Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity

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

O GOD, our refuge and strength, who art the author of all godliness: Be ready, we beseech thee, to hear the devout prayers of thy Church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 3:17-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 22:15-22

Rembrandt, The Tribute Money, detail

Artwork: Rembrandt, The Tribute Money (detail), 1629. Oil on panel, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. (Click here to view the full painting.)

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Prayers and liturgy

Willibrord, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Willibrord (658-739), Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, Patron Saint of the Netherlands (source):

Cornelis Bloemaert, Holy WillibrordO Lord our God, who dost call whom thou willest and send them whither thou choosest: We thank thee for sending thy servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve thee, the living God; and we entreat thee to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of thy service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-9

Artwork: Cornelis Bloemaert, The Holy Willibrord, c. 1630, Copper engraving.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity in the Octave of All Saints

“I say not unto thee, until seven times; but seventy times seven.”

Jesus’ response to Peter’s question is provocative and profound. “How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?” Peter asked. Jesus says, “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but seventy times seven.” If you do the math and take Jesus literally at his word – 490 – you have missed his Word and his point profoundly. There is no finite calculus when it comes to forgiveness, no worldly way of numbering that can possibly capture the infinite nature of our life in Christ. Forgiveness is the quality of the infinite in human lives and wondrously so.

The conjunction of the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity with the Octave of All Saints is especially and poignantly providential. “After this, I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number,” John tells us in his great vision of redemptive glory, that work which we call The Book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. I want to emphasize this point, the Saints are “a multitude which no man could number.” Somehow what belongs to the nature of the vision of redeemed humanity transcends number. Not everything can be reduced to a numerical formula, not everything can be reduced to number.

“I had not thought death had undone so many,” T.S. Eliot says in The Wasteland, the poetic masterpiece of the modern world in the awareness of its own emptiness, a work which continues to haunt the highways and byways of our contemporary world. It is actually a quote from Dante, from The Inferno of The Divine Comedy and it captures a feature that belongs to The Octave of All Saints. The great festival and feast of All Saints embraces the sombre yet profound reality of All Souls. The one follows upon the other. The Solemnity of All Souls follows upon the celebration of The Feast of All Saints; it marks the common reality of human mortality in the naming of Departed Souls. They are named in God’s own knowing and loving of All Souls and so there is a sense in which All Souls is only possible through the greater reality of All Saints, the vision and reality of our redeemed humanity. Yet our naming and numbering is always incomplete. So great is our forgetfulness.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 5 – 11 November

Monday, November 5th
4:45-5:15pm World Religions/Inquirer’s Class – Room 206, King’s-Edgehill School
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, November 6th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, November 8th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Saturday, November 10th
Fr. Curry conducting a Priests’ Quiet Day – Sackville, New Brunswick

Sunday, November 11th, Trinity XXIII / Remembrance Day
9:00am Holy Communion – Christ Church(shortened)
10:00am Cenotaph Service – King’s-Edgehill School
11:00am Cenotaph Service – Windsor Cenotaph

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, November 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Maria Rosa Menocal

Saturday, November 24th
4:30-6:30pm Annual Parish Ham Supper – Parish Hall

Sunday, December 2nd
Advent/Christmas Services of Carols and Lessons with King’s-Edgehill School
4:30pm Christ Church (Gr. 7-11)
7:00pm KES Chapel (Gr. 12)

Friday, December 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series: “With Kings To Bethlehem”, Capella Regalis, Men and Boys Choir, directed by Nick Halley

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Second Sunday After Trinity

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

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy house hold the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:21-35

Feti, Parable of the Wicked ServantArtwork: Domenico Feti, Parable of the Wicked Servant, c. 1620. Oil on canvas, Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.

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Prayers and liturgy

All Souls’ Day

The collect for today, The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, commonly called All Souls’ Day (source):

Everlasting God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of thy Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection,
that, in the last day,
when thou dost gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of thy promises;
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 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Gospel: St. John 5:24-27

Tintoretto, ParadiseArtwork: Tintoretto, Paradise, 1588-92. Oil on canvas, Palazzo Ducale, Sala del Maggior Consiglio, Venice.

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Prayers and liturgy

Richard Hooker

The collect for today, the commemoration of Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher of the Faith (source):

O God of peace, the bond of all love,
who in thy Son Jesus Christ hast made for all people thine inseparable dwelling place:
give us grace that,
Richard Hookerafter the example of thy servant Richard Hooker,
we thy servants may ever rejoice
in the true inheritance of thine adopted children
and show forth thy praises now and for ever;
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 Corinthians 2:6-10, 13-16
The Gospel: St. John 17:18-23

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

In the season of scattered leaves and in the culture of scattered souls, there is a gathering. In the greyness of the year comes Christ the King striding across the barren fields of our humanity to gather us into glory (with apologies to T.S. Eliot). It is the glory of the Communion of Saints.

All Saints’ Day recalls us to the vocation of our humanity. We are not called to heroic pretension and presumption but to holiness. We are called to the Communion of Saints. An article of Faith, the lovely vision of the City of God is nothing less than a vision of our redeemed humanity. It signals what God seeks and wills for us and reminds us that our life in Faith always places us in a community. But what kind of community?

The Gospel reading for All Saints shows us. It is a spiritual community defined by blessedness, the blessedness that comes from God to us and is about nothing less than the grace of God at work in human hearts. There is at once diversity and unity to our life in the Communion of Saints. Nowhere is that signaled more profoundly perhaps than in the Sermon on the Mount, in what is known as well as the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes are counter-culture both with respect to the ancient and the contemporary world. They counter our self-absorption, the narcissism and the nihilism that surround us and defeat us. They challenge us precisely because the Beatitudes place our lives upon the foundation of heavenly grace. They do so in the awareness of the limits of human life and experience considered simply in itself.

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Prayers and liturgy

All Saints’ Day

The collect for today, All Saints’ Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 7:9-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:1-12

Pietro Lorenzetti, Polyptych. ArezzoArtwork: Pietro Lorenzetti, Polyptych (at bottom: Madonna and Child with Saints Donato, John the Evangelist, John the Baptist, and Matthew), 1320. Tempera on wood, Pieve di Santa Maria, Arezzo, Italy.

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Prayers and liturgy

James Hannington, Bishop, Missionary and Martyr

The collect for a Martyr, in commemoration of James Hannington (1847-85), first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Missionary to Uganda, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

James HanningtonAlmighty God, by whose grace and power thy Martyr James Hannington was enabled to witness to the truth and to be faithful unto death: Grant that we, who now remember him before thee, may likewise so bear witness unto thee in this world, that we may receive with him 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: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

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