Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, October 2025

Sunday, October 5th, Trinity 16
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, October 12th, Harvest Thanksgiving/Trinity 17
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, October 14th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Sunday, October 19th, Trinity 18
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, October 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Peter Harrison’s Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (2024) & Carlo Rovelli’s Anaximander and the Birth of Science (2009/2011 Eng. trans.)

Sunday, October 26th, Trinity 19
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity

Monogrammist A.I., The Rich Man and DeathThe collect for today, the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 6:11-18
The Gospel: St. Matthew 6:24-34

Artwork: Monogrammist A.I., The Rich Man and Death, 1553. Hand-coloured woodcut, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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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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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Feast of St. Matthew/Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Feast of St. Matthew/Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthew / Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

“We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves
your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

Once again we have an Apostolic Feast day on a Sunday. In late August it was Bartholomew the Apostle. Today it is Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist as the BCP calendar makes clear. At first glance, it seems so black and white, rather arbitrary. Jesus sees “a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom” and says to him, “Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.” Without question, without any hesitation, without any background information, it seems. And yet, both the Gospel and the Epistle provide us with a logic and meaning to the call of Matthew.

The ancient wisdom of the Church sees the saints essentially in the light of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. This is highlighted for us in the Epistle which underscores the Apostolic ministry in terms of Apostolic doctrine and in the Gospel where the call of Matthew is seen in terms of the mercy that calls sinners to repentance. It is not about calling attention to ourselves but to Christ and in images that recall John’s Prologue about Christ as the Word and Light of God. It all has to do with who Christ is.

“We preach not ourselves,” Paul says, but Christ, in whom “the light of God shines out of darkness” For what purpose? That it may “shine in our hearts,” not simply for ourselves but for our life with one another, in short, “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” Light is given so that we may be light for others. How do we know any of this? Only through the Gospel which illuminates our understanding of God naturally and supernaturally, by grace, we might say, in the concurrence of things natural and supernatural.

Matthew is called from “the receipt of custom,” in other words, a tax collector, like the publican several Sundays ago viewed in contrast to the Pharisee. Here, too, the Pharisees associate publicans with sinners and use that association to attack Jesus. “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” The conversation brings out the meaning of Matthew’s call to follow Jesus. It is a call to the ministry of repentance, a ministry of mercy received that gives mercy in turn. As such, it is a call to wholeness or better, to holiness which is really about the gathering of all things back to God from whom all things come.

That it seems so black and white might seem to suggest that collecting taxes or business and economics in general is evil. Kathleen Stock, observes that “black and white thinking and a lack of tolerance for ambiguity” is a feature of the social and therapeutic culture of our times. There is “a splitting of the world into good or bad objects, … [and] a failure to distinguish fervent wants from real needs.” She calls it “toddler logic,” meaning “I should get what I desperately want, and never mind whether it might be actually best for me, or what will happen afterwards.” Is that the case with the Feast of Matthew? I think not but in place of ambiguity there is a depth and wisdom that speaks to who and what we really are and need in Christ.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, September 2025

Sunday, September 21st, St. Matthew / Trinity 14
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
(We welcome Michael Gnemmi as our new organist!)

Tuesday, September 23rd
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: ‘Reading Genesis’ by Marilynne Robinson (2024) & ‘Sacred Causes’ by Michael Burleigh (2006)

Sunday, September 28th, Trinity 15
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Baptism & Communion

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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):

O 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

Titian, St. MatthewArtwork: Titian, St. Matthew, first half of 16th century. Oil on panel, Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity

Pieter de Jode I, The Healing of the LeperThe 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: Pieter de Jode I, The Healing of the Leper, c. 1600-34. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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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, Bishop of MelanesiaJohn Coleridge Patteson was a curate in Devon when Bishop of New Zealand George A. Selwyn persuaded him to go 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, baptising, confirming, building churches, and living among the people. On the main island of Mota most of the population were converted.

The Melanesian Mission of Bishop Patteson was a great success, until he encountered the slave traders. Laws against the slave trade were poorly enforced, and traders frequently raided the islands to kidnap or entice young men to work on plantations in Fiji and Queensland.

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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,
by the faithful ministry of your bishop Theodore
you bound up the wounds of the English Church
and renewed its vigour in the works of peace.
Teach us, we pray,
the art of your healing grace,
that we may know the true balm and remedy
for the divisions which afflict your Church;
through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 2:1-5,10
The Gospel: St. Matthew 8:23-27

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