Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Denys Calvaert, The Marriage at CanaArtwork: Denys Calvaert, The Marriage at Cana, 1592. Oil on copper, Private collection.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 16 January

Transformed by the renewing of your mind

It is a wonderful phrase from Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It complements Luke’s story of Jesus as a boy of twelve being “found in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and, and asking questions,” read in Chapel this week. These passages are traditionally read on The First Sunday after Epiphany and highlight the epiphany theme.

They reveal what belongs to the educational project, namely, the manifestation or making known of the things of God which complement, correct, perfect, and certainly challenge the things of our humanity; in short, epiphany (or education!) as transformative. Paul is suggesting the deeper meaning of the quest of the Magi-Kings who make the long hard journey to Bethlehem seeking the truth of God. They are transformed by what they see and adore, changed into something better we might say. As T.S. Eliot intuited, they are “no longer at ease” in their former places.

Being conformed to this world contrasts with being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The idea of renewal suggests something that has been lost and is to be recovered, a deeper sense of what belongs to the truth of our humanity. The Magi-Kings found Jesus in Bethlehem. Here, in the only story of the boyhood of Jesus in the Scriptures, he is found in the Temple engaged with the doctors of the Law. What does it mean? What is the epiphany here for us that just might signal a change for us? As Augustine says, “we shall be changed into something better” – in melius renovabimur.

There is something universal in that sensibility. We seek for something more and better than what belongs to our worldly pursuits which ultimately cannot satisfy the restlessness of our hearts because the goods of this world pass away. “Our hearts are restless,” Augustine famously says, “until they find their rest in thee,” in our abiding in God’s eternal love. It launches his Confessions which is about the universal journey of the soul and its conversion to the abiding truth of God. But only because of two things that complement one another: our seeking or desiring and the epiphany of God to us.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hilary, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Hilary (c. 315-368), Bishop of Poitiers, Doctor of the Church (source):

Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed thy Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 2:18-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:8-12

Workshop of Jeanne and Richard de Montbaston, The Ordination of Saint Hilary of PoitiersHilary was born in Poitiers, Gaul, of wealthy pagan parents. After receiving a thorough education in Latin classics, he became an orator. He also married and had a daughter. At the age of about 35, he rejected his former paganism and became a Christian through a long process of study and thought. Robert Louis Wilken describes his path to conversion in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (p. 86):

[Hilary] found himself turning to more spiritual pursuits. In his words he wished to pursue a life that was “worthy of the understanding that had been given us by God.” Like Justin [Martyr] he began to read the Bible, and one passage that touched his soul was Exodus 3:14, where God the creator, “testifying about himself,” said, “I am who I am.” For Hilary this brief utterance penetrated more deeply into the mystery of the divine nature than anything he had heard or read from the philosophers. Shortly thereafter he was baptized and received into the church.

Around 353 he was chosen bishop of Poitiers and became an outspoken champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. St. Augustine praised him as “the illustrious teacher of the churches”. St. Jerome wrote that Hilary was “a most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians”. Hilary became known as “Athanasius of the West”.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, First Sunday after Epiphany

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the First Sunday after Epiphany.

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Epiphany is a Greek word that has carried over into other languages such as English. It is derived from a word that refers to what appears; in other words, to what is manifest or made known. In the Christian understanding, it also refers to the festival of Epiphany understood, as the Epiphany Collect makes clear, to the idea of “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.” That remarkable story is wonderfully complemented by the readings for The First Sunday after the Epiphany.

This is challenging to our culture and world. Why? Because the whole idea of Epiphany, both the concept and the event, is so emphatically and primarily intellectual and spiritual. The emphasis, as today’s Collect makes clear, is on the primacy of knowing: Grant that we “may both perceive and know what things we ought to do” and “may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.” The Epistle and Gospel both turn on the primacy or centrality of knowing as essential to our life in Christ, captured most fully in Paul’s words, “be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

It is a significant phrase. “The renewing of your mind” was one of the favourite and most frequent passages of Scripture used by Fr. Crouse in many of his sermons and papers. It speaks powerfully to a fundamental and essential feature of our humanity as indicated by Aristotle and Augustine, to name but two figures in the history of thought and spirituality. “All human beings by nature desire to know,” Aristotle notes. “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee,” Augustine famously begins his Confessions, launching the journey of the human soul to its patria or end in God’s eternal loving and knowing of all things. As Aquinas observes, “God is the beginning and end of all created things, especially rational beings.” Knowing and our desire to know are essential to the understanding of what it means to be human. “Know thyself,” the Delphic Oracle proclaims. It means to know who we are within the order of the Cosmos or, to put it in Christian terms, Creation, and thus to know ourselves through our relation to God, the beginning and end of all things.

