Sermons

Lenten Programme 3: The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation III

This is the third of three Lenten meditations on “The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation”. The first is posted here and the second here.

“Rejoice with me, inasmuch as ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ”

Isaiah’s words of comfort and strength that mark the beginning of The Book of Consolation, chapters 40 through 55 of The Book of Isaiah, have their Christian counterpart not only in terms of Christ’s passion but also its application to us in our lives by way of St. Paul. Nowhere is that perhaps more clearly seen than in the wonderful words that belong to the beginning of his Second Letter to the Corinthians.

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2nd Cor. 1. 3-4). It is a wonderful and, dare I say, comforting passage and one which belongs to the consideration of consolation. Meister Eckhart, one of the masters of the Consolation Literature, begins his treatise The Book of “Benedictus”: The Book of Divine Consolation with these words from 2nd Corinthians. In the words which immediately follow in the fifth verse of 2nd Corinthians 1, the connection between comfort and consolation is made explicit, yet again, and yet again, through the reality and the dynamic of suffering. “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” Suffering is paradoxically and inescapably an essential feature of the consolation literature.

We meet tonight in the commemoration of St. Perpetua and Companions, early third century martyrs. “Another liveth in me,” Perpetua is reported to have said, and that sense of the indwelling of Christ in us speaks to the profoundest theme of the consolation literature, the idea of our intimate participation in the goodness of God even in the face of suffering and death, such as the martyrdom of Perpetua and her companions. It is really all about Christ in us and us in Christ. Therein lies the greatest good, the greatest comfort and consolation.

And yet, so many things stand in the way of our realizing this truth, a truth predicated precisely on how we look at things, upon our assumptions about the good and about happiness.

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Prayers and liturgy

Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their companions (d. 203), Martyrs at Carthage (source):

O holy God,
who gavest great courage to Perpetua,
Felicity and their companions:
grant that we may be worthy to climb the ladder of sacrifice
and be received into the garden of peace;
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: Hebrews 10:32-39
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:9-14

Perpetua, Felicitas, and five other catechumens were arrested in North Africa after emperor Septimus Severus forbade new conversions to Christianity. They were thrown to wild animals in the circus of Carthage.

The early church writer Tertullian records, in what appear to be Perpetua’s own words, a vision in which she saw a ladder to heaven and heard the voice of Jesus saying, “Perpetua, I am waiting for you”. She climbed the ladder and reached a large garden where sheep were grazing. From this, she understood that she and her companions would be martyred.

Tertullian’s The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas is posted here.

Felix Louis Leullier, Combat Arena or Martyrdom of SS. Perpetua and FelicityArtwork: Felix Louis Leullier, Combat Arena or Martyrdom of SS. Perpetua and Felicity, 1840, Private collection.

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Lenten Prose

Lenten Prose

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

To thee, Redeemer, on thy throne of glory:
lift we our weeping eyes in holy pleadings:
listen, O Jesu, to our supplications.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

O thou chief cornerstone, right hand of the Father: way of salvation, gate of life celestial:
cleanse thou our sinful souls from all defilement.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

God, we implore thee, in thy glory seated:
bow down and hearken to thy weeping children: pity and pardon all our grievous trespasses.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

Sins oft committed, now we lay before thee:
with true contrition, now no more we veil them:
grant us, Redeemer, loving absolution.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

Innocent captive, taken unresisting:
falsely accused, and for us sinners sentenced,
save us, we pray thee, Jesu, our Redeemer.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

Blessed rather are they that hear the word of God and keep it.

Blessings!? Where do we see any blessings in this rather dark and dismal Gospel, a Gospel story which I am tempted to call the Gospel of despair? But then, to call it a Gospel is to say that it is, indeed, a blessing, that it is, indeed, good news. So what is the good news in this troubling and challenging Gospel story? The blessing is in what we are given to see about ourselves in our disorder and disarray, ourselves in contradiction with ourselves and God, ourselves in our presumption and pride which separate us utterly from God and ourselves.

“I awoke,” Dante says in the opening and introductory canto to the Divine Comedy, “to find myself in a dark wood,” a selva selvaggio, a wild wilderness, “where the right way was lost and gone,” and yet he says, “there I found a great good.” This is the essential insight of Lent that brings us to the cross of Christ, the paradox that through evil we may learn the good, the insight that God and God alone can bring good out of evil. This, too, it seems to me, lies at the heart of our Lenten considerations about ‘The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation.’ In other words, we are being opened out to the radical nature of the goodness of God which is greater than all and any evil in our hearts. To learn that means confronting the darkness of our hearts. That is the great good of this difficult Gospel story.

But should we want a clearer and more direct affirmation of blessedness, it can also be found in the longer rendition of this Gospel story. Already a rather long Gospel, it was for centuries upon centuries even longer by way of what follows upon the rather cryptic and gnomic ending that we heard this morning that “the last state of that man is worse than the first.” What follows immediately upon those words is Jesus’ encounter with a woman in the crowd who blesses Jesus by way of reference to Mary, his mother, with the words, “blessed be the womb that bear thee and the paps that gave thee suck.” Jesus replies “blessed rather are they that hear the word of God and keep it.”

