Prayers and liturgy

St. Philip of Caesarea, Apostolic Man

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Philip of Caesarea, Deacon, Apostolic Man (source):

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Philip the Deacon, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the peoples of Samaria and Ethiopia. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom, that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Acts 8:26-40
The Gospel: St. Matthew 28:18-20

Artwork: Rembrandt, The Baptism of the Eunuch, 1626. Oil on panel, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht.

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Prayers and liturgy

Harvest Thanksgiving

The collects for today, Harvest Thanksgiving Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O LORD, we pray thee, sow the seed of thy word in our hearts, and send down upon us the showers of thy grace, that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, and at the great day of harvest may be gathered by the holy angels into the heavenly garner; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson Isaiah 55:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 6:27-35

Thanksgiving is a special and wonderful celebration. It speaks to a deep-seated spiritual sensibility in our souls even in the confusions, uncertainties, and denials of all things religious and spiritual in our culture and day. I would argue that it is fundamentally and essentially spiritual, especially in the Christian understanding.

Thanksgiving embraces at once Harvest Thanksgiving and National Thanksgiving, our thanks for the bounty of the harvest (whether or not there has been one!) and for the rational and spiritual freedoms that we enjoy (however much we ignore them!) in our nation and country. Those ‘thanksgivings’ are raised into the great thanksgiving, the Eucharist of the Son to the Father, re-enacted, recalled, and re-presented in “our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” in the service of the Holy Eucharist. We are fed with the bread of life, which is Jesus himself who has come down from heaven to give life to the world. That life is about our participation in the Son’s Thanksgiving to the Father, the Great Thanksgiving.

The giving of thanks to God, the giving of thanks for what we have, and the giving of thanks with one another and sharing with one another speaks to the highest freedom and dignity of our humanity. We give articulate praise to God for the harvest, for the nation, for our communities, and for one another but, above all, for God himself. We are in George Herbert’s rich phrase, “the secretaries of thy praise”. Such is our return to God, a redire a principia, a return to the principle of our life and being.

Fr. David Curry

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Prayers and liturgy

Paulinus, Missionary and Archbishop

Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Saint Paulinus windowThe collect for today, the Feast of St. Paulinus (c. 584-644), Monk, first Archbishop of York, Missionary (source):

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank you for your servant Paulinus, whom you called to preach the Gospel to the people of northern England. Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

With the Epistle and Gospel for a Bishop or Archbishop, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

The St. Paulinus stained glass was made by the firm of C.E. Kempe of London and installed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1913. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.

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Sermons

Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving

“So shall my word be”

Thanksgiving is a profoundly spiritual activity. It is about a certain kind of attitude and approach to life. It is about being thoughtful, the exact counter to the many forms of thoughtlessness in our culture and world. Thanksgiving, too, is counter-culture especially in relation to the entitlement culture which surrounds us. Thanksgiving is not about taking things for granted or worse, thinking that we are owed whatever we think we should have and want. Thanksgiving is not thanksgetting!

The idea of thanksgiving is a powerful concept that connects to the theme of creation. Thanksgiving speaks to the respect and dignity of our humanity and to our human vocation. It complements the idea in Genesis about God placing our humanity in the proverbial Garden of Eden “to till it and to keep it”. Thanksgiving extends that idea to taking delight in the good order of creation and in the good will of the Creator. Thanksgiving is a kind of grammar lesson, too, because it involves the idea of being thankful for the good things of creation which we are privileged to enjoy and to the idea of being thankful to God. You’ve got to love the power of prepositions!

Thankfulness is a kind of thoughtfulness, a redire a principia, a return to a principle but that return is something fundamentally positive. It involves our recognition that the world as intelligible and orderly is not just there for us but is something which is to be honoured and respected both in itself and because it is God’s world. It says something about us as human beings that we can be thankful. It is a profoundly spiritual idea. As the poet, George Herbert, notes, it belongs to our humanity to be “the secretaries of thy praise”, the secretaries of the praise of God, giving voice to the voiceless creation, giving praise for the simple truth that a zucchini is a zucchini, or in the context of Windsor, that a pumpkin is a pumpkin even when it is being used as a boat! All of which comes from God. Our praises and thanksgivings all go to God.

The Thanksgiving weekend in Canada combines several forms of thanksgiving. Traditionally and globally, there are the celebrations of the harvest, harvest thanksgiving. In the countries which derive many of their cultural traditions from northern Europe, harvest thanksgiving is a bit of a movable feast, depending on when the harvest is gathered. The idea of harvest has very much to do with our engagement with creation raised to a higher order by gathering the fruits of the harvest into the churches as a symbol of our recognition of the Creator and his creation. To that notion of thanksgiving has been added the idea of giving thanks for political freedoms, the idea of national thanksgiving. All of these things speak to our spiritual freedom.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 10 – 16 October

Tuesday, October 11th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, October 12th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, October 13th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms

Friday, October 14th
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, October 16th, Trinity XXI
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, October 18th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015) and Iain Pears’ The Dream of Scipio (2002)

Changes to the Tentative Schedule:

‘Phantom of the Pipes’ concert scheduled for October 28th: cancelled

Tuesday, December 20th
7:00pm Capella Regalis Concert, “To Bethlehem with Kings”.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twentieth Sunday After Trinity

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

O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:15-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 22:1-14

Dionisy, Parable of the Wedding FeastArtwork; Dionisy, Parable of the Wedding Feast, c. 1502. Fresco, Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, former Ferapontov Monastery, Ferapontovo, Russia.

