Christ Church - (Anglican) Windsor, Nova Scotia

12 December 201030 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday After Advent

“Art thou he that should come?”

Questions upon questions upon questions. Advent is the season of questions, questions that open us out to the majesty and the wonder of God. “How shall this be seeing as I know not a man?” Mary asks, and in this season of questions, everything, we may say, hangs upon her answer, “be it unto me according to thy word.” But to enter into this mystery, the mystery which takes flesh and comes to birth through her at Christmas, we need the figure of John the Baptist as well.

Mary and John. There is a pattern here, we may say, a pattern woven out of the coincidence of names: Mary and John the Baptist in Advent; Mary and John the Beloved Disciple in Lent and, most especially, at the Cross on Good Friday. Two different figures named John but one Mary, the Mother of God. Yet somehow this coincidence of names helps us to appreciate the role of Mary, on the one hand, and the complementary voices of prophecy and discipleship, on the other hand. And such things are very much to the point of the Advent season and especially on the Third Sunday in Advent. They remind us of the dual nature of the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

John the Baptist points us to the one who comes both by his questions – “art thou he that should come or do we look for another?”- and his declaration, “behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Question and answer, in a way, even as Mary’s question leads to the response about “the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit” by which “the Lord shall be with thee.” Yet it is only through her answer: “be it unto me according to thy word” that this will be accomplished. Somehow John the Baptist and Mary complement one another to form the delightful and wonderful tableau of the Advent of Christ.

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12 December 201030 March 2026Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13-19 December

Tuesday, December 14th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks Mtg.

Thursday, December 16th, Eve of Ember Friday
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, December 17th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Saturday, December 18th
9-11:00am Men’s Club – Decorating for Xmas

Sunday, December 19th, The Fourth Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7-8:00pm Readings from Dorothy L. Sayers’ “A Man Born to be King”
(Hot mulled cider & Cookies afterward)

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12 December 201030 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
The Gospel: St Matthew 11:2-10

Artwork: Johann Erhard Gruber, St John the Baptist in the Prison, 1700. Wall painting, Church of the Jesuits, Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia).

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10 December 201030 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

A Meditation upon the Conception of Mary

17^th Century Anglican Marian Devotion: A meditation
upon the Conception of Mary

“Be it unto me according to thy word”

“Until they are good Marians, they shall never be good Christians” avowed Anthony Stafford in 1637, words which apply to every age of Christianity. We meet to honour the female glory of Mary, Virgin and Mother, through whom “salvation to all that will is nigh,” as the poet John Donne puts it, Christ being that “immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,” his conception the immediate consequence of her Annunciation. Yet her annunciation stands upon the necessity of her conception. We meet on the eve of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the week of the Second Sunday in Advent.

There is a certain paradox in this commemoration. On the week which is governed by the pageant of God’s Word Written in the form of the Scriptures we find this minor Holy Day which commemorates a completely non-biblical event, namely Mary’s conception. Yet, this minor commemoration has been in The Book of Common Prayer since 1549 and connects with an older doctrinal and devotional tradition of reflection about the role and place of Mary in the understanding of human redemption.

On one level, we could say it is all rather prosaic. For Mary to exist she had to be conceived. But that only heightens the question. Why the conception? Whether with or without the equally perplexing adjective of immaculate, meaning pure or spotless? Is this not all a bit much and whole lot removed from the biblical perspective? Well, it is outside the Scriptures but it belongs to a form of theological reasoning upon the Scriptures which, after all, have to be thought upon. They are given for our learning. The Conception of Mary belongs to the theological reflection upon the meaning of Christ’s Incarnation. This feast is part of a wonderful Anglican tradition of Marian devotion, but one that is governed by a clearly defined theological understanding.

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8 December 201030 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (source):

Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child-bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen thy glory
revealed in our human nature
and thy love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in thine image
and conformed to the pattern of thy Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

For the Epistle: Proverbs 8:22-35
The Gospel: St Luke 1:26-28

Artwork: Madonna and Child, c. 1230. Central apse mosaic, Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello, Venice.

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6 December 201030 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Saint Nicholas

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Nicholas (d. c. 326), Bishop of Myra (source):

Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who didst choose thy servant Nicholas to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of thy grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
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 St John 4:7-14
The Gospel: St Mark 10:13-16

Artwork: Fra Angelico, The Story of St Nicholas: The Death of the Saint (detail, Perugia Triptych predella), 1447-48. Tempera and gold on wood panel, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia.

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5 December 201030 March 2026Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

“Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, / and a light unto my path”
(Ps.119. pt. 14, v. 105)

What is the Bible? It is a book, to be sure, even ‘The Book’, as it were, though it was not always a book exactly. Formerly, there were scrolls of parchment as the Bible itself shows us. Jesus, for example, takes up the scroll of Isaiah and reads from it and proclaims the fulfillment of what he reads. But, at any rate, it has become a book, that is to say something enclosed between two covers. It is, moreover, a library of books, a book containing within itself a great number of books, a wide variety of literature, of things written at different times and in different places and by many different hands. Is it just a collection of literary artifacts from times and places long ago and far away? And if so, why read it now? As an historical curiosity? No.

Because it speaks not only to particular cultures but beyond them. Something of the answer to the question ‘what is the Bible?’ is captured in this characteristic. What we call ‘the Bible’ bears witness to this phenomenon of speaking beyond the particular context and circumstance for which or about which a particular text was originally written. It also bears witness to the writing down in one context of what is remembered from another context. For example, the people of Israel wrote down and put together while in exile in Babylon what was remembered of God’s Word to them at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. The prophets, too, are constantly recalling Israel to the Law.

Somehow what is remembered and written down is received as being altogether definitive, as defining the fundamental identity of Israel in quite different political and cultural circumstances. Somehow what is written down cannot be constrained to just one context. It reaches beyond.

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5 December 201030 March 2026Prayers and liturgy

Advent Antiphons

The Great ‘O’ Antiphons of Advent

December 16: O Sapientia

O Wisdom, which comes out of the mouth of the Most High, and reaches from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordereing all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

December 17: O Adonai

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in the bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the law in Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

December 18: O Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, which stands for an ensign of the people, at whom the kings shall shut their mouths, unto whom the Gentiles shall seek: Come and deliver us, and tarry not.

December 19: O Clavis David

O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel; that opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens: Come and bring the prisoners out of the prison-house, them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 20: O Oriens

O Dayspring, Brightness of the Light Everlasting, and Sun of Righteousness: Come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

December 21: O Rex Gentium

O King of Nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone who makes both one: Came and save mankind, whom thou didst make of clay.

December 22: O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all ‚nations and their salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

December 23: O Virgo Virginum

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any seen like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? The thing which ye behold is divine.

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

O COME, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that morns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
R: Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,
to thee shall come Emmanuel!

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high, (O Sapientia)
and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. R.

O come, o come, Thou Lord of might, (O Adonai)
who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe. R.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse’s stem, (O Jesse Virgula)
from ev’ry foe deliver them
that trust Thy mighty power to save,
and give them vict’ry o’er the grave. R.

O come, Thou Key of David, come, (O Clavis Davidica)
and open wide our heav’nly home,
make safe the way that leads on high,
that we no more have cause to sigh. R.

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high, (O Oriens)
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death’s dark shadow put to flight. R.

O come, Desire of the nations, bind (O Rex Gentium)
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven’s peace. R.

The initial words of the antiphons in reverse of their original order form an acrostic: O Emmanuel, O Rex, O Oriens, O Clavis, O Radix (“virgula” in the hymn), O Adonai, O Sapientia. ERO CRAS can be loosely translated as “I will be there tomorrow”.