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Events, Month at a Glance

January – February 2025

(Services in the Hall until Palm Sunday, April 13th, 2025)

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

Sunday, January 19th, Second Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, January 26th, Third Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, January 28th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club

Sunday, February 2nd, Candlemas/ Epiphany 4
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, February 9th, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, February 16th, Septuagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Followed by Pot-luck Luncheon and Annual Parish Meeting

Sunday, February 23rd, Sexagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday After The Epiphany

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

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people which call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:1-5
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:41-52

Claude Vignon, Christ Among the DoctorsArtwork: Claude Vignon, Christ Among the Doctors, 1623. Oil on canvas, Musée de Grenoble.

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Prayers and liturgy

William Laud, Archbishop and Martyr

The collect for today, the commemoration of William Laud (1573-1645), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

St. Botolph's, William LaudKeep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, that, like thy servant William Laud, we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: Hebrews 12:5-7,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:32-39

A Prayer for the Church by William Laud:

Gracious Father, I humbly beseech thee for Thy holy Catholic Church, fill it with all truth; in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purge it; where it is in error, direct it; where it is superstitious, rectify it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it; where it is right strengthen and confirm it, where it is in want, furnish it; where it is divided and rent asunder, make up the breaches of it; O Thou Holy One of Israel. Amen.

Source: Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. (Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2004), p. 55.

Artwork: William Laud, stained glass, St. Botolph’s Church, Boston, England. Photograph taken by admin, 3 October 2014.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 9 January

Epiphany – The Gift of the Magi

Epiphany means manifestation, the idea of making things known. Such a concept speaks directly to the meaning of schools as places of learning because of what is made manifest, what is made known to students and teachers alike. Epiphany speaks to an essential feature of our humanity as intellectual and spiritual beings who, in some sense or another “by nature desire to know,” as Aristotle put it. No doubt that is true though only to one degree or another in terms of how much one desires to know.

Epiphany is also the term used for one of the more familiar features of the Christmas story. It is the term used for the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem, the proverbial ‘wise-men.’ The story has caught the imagination of artists and thinkers down throughout the ages. Yet the story, like so much of the Christmas story, is rather sparse on details. It is, however, rich in symbol and significance which is very much a feature of learning through what is made manifest and taught. A star, it seems, led the Magi-Kings, though we easily forget that Matthew, who alone gives us this story, tells us that it is Herod who actually sends them to Bethlehem. He is hardly in favour of the idea of a King arising in his territory. His fear will lead to one of the most disturbing and yet most significant stories in the Christmas mystery, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.

Who are the Magi-Kings? How many come? We know very little about them, neither their names nor their number. Holy Imagination will go to work to fill in the gaps and give them names and cultural identities. We assume there were three simply on the basis of the three gifts which they bring to the child Christ. The most we can say is that they ‘came from away’ – the proverbial ‘come-from-aways’ – and the proverbial ‘Johnny-come-latelies,’ too. They are not from Israel but from Anatolia, whether what we call Turkey in Asia Minor or perhaps even Persia. The point is that they are Gentiles – a term that simply refers to those from outside of Israel. Their coming means symbolically that Christmas is omni populo, for all people. This speaks to the universality of the Christian story.

Other religions and philosophies also convey a sense of things universal, things which are for all and not just for some. There is, it seems to me, a wonderful creative tension between the universal and the particular as well as the idea that we come to the former through the latter. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddah, for instance, comes to learn about the universality of human suffering, dukkah, out of which develops the various forms of Buddhism and the idea that suffering arises from our desires. This leads to the idea of the non-self; no self, no desires, no suffering. There is no you, in this view. That is very different from the assumptions about the self in western cultures.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Baptism of Our Lord

The collect for today, the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O HEAVENLY Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ did take our nature upon him, and was baptized for our sakes in the river Jordan: Mercifully grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may also be partakers of thy Holy Spirit; through him whom thou didst send to be our Saviour and Redeemer, even the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson Isaiah 42:1-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 1:1-11

Piero della Francesca, Baptism of ChristArtwork: Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, c. 1450. Tempera on panel, National Gallery, London.

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