Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Trinity

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

Feti, Blind Leading the BlindO GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 8:18-23
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:36-42

Artwork: Domenico Feti, The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind, 1621-22. Oil on panel, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham.

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Prayers and liturgy

Stephen Langton, Archbishop

The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, on the Commemoration of Stephen Langton (c. 1150-1228), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Stephen Langton to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Southwark Cathedral, Stephen LangtonArtwork: Stephen Langton, stained glass, Southwark Cathedral, London. Photograph taken by admin, 20 October 2014.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

“Cast all your care upon him, for he careth for you”

Compelling words. Compelling readings that speak directly to our souls and culture in disarray. These words and readings counter the despondency and despair that inhibits and negates life and in particular our individual lives. Why and how? Because they call us back to God in the deep meaning of God for us and for our lives. 1st Peter reminds us of the truth of God, the God who cares for us in the midst of the world’s sufferings and pains, a world in which there is much evil and darkness. That has to be faced and not just wished away. Peter here reminds us profoundly about the realities of suffering, about “[our] adversary the devil,” the very principle of evil, and that “the same afflictions are accomplished in [our] brethren that are in the world.” The Christian Faith does not mean that you are inoculated from suffering. No. It is about a way of thinking through suffering.

God cares. This is a strong statement about the goodness of God but it is a statement which we cheapen by reducing God to ourselves and our concerns, making God subject to us. This is not what Peter is saying and not what Luke is showing us in the Gospel. After all, we are bidden to “humble [our]selves” and to “be subject one to another.” Being “clothed with humility” is the condition of grace, the grace which alone exalts and lifts us up. Such things point to a kind of spiritual activity in us, a movement of the goodness which belongs to the essence of God. That God cares, theologically speaking, does not mean that God is measured by our sense of well-being, but that we are alive to his goodness, his power, and truth. God is always more and greater and beyond comprehension by definition. To know that God cares is to be open to the transcendent and transforming power of divine love, the love that is shown to us in Christ.

That is the point of the Gospel. It illustrates the strong meaning of God’s care for us in the face of the sufferings of our world and day, sufferings that arise from our evil. God’s care requires our repentance. Repentance is the strong term for our being turned back to God. We can only be turned back to God by virtue of God’s turning to us.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 5:5-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 15:1-10

Godfried Schalcken, Parable of the Lost Piece of SilverArtwork: Godfried Schalcken, Parable of the Lost Piece of Silver, c. 1675. Oil on canvas, Leiden Collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Thomas More, Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Lord Chancellor of England, Scholar, Reformation Martyr (source):

Almighty God, who strengthened Thomas More to be in office a king’s good servant but in conscience your servant first, grant us in all our doubts and uncertainties to feel the grasp of your holy hand and to live by faith in your promise that you shall not let us be lost; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 3:13-16
The Gospel: St. Mark 12:13-17

A meditation of Thomas More, written in the Tower of London a year before he was beheaded:

Give me your grace, good Lord, to set the world at nought,
to set my mind fast upon you and not to hang upon the blast of men’s mouths.
To be content to be solitary.
Not to long for worldly company,
little and little utterly to cast off the world, and rid my mind of the business thereof.
Not to long to hear of any worldly things,
but that the hearing of worldly fantasies may be to me displeasant.
Gladly to be thinking God,
busily to labour to love him.
To know own vility and wretchedness,
to humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God,
to bewail my sins passed;
for the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
to be joyful of tribulations,
to walk the narrow way that leads to life.
To bear the cross with Christ,
to have the last thing—death—in remembrance,
to have ever before my eye death, that is ever at hand;
to make death no stranger to me;
to foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell;
to pray for pardon before the Judge comes.
To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me;
For his benefits incessantly to give him thanks,
to buy the time again that I before have lost.
To abstain from vain confabulations,
To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness;
To cut off unnecessary recreations.
Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all–
To set the loss at nought for the winning of Christ.
To think my worst enemies my best friends,
for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good
with their love and favour as they did with their hatred and malice.

Yeames, Meeting of Sir Thomas More and his Daughter

Source of collect: For All the Saints: Prayers and Readings for Saints’ Days, compiled by Stephen Reynolds. Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2007, p. 215.

Artwork: William Frederick Yeames, The Meeting Of Sir Thomas More With His Daughter After His Sentence Of Death, 1863. Oil on canvas, Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth

The collect for today, the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth (source):

Almighty God,
by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary
and greeted her as the mother of the Lord:
look with favour, we beseech thee, on thy lowly servants,
that, with Mary, we may magnify thy holy name
and rejoice to acclaim her Son our Saviour,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 2:1-10
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:39-56

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Visitation, 1491Artwork: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Visitation, 1491. Tempera on panel, Louvre, Paris.

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Prayers and liturgy

Confederation of Canada, 1867: Dominion Day

The collect for today, Dominion Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who providest for thy people by thy power, and rulest over them in love: Vouchsafe so to bless thy servant our Queen, and her Government in this Dominion of Canada, that thy people may dwell in peace and safety, and thy Church serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 22:16-22

Canada FlagCanadian Red Ensign

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings, Theology

The Solemn Declaration: The Net of Memory

Given the reference to the Solemn Declaration of 1893 in this morning’s homily, it seems appropriate to post Fr. David Curry’s paper “The Solemn Declaration: The Net of Memory”, which was published years ago in the Machray Review by the Prayer Book Society of Canada.

Click here to download “The Solemn Declaration: The Net of Memory” (in pdf format) or click here to read it online.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity (In the Octave of SS. Peter & Paul)

“All are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s”

It is one of those statements which concentrate in the most wonderful way the whole of the Christian faith. It comes from one of the lessons provided in the Octave of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul (BCP, p. 285). Paul’s statement in 1st Corinthians 3 captures the basis of the faith, like Peter as that rock upon which the Church stands, herself a mystery of the faith. And what is that faith? It is about our being with God through God’s being with us in Jesus Christ.

We forget at our peril that the Church is herself an article of faith. “Where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered, there is the church,” as Luther wonderfully and profoundly puts it. That leads to questions about the relation between Word and Sacrament, to be sure, but, in profound ways, his comment counters the more sectarian and institutional views of the Church; all instrumental and calculative, all dead and deadly. The Anglican Church is not the Church Universal, to be sure; its proper and only claim is to be “an integral portion” of the Church Catholic, something spelled out more fully in the Solemn Declaration of 1893 of the Anglican Church of Canada. Nothing proclaims so clearly the real and true vocation and Anglican understanding of catholic Christianity. It is found on page viii of the Prayer Book.  You might want to make it part of your summer reading and meditation.

The conjunction of St. Peter and St. Paul brings these thoughts front and present and wonderfully so in relation to the readings for the Second Sunday after Trinity. We are reminded that “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” Here we have an interesting feature of the liturgy of the Church, namely, the ways in which we are gathered into and participate in the substance of things holy and strong, things which are proclaimed and known, and yet which we can only grow into more and more, if only we will. “For all things are yours,” Paul says. Yet, we see but “in a glass darkly,” as he also reminds us. This is the necessary check to our arrogance and to the greater arrogance of our ignorance. The counter lies in John’s wonderful phrase about our hearts which condemn us in contrast to the heart of God which redeems us. All is yours in Christ; not in ourselves. To be alive to the one requires dying to the other, dying to ourselves.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love: Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:15-24

Joachim Wtewael, Kitchen Interior with the Parable of the Great SupperArtwork: Joachim Wtewael, Kitchen Interior with the Parable of the Great Supper, 1605. Oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

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