The collect for today, the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 16:1-9
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
Read more about Oswald here.
Artwork: St. Oswald, King & Martyr, 19th-century stained glass, from the East window, North transept, Cartmel Priory, England. Photograph taken by admin, 9 August 2004.
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
The 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: Franz Joseph Hermann, The Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabean Brothers and their Mother, 1771. Pfarrkirche St. Pankratius (Parish Church of St. Pancras), Wiggensbach, Bavaria, Germany.
It is a theological truism to say that God wants what is best for us. So do we, of course, but unfortunately we do not always know what is best for ourselves or for one another. There is a darkness within us, in our own self-knowledge. We see, as St. Paul famously put it “in a glass darkly.” Louise Penny in her Canadian detective fiction novel Still Life captures this dilemma brilliantly. A young police officer looks in the mirror at the house of a suspect and notices a little note on the mirror which says, “you are looking at the problem.” She “immediately began searching behind her, the area reflected in the mirror”! She has missed the point completely. In a mirror we see ourselves. We are the problem. This carries over into our knowledge of others.
There are limitations not just to what we know about ourselves but also about one another. We grasp at shadows and images and mistake them for eternal truth. We catch at falling stars and fall with them in a burst of glory or ignominy. We do not know as we ought.
Yet, if that were not bad enough, there is an even deeper darkness in all of us. There is the darkness of our wills, the darkness of our refusals to act upon the truth and the good which we do know. We deny the light which is given to us to see and without which we cannot love. We see, albeit “in a glass darkly,” but we do not always act upon what we see.
This is the human condition. The grace of God is the answer to the human predicament, to the contradictions in which we find ourselves, whether in its ancient or its modern form.
For the developed cultures of antiquity, the Truth is the Law or the Good which is necessarily above us and beyond us but compelling us to live in accord with it. It is what we want but cannot have. The truth which we see we cannot reach. It is too high for us and yet it is what we most want. This can only leave us endlessly frustrated.
Modernity, on the other hand, presumes that we are each altogether complete. We are simply ends in ourselves without reference to anything outside ourselves, certainly without reference to the absolute otherness of God. We are, in this view, gods without God, only to find ourselves in a similar situation of despair because we have ceased to hope for anything more. There is nothing to hope for. Despair, both ancient and modern, is the denial of our desire for God.
The collect for today, the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Romans 8:12-17
The Gospel: St. Matthew 7:15-21
Artwork: James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes, 1886-96. Watercolour, Brooklyn Museum.
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary (source):
Lord God, the Source and Goal of all creation, we bless you for your servant Anne, whose daughter Mary was the mother of our Lord. Grant us grace in our succeeding generations to honour the gift of life, that young and old together may learn the love whose fruit is life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
The Lesson: 1 Samuel 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:26-33
Artwork: Masaccio, The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, 1424. Tempera on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
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
Artwork: Lorenzo Monaco, St. James the Great Enthroned, 1408. Tempera on panel, Santa Croce Museum, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 17 May 2010.
It is part of the remarkable exchange between Mary Magdalene and Jesus at the garden tomb after the horrifying events of the Crucifixion. She came full of grief and sorrow in the quiet of the early morning. She came looking for a corpse, the body of Jesus. She encounters the utterly unexpected reality of the Resurrection.
Jesus meets her at the empty tomb with the question of the angels, “Woman, why weepest thou?” and adds, “Whom seekest thou?” Mistaking him for the gardener, she repeats her request for the body of Jesus. Jesus’ response is to call her by name, “Mary,” to which she replies with a simple word of recognition, “Rabboni,” meaning master or teacher. This leads to the first command to her by the Risen Christ, a most curious command, “Touch me not,” he says, followed by the second command, her mission and his message. “I am not yet ascended to my Father,” Jesus prefaces his direction to her, “but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
Occasionally, a major saints’ day, meaning in our Anglican understanding, a New Testament figure or event, coincides with a Sunday. Every Sunday is by definition a celebration of the Resurrection in relation to which particular themes or teachings of Christ are set before us. The major saints’ day serve to complement this fundamental emphasis, even more so with Mary Magdalene who is the first witness to the Resurrection and the first to proclaim the Resurrection. She is “the apostle to the apostles,” as the Fathers of the early church put it, the one who is sent by Jesus to those whom Jesus will send out into the world as the emissaries of his word and will of human redemption. The Church is nothing if not apostolic; that is to say, rooted and grounded in the word and will of Jesus authoritatively passed on to the apostles by the author of our redemption, Jesus himself. Mary cannot be ignored in relation to that idea.
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God, whose blessed Son did sanctify Mary Magdalene, and call her to be a witness to his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by thy grace we may be healed of all our infirmities, and always serve thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 13:27-31
The Gospel: St John 20:11-18
Artwork: Taddeo Gaddi, Magdalene Washing the Feet of Jesus (from the fresco cycle Last Supper, Tree of Life, and Four Miracle Scenes), 1360s, Santa Croce, Florence.
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
Artwork: Bartolomeo Letterini, Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 1721. Oil on canvas, Chiesa di San Pietro Martire, Murano, Venice.
