Prayers and liturgy

The Epiphany of Our Lord

The collect for today, The Epiphany of Our Lord, or The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles: Mercifully grant, that we, who know thee now by faith, may be led onward through this earthly life, until we see the vision of thy heavenly glory; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:1-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 2:1-12

Carlo Dolci, The Adoration of the Kings (1649)Artwork: Carlo Dolci, The Adoration of the Kings, 1649. Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 2 January

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart

“If music be the food of love, play on,” Orsino says at the opening of Shakespeare’s Christmas play, Twelfth Night. We return to King’s-Edgehill after the Christmas Break only to find ourselves still within the orbit of Christmas, still within Christmastide and yet to come to the twelfth night of the proverbial twelve days of Christmas. No doubt, if not music as the food of love, there has perhaps been a lot of the love of food, even “surfeiting”! Too much Christmas, it might seem. No matter, the greater question has to do with the meaning of Christmas itself which may or may not have much to do with the culture of christmas, globally and locally.

Christmas, religiously and artistically speaking, is about a surfeit of images, a fullness of images which entrance and mystify. Christianity, as the Christmas mystery reminds us, is very much about the fullness of imagesin contrast to Buddhism which is about the emptiness of images. For both, though, there is the awareness of the problem of attachment; our being too attached to one image or another in the wrong way or to the wrong extent. In short, there is the constant challenge about thinking Christmas.

I am reminded of the lovely tondo painted c. 1440/1460 by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi in Florence, Italy. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Tondo refers to a circular painting. Known as The Adoration of the Magi, it portrays imaginatively and in a rich fullness of images the Christmas story, actually the story of the Epiphany on the twelfth day of Christmas in the western reckoning, with the Magi-Kings presenting gifts to the Child Christ pictured in the foreground of the painting. Included in the painting are a host of people: men and women and children; and a number of animals, a kind of representation of the whole world of creation coming and worshipping Christ. It envisions the powerful idea of creation as a whole worshipping the Creator now and wondrously in its midst, Christ as God and man. Among the animals there are ox and ass, many horses, camels, a dog, perhaps a greyhound, and two peacocks. While ox and ass are common features of many representations of the Nativity and along with camels have at least some sort of biblical resonance with other passages of Scripture, particularly the prophet Isaiah, they are not literally part of the nativity story in Matthew and Luke or in John’s majestic theological narrative about “the Word made flesh.” And certainly there is no mention of peacocks and greyhounds, let alone moose and beaver or kangaroos!

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Sermons

Advent and Christmas Homilies at Christ Church 2018

The twelve homilies delivered during Christmastide by Fr. Curry have been collected into one pdf document, available for downloading here.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Octave Day of Christmas

And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were
told them by the shepherds.

I hope that we are among those who having heard it, wonder at those things told to us by the shepherds. Even more, I hope and pray that we will be like Mary and “keep all these things, and ponder them in [our] hearts.” Such is, I think, the radical meaning of the Christmas of the Shepherds.

Things told to them by angels set them in motion to “see this thing which is come to pass,” they say, and with a proper theological sophistication of the kind which belongs to the little ones of the world, they know that this is something “which the Lord hath made known unto us.” They come and find it so. Splendid. Good on them but even better, even a greater good is that they do not keep this to themselves. It is not “good tidings of great joy”, just for themselves. No, it concerns us all. “They made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.” We know that saying. We heard it on Christmas morn. The “good tidings of great joy” is that “unto you is born this day in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord.” And as a sign of this truth, “ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

All this has remained with them and belongs to their conversation among themselves. It sets them in motion, moved by more than what they or we can possibly conceive. They come and see and it is as they had been told. They wonder at what they behold and made it known abroad and others wonder too. But how many keep all these things and ponder them in their hearts? The shepherds “returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” There is the constant emphasis upon the idea of what has been told and seen and then told to others.

All of this belongs to the sweet wonder of the Christmas mystery. On The Octave Day of Christmas it all comes to a kind of crescendo, paradoxically enough not with the Angels nor with insight of John but with the lowliness and humility of the shepherds. They have the kind of rural honesty that used to be part of our communities. A way of simple directness and humble honesty. It is much needed in our age of smug arrogance and ignorant assertions. The Octave Day gathers up the fullness of images that Christmas presents and concentrates them on our thinking about Jesus, especially about his being named Jesus by angels, by Joseph, and now, wonderfully by Mary.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ

The collects for today, The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ, being New Year’s Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Michael Pacher, St Wolfgang Altarpiece: CircumcisionALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Of the Circumcision:

ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the New Year:

O IMMORTAL Lord God, who inhabitest eternity, and hast brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, bless to us this New Year, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:15-21

Artwork: Michael Pacher, St. Wolfgang Altarpiece: Circumcision, 1479-81. Oil on wood, Parish Church, St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut, Austria.

