Prayers and liturgy

Oswald, King and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Oswald (d. 642), King of Northumbria, Martyr (source):

O Lord God almighty,
who didst so kindle the faith of thy servant King Oswald with thy Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may ever bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
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.

With the Epistle and Gospel for a Martyr from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Ford Madox Brown, Baptism of St. OswaldIn AD 635, the army of Prince Oswald defeated the forces of pagan king Caedwalla of Gwynedd (north Wales) at the Battle of Heavenfield (near present-day Hexham, Northumberland). Oswald was a Christian and nephew of King Edwin, the man Caedwalla had defeated a few years earlier to conquer the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Heavenfield proved to be a key battle in English history for it marked the end of paganism as a religious and political force in England.

Knowing that the fate of his kingdom would be decided on the following day, Oswald had a wooden cross erected beside which he and his men knelt and prayed to the Lord for victory. The badly outnumbered Christian soldiers defeated their apparently over-confident adversaries, and Oswald became King of Northumbria.

After his victory, Oswald invited monks to come from Iona and establish a monastery at Lindisfarne, the Holy Island. This was to become one of England’s most important centres of Christian scholarship and evangelism.

King Oswald was killed in battle in 642 defending his land and people against the pagan king Penda of Mercia.

Artwork: Ford Madox Brown, The Baptism of St. Oswald, c. 1864. Oil on canvas, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Maccabean Martyrs

The collect for a Martyr, in commemoration of the Maccabean Martyrs (d. 166 B.C.), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy Martyrs the Holy Maccabees were enabled to witness to the truth and to be faithful unto death: Grant that we, who now remember them before thee, may likewise so bear witness unto thee in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Hebrews 11:29-12:2
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:49-56

Sergiev Posad Museum, Seven Martyrs of the MaccabeesThe Seven Holy Maccabean Martyrs are seven Jewish brothers who were tortured and killed by the order of Antiochus Epiphanes in 166 B.C. for refusing to participate in idolatrous worship and eat illicit food in violation of God’s laws. Their teacher, Eleazar the scribe, was also martyred at that time. Their mother was forced to watch her sons being cruelly put to death, and then she died. The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates her as St. Solomonia.

In 2 Maccabees, the account of Eleazar’s martyrdom is followed by the story of the seven brothers who submitted to martyrdom rather than transgress God’s law. One after another, they stated their willingness to be tortured and die based on a firm hope that God would raise them from the dead.

The episode can be found in 2 Maccabees 6:18-31 and 7:1-42. The valour of the Maccabean Martyrs is celebrated by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Artwork: The seven martyrs of the Maccabees, their mother Saint Solomonia and the teacher Saint Eleazar, 1525. Shroud (velvet, stone, silk, silver and gold threads), Sergiev Posad State History and Art Museum Preserve, Sergiev Posad, Moscow Oblast, Russia.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity

“How can any one satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?”

It is a good question and one which haunts our age of extreme affluence, on the one hand, and extreme poverty, on the other hand, an age of extremes despite the claims to the reduction of universal poverty overall which may indeed be true but tell that to those in radical need! But the Gospel speaks to another kind of poverty which underlies each and every other form of poverty. It is spiritual poverty, the poverty that belongs to our neglect of God and as a consequence to what God constantly provides for us.

In a way, the Gospel presents to us a fairly common biblical theme, the idea of God feeding his people in the wilderness journey. What is that journey? It is about our life to God and with God in the learning about the will and purpose of our life with God. This Gospel story explicitly recalls the provisions which God makes for his people in the wilderness of Sinai. Tough lessons actually. There is a certain reluctance among the children of the Hebrews to accept the discipline, the learning. The lessons are more intellectual and spiritual, we might say, than simply material.

And therein lies the difficulty. It is the constant temptation to measure the reality of God by way of our immediate material concerns. It is not that they don’t matter; they do. It is just that they are subordinate and depend upon something far more radical. The physical and material world is not nothing but neither is it everything, a point which the teaching of the Law of Moses makes clear as does the Gospel of the Resurrection. It is in the light of those ideas that we best make sense of this Gospel pericope. It recalls Deuteronomy’s claim that “man cannot live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God.” That does not deny the need for bread – for food – but it conditions that need by placing it squarely within the providence of God revealed in the Word of God as Law. There can be no bread without the Word of God in creation.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Seventh Sunday After Trinity

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

LORD of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 6:17-23
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:1-9

Backer, Multiplication of the Loaves and FishArtwork: Jacob de Backer, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fish, 16th century. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

William Wilberforce

The collect for today, the commemoration of William Wilberforce (1759-1833), English MP, Evangelical, Abolitionist (source):

Wilberforce Statue, St John’s College, Cambridge Let thy continual mercy, O Lord, enkindle in thy Church the never-failing gift of charity, that, following the example of thy servant William Wilberforce, we may have grace to defend the children of the poor, and maintain the cause of those who have no helper; for the sake of him who gave his life for us, thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Galatians 3:23-29
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-40

Artwork: William Wilberforce, St. John’s College, Cambridge. Photograph taken by admin, 18 July 2004.

