KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 25 September

They overcame him by the blood of the lamb

Above the entrance to the Romanesque Basilica San Michele Maggiore in Pavia, in northern Italy, stands a bas-relief of the figure of St. Michael the Archangel. He is depicted as looking straight ahead, calm and serene, while standing upon a dragon-like serpent. Around the portal a whole collection of creatures are arrayed, each chasing and devouring one another. It depicts. in an imaginative way, the important contrast and connection between two different forms of thinking: ratio and intellectus.

The angels remind us of the necessity and the priority of intellectus, the power of understanding, without which we are lost and consumed in ratiocination, our linear, calculative kind of thinking, chasing one thing after another without any sense of the whole; literally lost in the parts. Intellectus is about the gathering together of all things into understanding, into wisdom, and as such redeems our more instrumental forms of thinking which by themselves lead to destruction and despair. The redemption of ratio is found in its participation in intellectus, something which is wonderfully shown in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, a work which draws upon Augustine and important intellectual developments in late antiquity. Both Augustine and Boethius are buried in another church in Pavia; San Pietro Ciel d’oro, mentioned by Dante in the Paradiso of his Divine Comedy. Such are just some of the profound aspects of intellectus, a gathering into understanding.

We need to be reminded about the different forms of thinking. The angels are part and parcel of the scriptural landscape and intellectual thought-world of the ancient Greeks and of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic imaginary. They belong to our life together as an intellectual and spiritual community which is especially the role of Chapel in the life of the School. They remind us of the important truth and insight that there is more to reality than what is known by our senses. We can’t see the angels. In a way, that is the point. We can only think them. They are pure mind, spiritual and intellectual beings who are the invisible thoughts of God in creation.

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Prayers and liturgy

Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop and Scholar

The collect for today, the commemoration of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester, scholar, spiritual writer (source):

Lancelot AndrewesO Lord God,
who didst give Lancelot Andrewes many gifts
of thy Holy Spirit,
making him a man of prayer and a pastor of thy people:
perfect in us that which is lacking in thy gifts,
of faith, to increase it,
of hope, to establish it,
of love, to kindle it,
that we may live in the light of thy grace and glory;
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 Timothy 2:1-7a
The Gospel: St. Luke 11:1-4

A prayer of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes:

Thou, O Lord, art the Helper of the helpless,
The Hope of the hopeless,
The Saviour of them who are tossed with the tempests,
The Haven of them who sail; be thou all to all.
The glorious majesty of the Lord our God be upon us,
Prosper thou the work of our hands upon us,
Oh! prosper thou our handiwork
Lord, be thou within us, to strengthen us;
without us to keep us; above us to protect us;
beneath us to uphold us; before us to direct us;
behind us to keep us from straying;
round about us to defend us.
Blessed be Thou, O Lord our Father, for ever and ever. Amen.

Southwark Cathedral, Lancelot Andrewes TombGraphic: Tomb of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, Southwark Cathedral, London. Photograph taken by admin, 20 October 2014.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

“And one … turned back”


Metanoia, as we have suggested on occasion, literally means a thinking after, though it is usually translated simply as repentance. Repentance is a turning back to the one from whom we have turned away. It signals the profound nature of our relation to God, a kind of constant circling around the principle of our being and knowing, a retire ad principia, as Lancelot Andrewes puts it, that marks our going to and from God in understanding and love.

Last Sunday and this Sunday present us with two Gospel stories both of which center on a Samaritan: the parable of the so-called Good Samaritan, and the one who “turned back,” “glorify[ing] God,” and “giving him thanks,” who was “a Samaritan.” In both accounts from Luke’s Gospel, it is Jesus who tells us that it was “a certain Samaritan” who “had compassion” and “showed mercy” on the one who was “wounded” and “half-dead,” and that the one who “fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks” was “a Samaritan.” In one way, Jesus is providing a critique of what we might call denominational chauvinism where one group denigrates another and asserts their own superiority. But in another way, Jesus is teaching us something more radical about ethical teaching and ethical living. It has very much to do with our encounter with the other, what Jesus calls here the “stranger.”

“There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” It is, to be sure, an indictment of Israel. Ten lepers were healed; only one returned to give glory, but “he was a Samaritan”, a kind of outsider or stranger. The Samaritans were a sect within Judaism but despised by the Jews. At issue is their view of the Law and the place of the giving of the Law. But Jesus is not simply pitting Jews against Samaritans and choosing sides. He is not saying that the Samaritans are right on these questions about the Torah and the giving of the Law. In fact, quite the opposite. What then is the significance of these two back-to-back Gospels about Samaritans?

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23 – 29 September

Tuesday, September 24th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, September 26th
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, September 27th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, September 29th, St. Michael & All Angels / Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity

Léon Glaize, Jesus and the Ten LepersThe collect for today, the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:25-6:5
The Gospel: St. Luke 17:11-19

Artwork: Léon Glaize, Jesus and the Ten Lepers, 1863. Oil on canvas, Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux, Paris.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Matthew the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Matthew, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

El Greco, Apostle Saint MatthewO ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist: Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 9:9-13

Artwork: El Greco, Apostle Saint Matthew, 1610-14. Oil on canvas, Museo de El Greco, Toledo.