It is worth noting that this Gospel passage both in its present form and in its longer form does not appear in the Revised Common Lectionary used in many of the contemporary liturgies; perhaps because it is just too difficult and dark, too challenging. And yet the words of Christ to the woman in the crowd illumine the deeper meaning of the Gospel and the Lenten project. It is about our hanging upon the words of Christ and learning more and more about ourselves even in the darkness of our sins. But that means learning about the light and life of Christ who alone overcomes our darkness and conquers our death. Our blessing is found not in ourselves, certainly not in the forms of self-contradiction, and certainly not in terms of our presumption and pride.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 5 – 11 March

Monday, March 5th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, March 6th, St. Perpetua & Her Companions
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme III: ‘The Comfortable Words & The Literature of Consolation’

Wednesday, March 7th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, March 8th
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms

Friday, March 9th
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, March 10th
9:30am-3:30pm Lenten Quiet Day at KES sponsored by the PBSC NS PEI, on The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation; cost $ 15.00 (for lunch), led by Fr. David Curry. Please let me know if you are planning to attend.

Sunday, March 11th, Fourth Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion (followed by Simnel Cake in the Hall!)
4:00 Evening Prayer

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, March 20th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme IV

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Lent

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

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:1-14
The Gospel: St Luke 11:14-26

Augustin Hirschvogel, Christ Healing the Man Possessed of a DevilArtwork: Augustin Hirschvogel, Christ Healing the Man Possessed of a Devil, 1548. Legion of Honor Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

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Prayers and liturgy

Chad, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Chad (d. 672), Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary (source):

Christopher Whall, Victoria and Albert Museum, St. ChadAlmighty God,
who, from the first fruits of the English nation
that turned to Christ,
didst call thy servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
grant us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
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: Philippians 4:10-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:1,7-14

Artwork: Christopher Whall, St. Chad, c. 1905-10. Clear and coloured glass with paint and silver stain, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. (Reduced replica of panel in Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral.) Photograph taken by admin, 27 September 2015.

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Prayers and liturgy

John and Charles Wesley

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wesley (1703-91) and Charles Wesley (1708-88), Evangelists, Hymn Writers, Leaders of the Methodist Revival (source):

Merciful God,
who didst inspire John and Charles Wesley with zeal for thy gospel:
grant to all people boldness to proclaim thy word
and a heart ever to rejoice in singing thy praises;
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 Lesson: Isaiah 49:5-6
The Gospel: St. Luke 9:2-6

Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old ManHudson, Reverend Charles Wesley

Artwork:
(left) Frank O. Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old Man, 1932. Oil on canvas, John Wesley’s House & The Museum of Methodism, London.
(right) Thomas Hudson, Reverend Charles Wesley, 1749. Oil on canvas, Epworth Old Rectory, Epworth, Lincolnshire.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 26 February

Speak what we feel

Shakespeare’s tragedy, King Lear, ends with the words “speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” Yet sometimes it is impossible to say what we feel, to put words to our feelings. And there may be times, too, when we what we feel should not be spoken.

In Chapel in these last two weeks of the bleak mid-winter, we have reading from the story of Joseph and his brothers in The Book of Genesis. An outstanding narrative, it comprises the last thirteen chapters of Genesis. All that we have been able to do is to focus on some of the highlights of this remarkable story. It is challenging, to be sure, and, yet, like all forms of great literature, such narratives speak to our hearts and minds. They teach us something about what it means to feel deeply and to think profoundly about ourselves and our dealings with one another.

The story of Joseph and his brothers, simply put, is a story of betrayal and forgiveness, of the triumph of love over sin and evil. That seems pretty commonplace and as such misses the real intensity of the story and the way in which we are drawn into the story such that there is the possibility of our feeling deeply and profoundly the nature of the contradictions in our own hearts and minds. The story too contributes to our appreciation and understanding of the Christian story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion.

The story plums the depths and the heights of our humanity. Joseph is the favoured son of Jacob, also known as Israel, “one who strives with God.” In a way, this story shows us something about what it means to strive with God such that goodness overcomes sin and evil. But that means confronting sin and evil in ourselves. In the story, the other brothers of Joseph, all the sons of Joseph albeit from different wives, resent him because he is the favourite son of their father. In other words, they are moved by the ugliest and most destructive of the seven deadly sins in the later Christian taxonomy of sin, the sin of envy.

Nothing is more destructive of life in community than envy. It embodies our fear of not having something which another says and wanting to have it for ourselves at their expense. Even more, it is our refusal to rejoice in the good of another. That leads to the will or desire to lash out and even destroy those whom we envy. It is a most insidious and destructive evil in our souls: to hate the good of another because we fear that we have been excluded.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint David of Wales

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint David (c. 520-589), Bishop of Menevia, Patron Saint of Wales (source):

St. David, Jesus College ChapelAlmighty God,
who didst call thy servant David
to be a faithful and wise steward of thy mysteries
for the people of Wales:
in thy mercy, grant that,
following his purity of life and zeal
for the gospel of Christ,
we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit
be all honour and glory,
world without end.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-29

Artwork: Saint David, stained glass, late 19th century, Jesus College Chapel, Oxford.

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