Week at a Glance, 30 August – 5 September
Sunday, September 5th, Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:25-37
Artwork: Master of the Good Samaritan, (Dutch workshop assistant to Jan van Scorel), The Good Samaritan, 1537. Oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Augustine, Bishop and Doctor
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (source):
O merciful Lord,
who didst turn Augustine from his sins to be a faithful bishop and teacher:
grant that we may follow him in penitence and godly discipline,
till our restless hearts find their rest in thee;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:13
Artwork: Michael Willmann, Saint Augustine of Hippo, c. 1690. Oil on canvas, Convent of the Ursuline Sisters, Wroclaw, Poland.
Robert McDonald, Missionary
The collect for a Missionary, in commemoration of The Venerable Robert McDonald (1829-1913), Archdeacon, Missionary to the Western Arctic, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O 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 Robert McDonald, 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 Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:13-24a
Robert McDonald was born in Point Douglas, Red River Colony (in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba). He was the second of ten children born to a Scottish immigrant and his Ojibway wife. Ordained a Church of England priest in 1852, he ministered among the Ojibway people for almost ten years, mastering the Ojibway language and translating parts of the Bible.
He was chosen to establish a Church Missionary Society mission at Fort Yukon, a settlement then believed to be in British territory but now located within Alaska. Reaching Yukon in October 1862, Robert McDonald was the first Protestant missionary designated for mission work in that territory. He ministered to the Gwitch’in and other aboriginal peoples in northwestern parts of North America for over forty years, during which time he baptised 2000 adults and children.
In 1870, he worked among peoples along the Porcupine River (Old Crow) and later settled in Fort MacPherson on the Peel River, in present-day Northwest Territories. He married Julia Kutuq, a local Gwitch’in woman, in 1876; together they had nine children. He was appointed Archdeacon of the Mackenzie Diocese in 1875.
Archdeacon McDonald developed the first writing system for the Gwitch’in language. (The Gwitch’in Athapaskan language is also known as Tukudh.) With the help of Gwitch’in people, including his wife Julia, he translated the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, and compiled a Tukudh hymnal. Finally, in 1911, he published a dictionary and grammar of Tukudh.
Soon after retiring in 1904, he returned to Winnipeg where he died in 1913. He is buried in the cemetery of St John’s Cathedral.
McDonald’s translation of the Book of Common Prayer is posted online here and his grammar and dictionary here.
More biographical information on The Ven. Robert McDonald may be found online at these sites:
St. Bartholomew the Apostle
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who didst give to thine Apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 1:10-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 22:24-30
The apostle Bartholomew, named in all three synoptic gospels, is generally identified with Nathanael, who is named only in the Gospel of St. John. (For more details, see here.) If this identification is accepted, we have a great deal of information on Bartholomew’s calling (St. John 1:45-51). Jesus described him as “an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit”.
Nothing is known for certain of his post-New Testament ministry. There are conflicting accounts of his missionary activity in Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Egypt. Of these, Armenia has the strongest support, where he is said to have been skinned alive before being beheaded. The traditionally accepted place of his martyrdom is Albanopolis (present-day Derbent) near the western shore of the Caspian Sea.
Artwork: Pietro Novelli (Il Monrealese), Martyrdom of St Bartholomew, c. 1630. Oil on canvas, Pinacoteca Civica di Reggio Calabria.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
“Ephphatha,that is, be opened”
Are hearing and seeing merely passive senses? If so then what does that mean in terms of the activity of thought? Something seen is received by the eye; something heard is received by the ear. This suggests an activity, the activity of seeing and the activity of hearing.
What is seen and heard are there for the understanding. There is something communicated, the meaning of which we enter into through the profound activity of understanding. There is an acting upon what has been received. It is not just words which are heard or something which is seen that is received. What the words signify, what the vision reveals, is given to be understood. As Paul puts it, “the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.” Such is the spirit of understanding.
Our understanding is our wrestling with the significance of things. It is a profoundly spiritual activity. It speaks to who we are in the sight of God – those to whom God reveals himself and into whose presence he gathers us. Hearing and seeing, as the senses of understanding, are the ‘intellectual senses.’ They signify an acting upon what is received. There is a similar double-sidedness to our “being opened”.
In the Gospel for today, “they bring unto [Jesus] one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech.” They beseech the healing touch of Jesus upon the one that is deaf and at least impeded in his speech to the point that others must speak for him. There is, in response, the putting of his fingers into his ears, a spitting upon the ground, the touching of his tongue – all outward, tangible and physical acts – but, as well, there is Jesus’ “looking up to heaven,” his sighing and his saying unto him “Ephphatha, be opened.” There is, in short, a healing: “and straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
As with all the healing miracles of the gospels, they signify the restoration of our humanity. What is wanted is not the deformity of our being but its constant progress towards perfection. What is wanted is our being made totally and completely adequate to the truth of God; in short, our being opened to God signals our willingness to do what God wills for us. The project of the Trinity season is the constant process of being transformed more and more into who we are in Christ through our being opened to his grace and glory.
Week at a Glance, 23 – 29 August
Sunday, August 29th, Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Twelfth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:4-9
The Gospel: St. Mark 7:31-37
Artwork: Domenico Maggiotto, Christ healing a deaf and dumb man, 18th century. Oil on canvas, Private collection.
Sermon for Encaenia 2021
Link to the audio file of the service of Encaenia 2021
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed … are you”
You’re here! How wonderful to see you and to be together at last for this rather historic Encaenia service, unfortunate as it is that not all of the graduating class are able to be here. We miss them even as we think of them as being present with us in spirit. It is historic because this is the first Encaenia service to be held in the Chapel not in June but in August. Last year, too, Encaenia was held in August, again owing to the COVID-19 restrictions, but it was held at Christ Church (a slightly bigger barn than this more modest stable!).
Encaenia is a Greek word (εγκαινια) meaning the renewal of purpose and rededication belonging to the intellectual life of sacred places and institutions of learning. It is found, for instance, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, in Apocryphal texts such as 2 Esdras, and in the New Testament in John’s Gospel. A feast of the renewal of beginnings or principles, it has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D.), and to schools such as our own, which derive their origins from the great medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But we meet in August. Well, if the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 can be held in 2021, then surely the June Encaenia can happen in August! Guess what, you’re here!
The blessing lies in our being here together and in being reminded of the principles which shape the life of the School and all of you who are actually now graduates. The blessing lies in what you have gone through and in what way. Instead of ‘the woe is me’ syndrome, the endless whine of complaints and grievances which turns us all into perpetual victims, there is the deeper sense of perseverance and accomplishment belonging to the principles of education which has been your experience in this place. At issue is how you take a hold of those things and make them your own.
“I have become a question to myself,” Augustine remarks in his Confessions (Mihi quaestio factus sum, Bk. X, xxxiii). And so, too, for all of us in the contemporary world. It is less about the external circumstances of global and local concerns, the fears and anxieties about the pandemic, the climate, or the economy, all of which we face and will continue to face, and more about how we think about things. Only on that basis is philosophy, the love of wisdom, and education, its pursuit, even remotely possible.
Our gathering is profoundly counter-anticulture by which I mean that it goes against the levelling forces of the ideology of liberalism, the governing worldview of our times, which corrodes and dissolves the reason and truth of the institutions which embody human freedom and dignity and which constitute culture through the cultivation of character. This ideology assumes a false anthropology, the idea of the utterly autonomous individual freed from all and every constraint of nature and authority, which in turn leads to the destructive technocratic mastery of both non-human and human nature and thus the antithesis of culture.