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Prayers and liturgy

William Tyndale, Translator and Martyr

Embankment Statue, William TyndaleThe collect for today, the commemoration of William Tyndale (c. 1495-1536), Priest, Translator of the Scriptures, Reformation Martyr (source):

O Lord, grant to thy people
grace to hear and keep thy word
that, after the example of thy servant William Tyndale,
we may both profess thy gospel
and also be ready to suffer and die for it,
to the honour of thy name;
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: St. James 1:21-25
The Gospel: St. John 12:44-50

Artwork: Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, William Tyndale statue, 1884, Victoria Embankment Gardens, London. Photograph taken by admin, 30 September 2015.

Inscription on bronze plaque:
William Tyndale
First translator of the New Testament into English from the Greek.
Born A.D. 1484, died a martyr at Vilvorde in Belgium, A.D. 1536.
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” – “the entrance of thy words giveth light.” Psalm CXIX. 105.130.
“And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son.” I. John V.II.
The last words of William Tyndale were “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes”. Within a year afterwards, a bible was placed in every parish church by the King’s command.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Francis of Assisi

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor (source):

O God,
who ever delightest to reveal thyself
to the childlike and lowly of heart,
grant that, following the example of the blessed Francis,
we may count the wisdom of this world as foolishness
and know only Jesus Christ and him crucified,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:14-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 11:25-30

Rubens, St. Francis Receiving the StigmataArtwork: Peter Paul Rubens, St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, 1635. Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity in the Octave of Michaelmas

“That ye may know”

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, also known as Michaelmas, celebrated Thursday past, reminds us that there is a cosmic dimension to the conflicts between good and evil. “There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels”. Here there be dragons? Who is this dragon? We are told that he is “that old serpent, called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world”. We are presented with the reality of finding ourselves in a moral universe where there are conflicts and tensions, battles between good and evil. It is a world which, perhaps, we know only too well (unless we have deceived ourselves).

But left at that we have simply a kind of fatalistic dualism in the idea of two equally powerful and opposing principles, good versus evil. Yet that is neither the lesson of Michaelmas nor the lesson in today’s readings. “The dragon fought and his angels”, but, more importantly, they “prevailed not” against Michael and his angels. There was war but there was also victory, the triumph of good over evil.

Michaelmas reminds us of the idea of evil as that which opposes the good, hence the concept of Satan, the devil, “that old serpent”, recalling us to the story of the Fall in The Book of Genesis as well as to the theme of deception. But the important point is that the power of the good outweighs all and every form of evil. In the Christian understanding, St. Michael and his angels defeat the dragon and his angels, not through any special force or merit of their own simply, but “by the blood of the lamb”, an obvious reference to Christ and his sacrifice, and “by the word of their testimony”, their witness to God in Christ, and by extension, our witness. There was war in heaven, not there is war. A major point of difference.

Yet Michaelmas also reminds us that the dragon and his angels have been “cast out into the earth”. Conflict and war are inescapably features of our world and disturbingly so. Who cannot be moved with indignation and outrage at the bombing of relief and aid convoys in Aleppo, Syria, to mention but one of many global atrocities? Is the world, then, the place of dualism between two equal but opposing forces? No. The radical idea of Michaelmas means that while there is no end of wars and conflicts between good and evil in the world, the good is always greater in principle and in truth. At issue is whether we are capable of grasping this thinking any more. Not the least of our problems lies in how we think about good and evil whether in relativistic terms which deny their reality or in dualistic terms which despair of the ultimate truth of the good and its power over all evil. Part of the problem for all of us has to do with our discernment about what is the good and what is evil in our world and in ourselves.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 3 – 9 October

Monday, October 3rd
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, October 4th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Wednesday, October 5th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Thursday, October 6th
3:15pm Ministerial Service at Windsor Elms

Friday, October 7th
6:00-9:00pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, October 8th
9:00-11:00am Men’s Club – Church Decorating
7:00-9:00pm Newfoundland & Country Music Evening

Sunday, October 9th, Trinity XX/Harvest Thanksgiving
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, October 18th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015) and Iain Pears’ The Dream of Scipio (2002)

Changes to the Tentative Schedule:

‘Phantom of the Pipes’ concert scheduled for October 28th: cancelled

Tuesday, December 20th
7:00pm Capella Regalis Concert, “To Bethlehem with Kings”.

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