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Prayers and liturgy

John West, Missionary

The collect for a missionary, in commemoration of The Rev’d John West (1778-1845), Priest, first Protestant missionary to the Red River Valley, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

John WestO 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 John West, 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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas

The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise

This is how it happened? Well, at least in Matthew’s account. But more importantly what Matthew and Luke and John offer us is a way to think about the meaning of Christ’s Incarnation. We might say that how it happened and how we think about what happened are inescapably intertwined. In fact, we really don’t have any other way to think about the mystery of Christmas than what we are presented with in the Gospels.

To be sure, there are the traditions of representation and reflection upon these mysteries that belong to our thinking. But what is most striking and most important about the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation is the idea of God being with us which is simply another way of thinking about the radical nature of God as the principle upon which the being and the knowing of things utterly depends. From such a view, God is always with us. Christ’s Incarnation is the instantiation of that idea simply in its most radical guise. No cause for Christian triumphalism however; only for humility and wonder.

Matthew’s account complements John’s outstanding theological vision more than it does Luke’s economical and bare bones story which at face value has nothing really extraordinary about it other than that in the light of John’s Christmas Gospel we are made aware that is what is extraordinary. The ordinariness of the extraordinary event, if you will. Matthew offers us an insight into something he shares with Luke. It has entirely do with angelic sight, the raising of our minds from the linear and divisive thinking of ratio to the unitive reasoning of intellectus into which everything is gathered together.

Matthew’s account focuses wonderfully, I think, on the role of the angels in directing the conscience of Joseph. He confronts a conundrum, a social scandal. Espoused to Mary, yes, but lo, and behold, she is with child and not by him! Something of the character of Joseph is suggested to us in Matthew’s equally laconic account, equal to Luke’s concision. “Joseph her husband, being  a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily,” discreetly arrange for things, as it were, and not go viral on twitter in the manner of Trudeau and Trump. There is in Joseph’s thoughts – something which we are allowed to see – a question, a sense of mystery, that has to do, perhaps, with his sense of the character of Mary. Simply put, he is perplexed about what exactly is going on. There are, to say the least, questions.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 30 December 2018 – 6 January 2019

Tuesday, January 1st, Octave Day of Christmas/Feast of the Circumcision/New Year’s Day
10:00am Holy Communion

Wednesday, January 2nd
6:00-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, January 3rd
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms

Friday, January 4th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 6th, Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, January 15th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey by Payam Akhavan and Tears of Salt: A Doctor’s Story by Pietro Bartola and Lidia Tilotta.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Sunday After Christmas Day

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

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 4:1-7
The Gospel: St Matthew 1:18-25

Daniele Crespi, The Dream of Saint JosephArtwork: Daniele Crespi, The Dream of Saint Joseph, 1620-30. Oil on canvas, Kunsthstorisches Museum, Vienna.

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Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Becket, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Thomas Becket (1117-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

O Lord God,
who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket
grace to put aside all earthly fear and be faithful even unto death:
grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,
may fight against evil,
uphold thy rule,
and serve thee to our life’s end;
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 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, The Martyrdom of Saint Thomas BecketThomas Becket was a close personal friend of King Henry II of England and served as his chancellor from 1155. When the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162, Henry, seeing an opportunity to exercise control over the church, decided to have his chancellor elected to the post. Thomas saw the dangers of the king’s plan and warned Henry that, if he became archbishop, his first loyalty would be to God and not the king. He told Henry, “Several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the church make me fear that you would require of me what I could not agree to.” What Thomas feared soon came to pass.

After becoming archbishop, Thomas changed radically from defender of the king’s privileges and policies into an ardent champion of the church. Unexpectedly adopting an austere way of life in near-monastic simplicity, he celebrated or attended Mass daily, studied Scripture, distributed alms to the needy, and visited the sick. He became just as obstinate in asserting the church’s interests as he had formerly been in asserting the king’s.

Thomas rejected Henry’s claim to authority over the English Church. Relations with the king deteriorated so seriously that Thomas left England and spent six years in exile in France. He realised that he had to return when the Archbishop of York and six other bishops crowned the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, in contravention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rights and authority.

He returned to England with letters of papal support and immediately excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the six other bishops. On Christmas Day 1170 he publicly denounced them from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. It was these actions that prompted Henry’s infamous angry words, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

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