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Prayers and liturgy

Olaf, King and Martyr

The collect for a Martyr, in commemoration of Saint Olaf (995-1030), King and Patron Saint of Norway, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Pius Welonski, St. OlafO GOD, who didst bestow upon thy Saints such marvellous virtue, that they were able to stand fast, and have the victory against the world, the flesh, and the devil: Grant that we, who now commemorate thy Martyr Olaf, may ever rejoice in their fellowship, and also be enabled by thy grace to fight the good fight of faith and lay hold upon eternal life; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St Matthew 16:24-27

Artwork: Pius Welonski, St. Olaf, 1893. Altar painting, Basilica dei Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso, Rome.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary (source):

Noel Hallé, St. Anne Revealing to the Virgin the Prophecy of IsaiahO GOD, who didst vouchsafe to bestow grace upon blessed Anne, that she might become the mother of the parent of thy Only-begotten Son: Mercifully grant that we who celebrate her festival may be partakers with her of thy heavenly grace; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:26-33

Artwork: Nöel Hallé, St. Anne Revealing to the Virgin the Prophecy of Isaiah, c. 1749. Oil on canvas, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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Events

Baptism photos, 23 July 2017

Last Sunday, 23 July, Christ Church celebrated the Holy Baptism of Silas Barry King, son of Elizabeth and Evan King and first grandchild of Fr. David and Marilyn Curry. Several photographs taken at the reception following are posted here (scroll to bottom of page).

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Prayers and liturgy

St. James the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of St. James the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle Saint James, leaving his father and all that he had, without delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him; so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow thy holy commandments; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 11:27-12:3a
The Gospel: St. Mark 10:32-40

Andrea Mantegna, Martyrdom of St. JamesArtwork: Andrea Mantegna, Scenes from the Life of St. James: Martyrdom of St. James, 1448-57. Fresco, Ovetari Chapel, Church of the Eremitani, Padua. Mostly destroyed by Allied bombing, 11 March 1944; restored from surviving fragments.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am Holy Baptism

“Love your enemies”

It remains to be seen for whom this shall be harder, for Silas, for you, for the grandparents, or even a great grandmother? It is, after all, all theology, as it must be. At least there is a party after!

“Love your enemies.” Is this one of the so-called values of the so-called West? If so then hardly one which we live up to in a world of ‘them’ and ‘us’, whoever ‘them’ and ‘us’ are. A hard saying, and yet one which articulates with remarkable directness and clarity an insight fundamental to the various traditions of philosophical religion. It speaks profoundly to our common humanity, to what transcends the tribalisms of culture, nation, family and religion and to the problems of identity and belonging that divide us into ‘them’ and ‘us’. A hard saying but no less true for being hard. Hard sayings are de rigueur.

The hard sayings of Jesus challenge us about belief as distinct from belonging. “I am the bread which came down from heaven”, Jesus said but the response? “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”, they said. The consequence was that “after this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” Enmity and division where truth and unity are sought. Yet, “love your enemies”!

Hard sayings trouble us. But they belong to the truth of our humanity. “Ye must be born again”, Jesus tells Nicodemus in the great gospel for Trinity Sunday. “How can these things be?” Nicodemus asks. Is not birth hard enough on its own? But to be born again? “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb?” Nicodemus takes the statement literally to which Jesus responds by explaining the difference between flesh and spirit and their relationship. “Ye must be born again” means something of another order just as the wind blows where it wills and you cannot tell “whence it cometh and wither it goeth; so is everyone born of the Spirit.” This, it seems, is the hard saying. “How can these things be?”

And so for Silas Barry King today. He is born again. Born into the mystery of God with us. And such a rebirth, such a new birth, is of another order and one which transcends all of the divisions and enmities of our world and day. “Love your enemies” is the Scriptural phrase which captures the great and powerful logic of reconciliation and unity that belongs to philosophical religion. It means an entirely different outlook, an entirely different way of thinking. It has entirely to do with our incorporation into the mystery of God. It means being born upward into what has come down to us. Such are the motions of grace about the heavenly things that have been told to us. “No one has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven,” as Jesus patiently but firmly explains to Nicodemus.

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