Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
“Blessed are you”
The soft autumnal colours of October give way to the sombre grey of November. There is a meditative and contemplative quality to this time of year “when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” as Shakespeare so memorably puts it.
His whole sonnet (#73) applies the imagery of the dying of nature’s year to human mortality, seeing in ourselves “that time of year,” “the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west,” and “the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth lie, as the death-bed whereon it must expire, consum’d with what which it was nourish’d by.” Though beautifully put, such observations are rather commonplace in the poetic, philosophic and biblical traditions. “Lord, what is man,” the Psalmist asks “that thou hast such respect unto him, or the son of man, that thou so regardest him?” and answers that “man is like a thing of nought: his time passeth away as a shadow” (Ps. 144, 3-4). There is no escaping the reality of human mortality.
The sonnet ends on a different note that suggests a deeper sensibility about the perceptions of mortality pointing to something greater. “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.” These poetic reflections “make [our] love more strong” and challenge us “to love that well which [we] must leave ere long.” That the world, ourselves, and others are to be loved well even in the face of mortality indicates that they are worthy of love. That can only be so, because they are known and loved in God’s eternal knowing and loving of all things. Things mortal are seen in relation to what is immortal.
This belongs to ancient wisdom and truth albeit in a number of registers. “There is no permanence,” the hero Gilgamesh is told on his quest for understanding in one of the oldest literary works of our humanity, The Epic of Gilgamesh, regarded by the German poet Rilke, shortly after its being discovered five thousand years later in the 19th century, as the great Epic of the Fear of Death; mortality, in other words. But there is a wonderful paradox. Gilgamesh is told this by Utnapishtim, a mortal who has been granted immortality (along with his wife) after the great flood by the arbitrary and capricious gods of ancient Sumeria. Utnapishtim is the precursor to Noah and the flood. But what kind of immortality are they granted? Not one in company or communion with others or even the gods but just the two of them in the Land of Dilmun, an imaginary place beyond the imaginary ends of the world. A kind of no place.
Shakespeare’s sonnet connects to the readings that belong to the great Feast of All Saints and its Octave. Yesterday was All Saints’ Day and today is both The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity and The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, better known as All Souls’ Day (transferred to Monday). In the season of scattered leaves, themselves an apt image of the dying of nature’s year, and in the culture of scattered souls, another apt image of things passing and falling away, there is a gathering into something more. This is shown in the readings that belong to All Saints’.
Month at a Glance, November 2025
Sunday, November 9th, Trinity 21
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 11th
11:00am Remembrance Day-Cenotaph
Saturday, November 15th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper
Sunday, November 16, Trinity 22
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 18th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Sunday, November 23rd, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 25th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Frank Tallis’s ‘Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna and the Discovery of the Modern Mind’ (2024)
Sunday, November 30th, Advent 1
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Twentieth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Ephesians 5:15-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 22:1-14
Artwork: Jacob Adriaensz Backer (attrib.), The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest, c. 1644. Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
All Saints’ Day
The collect for today, All Saints’ Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Revelation 7:9-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:1-12
Artwork: Mikhail Nesterov, Jesus Christ with Saints, 1904. Gouache, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
James Hannington, Bishop, Missionary and Martyr
The collect for today, the commemoration of James Hannington (1847-85), first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Missionary to Uganda, Martyr (source):
O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church: Grant that we who remember before thee James Hannington and his companions, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St Matthew 16:24-27
St. Simon and St. Jude the Apostles
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude, Apostles, with Saint Jude the Brother of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The collect for the Brethren of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: St. Jude 1-4
The Gospel: St. John 14:21-27
In the various New Testament lists of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13), the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon and Judas son of James, also called Thaddaeus.
To distinguish Simon from Simon Peter, Matthew and Mark refer to him as Simon the Cananaean, while Luke refers to him as Simon the Zealot. Both surnames have the same signification and are a translation of the Hebrew qana (the Zealous). The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call. The translation of Matthew and Mark as Simon “the Canaanite” (as, e.g., KJV has it) is simply mistaken.
The New Testament contains a variety of names for the apostle Jude: Matthew and Mark refer to Thaddaeus (a variant reading of Matthew has “Lebbaeus called Thaddaeus”), while Luke calls him Judas son of James. Christian tradition regards Saint Jude and Saint Thaddaeus as different names for the same person. The various names are understood as efforts to avoid associating Saint Jude with the name of the traitor Judas Iscariot. The only time words of Jude are recorded, in St. John 14:22-23, the Evangelist is quick to add “(not Iscariot)” after his name.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
“Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee”
It is a remarkable Gospel. What does Jesus want us to know? That he is the forgiveness of sins. “That you may know,” Jesus says to the sceptical scribes whose inner thoughts he knows, it seems. Wow. But what does forgiveness mean and what does it look like?
If you say, “I forgive you, but I can’t forget,” then you haven’t forgiven the sin. You have merely put away the penalty that you might have exacted, your ‘pound of flesh’, as it were. But the original wrong isn’t made right between you. It isn’t forgiven. Forgiveness cannot be mere words.
Or if you despise the one who has offended you so that it is a matter of repugnance or a matter of indifference to have anything further to do with him, then you haven’t forgiven him so much as tried to forget him; in short, to erase him from the horizon of your mind as if he didn’t exist.
If you say, “I will forgive, because if I don’t, God won’t forgive me,” then perhaps you come a little closer to true forgiveness, though standing still a long way off. At least the common basis of our sinful humanity is recognised – a common need, a ground of sympathy, is acknowledged. It points to the radical meaning of what we pray. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” That acknowledges a sense of reciprocity between God and us.
Forgiveness means the removal of sin and the restoration of the good. Forsaking means the actual turning away from sin so as to turn to the active loving of the true and absolute good, God. It means the desire or pursuit of righteousness. The forgiveness of sins enables the forsaking of sins, the following after righteousness only through the restoration of righteousness in us.
Month at a Glance, November 2025
Sunday, November 2nd, Trinity 20 (in the Octave of All Saints)
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, November 9th, Trinity 21
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 11th
11:00am Remembrance Day-Cenotaph
Saturday, November 15th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper
Sunday, November 16, Trinity 22
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 18th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Sunday, November 23rd, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, November 25th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Frank Tallis’s ‘Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna and the Discovery of the Modern Mind’ (2024)
Sunday, November 30th, Advent 1
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion