Veronese, St. John the Baptist Preaching, 1562Artwork: Paolo Veronese, St. John the Baptist Preaching, 1562. Oil on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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Sermons

Advent Programme 2: Wisdom (O Sapentia)

Notes on Wisdom: Advent Programme 2 at Christ Church December 16th, 2025: Wisdom (O Sapientia)

In the Prayer Book Calendar, December 16th commemorates O Sapientia: an ancient Advent anthem. It may seem to be a rather strange commemoration: not a person, not an event exactly but a form of Advent devotion that has come to mark the beginning of the great ‘O’ Antiphons that frame the singing of the Magnificat at Vespers or Evening Prayer. They originated probably between the sixth and eighth centuries in the western Latin Church for use during the week before Christmas. The first of the antiphons is O Sapientia which some think reflects the teaching of Boethius in the early 6th century in his famous Consolation of Philosophy where one of the very few biblical references is to the Book of Wisdom, the passage from Wisdom 8. 1 captured concisely in the first of the ‘O’ Antiphons, O Sapientia.

O Wisdom, which comes out of the mouth of the Most High, and reaches from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things (fortiter et suaviter): Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Early English use began with O Sapientia on the 16th of December, rather than the 17th. Later an eighth antiphon O Virgo Virginum was added for the first Evensong of Christmas Eve, the 23rd. Seven of the antiphons form the verses of the great Advent carol, the Veni Emmanuel, albeit in a kind of reverse order. They all highlight certain ‘Messianic’ aspects of Christ, names or titles that contribute to our understanding of the mystery of Advent as drawn from Scripture. Quod Moyses velat, Christus revelat. What is veiled in the Old is revealed in the New.

The Wisdom of Solomon dates from either the first century BC or the first century AD. It is one of several texts that belong to what is known as Wisdom Literature. Three-quarters of The Book of Wisdom are read in the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer on the Week of the Sunday Next Before Advent. It is worth noting, too, that in the Year I cycle of Sunday Office Readings, passages from Wisdom are read at Morning Prayer from the 21st Sunday after Trinity through to the 24th Sunday after Trinity while at Evening Prayer on those Sundays, passages from Ecclesiasticus, the Book of the Wisdom of Jesu ben Sirach are read. It is an earlier work dating from the early second century BC but also a work included under the category of Wisdom Literature.

Both works are named in the 39 articles alongside of the Canonical Books of the Old Testament but are read, following Jerome, “for example of life and instruction of manners but not to establish any doctrine,” as Article VI puts it, works designated as Apocryphal. Yet Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus reflect the teaching of the Wisdom Literature that belongs to Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as well as some of the Psalms and passages from such prophets as Isaiah.

Wisdom is also read in the Sunday Offices at certain times of the Church Year, notably at Evening Prayer on Whitsuntide Monday and Tuesday, the latter reading concluding with the 1st verse of Chapter 8 which informs the O Sapientia antiphon. Why is wisdom the first of the O antiphons? Why wisdom?

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Prayers and liturgy

Ignatius, Bishop & Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Ignatius (d. c. 107), Bishop of Antioch, Martyr (source):

St John the Baptist Cirencester, St IgnatiusFeed us, O Lord, with the living bread
and make us drink deep of the cup of salvation
that, following the teaching of thy bishop Ignatius,
and rejoicing in the faith
with which he embraced the death of a martyr,
we may be nourished for that eternal life
which he ever desired;
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: Romans 8:35-39
The Gospel: St. John 12:23-26

Ignatius, who became Bishop of Antioch c. 69, is a key witness of the early church in the era immediately following the apostles.

Nothing certain is known of his episcopate before his journey from Antioch to Rome as a prisoner condemned to death in the arena. Arrested during the persecution of the emperor Trajan, he was received in Smyrna by Bishop (later Saint) Polycarp and delegates from several other churches in Asia Minor.

While at Smyrna, Ignatius wrote letters to the churches at Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, and Rome. Later, at Troas, he wrote to the churches at Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp.

In his letters, Ignatius clearly affirmed Christ’s divinity and his resurrection from the dead. He encouraged all Christians to maintain church unity in and through the Eucharist and the authority of the local bishop, and he wrote against a heresy that contained elements of Docetism, Judaism, and possibly Gnosticism.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, Evensong

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will … gather his wheat into the granary. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

“Hell is other people,” it is famously said in Sartre’s play No Exit. The Covid pandemic perhaps brought that idea out into the open in the fear and hatred of others but is Hell really other people? I think not and even in Sartre’s play that is really a form of self-delusion on the part of the characters who find themselves confined together after death. Hell is really themselves and not just after death but in their lives as the characters Garcin, Estelle, and Inez actually acknowledge.

But such recognitions are without any sense of repentance, without any sense of any kind of objective goodness or ethical principle that they have denied, contradicted, or violated. Garcin, the pacifist journalist is a coward who deludes himself as brave. He has died with twelve bullets through his chest, having been caught as a deserter fleeing from the war, but has been unspeakably and unbearably cruel to his wife, treating her abominably, as he admits, despite or because of her complete devotion to him. He is without any sense of remorse, let alone repentance. For that is Hell – the rejection or denial of repentance. And again for the same reason, a denial of any order or sense of an objective and ethical good. The others, too, have been utterly cruel to others in their lives. The only other thing they have in common, it seems, is a disdain for Second Empire style furniture; for Sartre, the epitome of bourgeois comfort and pretension for which he had utter contempt.