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Prayers and liturgy

John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Coleridge Patteson (1827-71), Missionary, First Bishop of Melanesia, Martyr (source):

O God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who didst call thy servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear thy call to service
and to respond with trust and joy
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:34-38

John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary, Bishop, MartyrJohn Coleridge Patteson was a curate in Devon when Bishop of New Zealand George A. Selwyn persuaded him to go out to the South Pacific as a missionary. In 1856 he journeyed to Melanesia. He encouraged boys to study at a school Selwyn had founded in New Zealand and later set up a school in Melanesia. He was very proficient in languages and eventually learned twenty-three different languages and dialects spoken in Melanesia and Polynesia.

In 1861 Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia; he travelled across his diocese constantly, preaching, teaching, confirming, building churches, and living among the people. On the main island of Mota most of the population were converted.

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Sermons

Meditation for the Eve of Ember Friday in the Autumn

As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

There is something spiritually compelling and instructive about the tradition of the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday Ember Days in the Ember Seasons scattered throughout the year. At once a kind of Christian sanctification of the ancient patterns of the nature’s year and of agricultural life, the Embertides are also times of prayer and times for the ordination of Christian ministers. They connect our natural lives with the supernatural or spiritual by grounding the former in the latter.

They have become set around significant seasons and events of the year naturally and spiritually. The Advent Ember days fall after the Third Sunday in Advent, thus invariably close to the Winter Solstice. The Lenten Ember days are shortly after the beginning of Lent, which is always a movable season, commencing either early or late depending on the date of Easter, the Sunday after the first Full Moon following the Spring Equinox. Again, you get the sense of connection to the patterns of nature’s year. Yet the fons et origo of the Ember Days is in relation to Pentecost. The Pentecostal Ember Day propers are appointed to be read on the Wednesdays of each of the Ember Seasons, thus grounding all of them in the Descent of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church and its ministry. And finally, there are the Autumn Ember Days which follow shortly after Holy Cross Day, and, invariably, close to the Fall Equinox.

There is in all of this a kind of balancing of emphasis and focus, a dance of nature and spirit, as it were. But the Ember Days argue for the deeper integration of our everyday lives in the things of the Spirit. The Autumn Ember days have as their special theme, ‘Labour and Industry,’ but the propers speak eloquently about our labour as being really a labour of love; in short, the love of God and the love of neighbour, as it were, which we saw on Trinity XIII, Sunday just past, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Autumn Embertide Gospel from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain extends that love to the love of your enemies, and to “be merciful even as your father is merciful.” The Gospel begins with the important insight that the love of God and neighbour implies the love of self, hence the concept of the golden rule articulated by Jesus. “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”

This signals the importance of the self and self-knowing including the need to be self-critical without which we cannot begin to learn to love one another or God. The ordained ministry exists to remind us of the true labour and industry of our lives as labours of love, a love which only as grounded in the divine love can love others and ourselves as God loves us, even when we are the enemies of his love which Holy Cross day reminds us by way of the readings for Passion Sunday. We labour in the love of God shown to us in Christ, a love which challenges us in every way about our loves, our love of self, of others, and of God. There is our learning to love and to persevere in love, always seeking to do well and better, but only as rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. In him we learn how to “go and do likewise” as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

Fr. David Curry
Eve of Ember Friday
September 19th, 2019

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Prayers and liturgy

Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Theodore of Tarsus (602-690), Archbishop of Canterbury (source):

St. Theodore of TarsusAlmighty God, who didst call thy servant Theodore of Tarsus from Rome to the see of Canterbury, and didst give him gifts of grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been division, and order where there had been chaos: Create in thy Church, we pray thee, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-5,10
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 18 September

Where are you?

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks Job out of the whirlwind. Where are we is equally an important question in the opening chapters of Genesis. Where do we fit in the order of things? In Genesis One we are there, I have suggested, first in our thinking after God in his creative acts and, then, explicitly in our being made in the image of God. Nothing speaks more completely to the truth of human dignity. The point is that we are connected to everything in the created order and have a special relation to God as made in the image of the one who calls everything into being. Made in the image of God means that we are emphatically not God. To be made in the image of God bestows a certain dignity that should shape our relationships with everything else in the created order, including one another.

Genesis Two provides another account. Rather than locating our humanity within the grand pageant of creation as an orderly affair, the focus turns, in a more intimate and unabashedly anthropomorphic way, to our humanity itself. But it must come as a bit of a surprise since it seems to offer a complete contrast. We go, it seems, from dignity to dust. “Remember, O man, that thou art dust.” It marks an important spiritual act of remembrance.  But from dignity to dust!? How are we to think this?

These two chapters of Genesis have existed side by side for more than two millennia. Rather than seeing them in contrast or even in contradiction with one another, we can see them as complementary. To be reminded that man is formed from the dust of the ground – the word adam comes from adamah meaning the ground – not only humbles us but grounds us, connecting us with everything that belongs to the material and physical world. We are the dust into which God has breathed his spirit. Such is the dignified dust of our common humanity. This serves as a check perhaps upon our hubris and arrogance and the misuse of our God-given domination of the world which can really only properly mean our acting in the image of the Dominus, the Lord, who calls creation into being and sustains and cares for it. We are in his image as the dust into which God breathes his spirit.

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