Yet somehow they know that they are in Hell but for all of their descriptions of themselves they do not know themselves. In a masterful image, they see one another but not themselves for there is no mirror, no glass in which they might see themselves, not even “in a glass darkly.” They are their darkness. Hell as other people belongs to the characters in their egotistical obsessions about themselves. As such there can be no repentance because that would mean love. Hell is the rejection or the refusal of love.

It is the modern paradox of self-consciousness without any real self-knowledge. And in the Scriptural understanding that is because of a denial or refusal to acknowledge the objective Spirit of God, the Creator and Redeemer of the world and our humanity, a refusal to seek to know even as we are known in the truth and love of God. In the imagery of Advent, they do not “look up and lift up their heads” towards the redemption of God that Advent proclaims is always nigh. They are imprisoned in themselves, oblivious to anyone or anything else. Hell is unending solipsism.

In the play, the characters allude to the traditional images of Hell. “You remember all we were told”, Garcin says, “about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the ‘burning marl’”. All this he dismisses as “Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers! Hell is – other people.” And yet, other people are precisely those from whom they are incapable of learning anything either about themselves or anything else. There is, to be sure, no mention of God whether as Judge or Redeemer. Hell is set up, it seems, by an unnamed “they”. Who is that? other people?, society?, the world as utterly indifferent to humanity?, the existentialist Hell of having been thrown into being? Yet at the same time there is a strong sense of the reality of our choices that come to define us. The play speaks to our questions and confusions about ourselves. Hell belongs to how we think about what it means to be human.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Third Sunday in Advent

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent

“Go and show John again those things which ye do see and hear”

There are two outstanding biblical figures in the spiritual landscape of Advent. They are John the Baptist and Mary, Virgin and Mother. They come together on this day and week in the progress of Advent and in wonderful ways complement one another. On the Advent wreath, the rose or pink candle is lit in remembrance of Mary’s role in the coming of Christ.

Monday just passed was the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a commemoration that has always been part of the Prayer Book calendar since 1549. Though not mentioned in the Scripture, it belongs to the theology of the Incarnation and complements the Advent Ember Day Gospel of the story of the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary. The reading of that Gospel in Advent concentrates simply on the angelic announcement and not on Mary’s verbal response. Yet these two moments – her conception and Annunciation – belong to her role and purpose in Christ’s Incarnation.

Her conception is about her coming to be even as the Annunciation looks back to the first moment of Christ’s Incarnation – his being conceived in her womb. Her Annunciation is his Conception! The Gospel reading at the very least reminds us of her Annunciation through her fiat mihi, her ‘yes’ to God and as such teaches what belongs to the real truth and meaning of our humanity and life in prayer: “Be it unto me according to thy word.”

But that, too, is the point of the ministry of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. He is in prison owing to the machinations of Herod’s wife, Herodias, who seeks his annihilation. His being in prison is another form of the darkness of Advent and yet points us to the light of Christ. In the marvel of revelation, Jesus speaks to the multitudes concerning John with a barrage of recurring questions. “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” “What went ye for to see?” And again, “What went ye out for to see?” All this calls attention to the ministry of John the Baptist. Only then does he tell us his real significance: he is at once a prophet and more than a prophet.

Jesus points us to John the Baptist who points out Jesus to us next Sunday as “the Lamb of God”. John the Baptist’s ministry as the Evensong lesson makes clear is a ministry of preaching a baptism of water for repentance. His message is the Advent mantra: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He bids the Pharisees and Sadducees to “bear fruit that befit repentance.” But more importantly, he points to the coming of one, he says, who is “mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry;” one who “will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire” and in whose hand is the winnowing fork that will separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, December 2025

Tuesday, December 16th, Eve of Ember Wednesday
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme II – Wisdom (O Sapienta)

Sunday, December 21st, Advent IV
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, December 23rd, St. Thomas (transf.)
7:00pm Holy Communion

Christmas at Christ Church 2025

Wednesday, Dec. 24th, Christmas Eve
7:00pm Children’s Crèche Service
9:30pm Christmas Eve Communion Service

Thursday, December 25th, Christmas Day
10:00am Christmas Morn

Friday, December 26th, St. Stephen
10:00am Holy Communion

Saturday, December 27th, St. John the Evangelist
10:00am Holy Communion

Sunday, December 28th, Holy Innocents
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Christmas Lessons & Carols

(Move to our Winter Retreat in the Parish Hall, January – March,
Return to ‘Big Church’ for Palm Sunday, March 29th, 2026)

Sunday, January 4th, 2026, Second Sunday after Christmas
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Advent

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

O LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 11:2-10

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Preaching of John the BaptistArtwork: Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Preaching of John the Baptist, 1486-90. Fresco, Turnabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child-bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen thy glory
revealed in our human nature
and thy love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in thine image
and conformed to the pattern 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 Lesson: Proverbs 8:22-35
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:26-28

Francesco Gessi, Madonna and ChildArtwork: Francesco Gessi, Madonna and Child, c. 1624. Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris.

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