Prayers and liturgy

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The collect for today, the Feast of St Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (source):

O merciful Lord,
who didst turn Augustine from his sins to be a faithful bishop and teacher:
grant that we may follow him in penitence and godly discipline,
till our restless hearts find their rest in thee;
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: Hebrews 12:22-24,28-29
 The Gospel: St John 14:6-15

Carpaccio, St Augustine in his StudyArtwork: Vittore Carpaccio, St Augustine in his Study, c 1511. Oil on canvas, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

Le Gros, St BartholomewThe collect for today, the Feast of St Bartholomew the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O almighty and everlasting God, who didst give to thine apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:10-14
The Gospel: St Luke 22:24-30

More on St Bartholomew here.

Artwork: Pierre Le Gros the Younger, St Bartholomew, 1708-18. Marble, San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

“God be merciful to me, a sinner”

God’s “almighty power,” today’s Collect avers, is declared “most chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Think about how radical a statement that is! It, quite literally, turns the world on its head. It, quite literally, inverts the power dynamic of human lives politically, ecclesiastically, institutionally. God’s power is shown “most chiefly” in the acts of mercy and pity. This is the remarkable counter to the power politics of every age.

But mercy also shapes a world and a culture, something which Shakespeare knew. Mercy, he has Portia declaim in his play, The Merchant of Venice, is “mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes/ the thronèd monarch better than his crown.” Temporal power is one thing – something we encounter every day. It is wielded by kings, CEOs and bishops, politicians and tyrants, priests and police. It is signaled in the symbols and emblems of power; for instance, crown and scepter, mitre and staff. “But mercy,” she points out, “is above this sceptered sway.” Divine mercy is greater than all the panoply and machinations of human power. Portia makes the wonderful point that it is to be “enthronèd in the hearts of kings,” meaning that it is a necessary quality for what it means to be a good ruler. Why? Because, as she says, “it is an attribute to God himself.” Mercy has a divine quality. Her final point is the great teaching that our collect along with the scripture readings suggests. “Earthly power doth then show likest God’s/When mercy seasons justice.”

Mercy seasons justice. In other words, mercy perfects justice. When we forget this fundamental aspect of the Christian faith, we are worse than the worst and pervert justice itself. The task of the Church is to proclaim mercy as the fundamental principle for our lives precisely out of an awareness of the limits of human justice and out of an awareness of human sin.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Eleventh Sunday After Trinity

Dore, The Pharisee and the PublicanThe collect for today, the 11th Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O God, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Gospel: St Luke 18:9-14

Artwork: Gustave Doré, The Pharisee and the Publican, 1865. Engraving.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

The collect for today, the Feast of St Bernard (1090-1153), Abbot of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, Poet (source):

O merciful redeemer,
who, by the life and preaching of thy servant Bernard,
didst rekindle the radiant light of thy Church:
grant that we in our generation
may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love
and ever walk before thee as children of light;
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: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
The Gospel: St John 15:7-11

Fra Bartolommeo, Vision of St BernardArtwork: Fra Bartolommeo, The Vision of St Bernard, 1506. Oil on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am service

“Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart”

“No-one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit”. This is one of the earliest credal statements from within the Scriptures themselves. It is a Trinitarian statement really, the nucleus of what we proclaim more fully in the great Catholic Creeds of the Church which come out of the Scriptures – out of such words as these – and which return us to the Scriptures within a way of understanding. And such clarifying proclamations give shape to our lives in grace. “Concerning spiritual gifts, … I would not have you ignorant”, says St. Paul. “Now there are diversities of gifts…” and he goes on to list some of them. But they are gifts which arise out of this fundamental proclamation – out of what we have been given to say about God by God himself. “No one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit”.

The diversity of gifts belongs to our life with God in the communion of God – the Trinity. The different gifts are about his grace in our lives. To esteem them is to honour him. This is something communicated to us by the grace of God with us – Jesus Christ – God’s Word and Son. To confess Jesus as Lord acknowledges him as “I am who I am”, as God with us, God in the very flesh of our humanity, God made man. Only so can he be Lord. In Jesus the Old Testament mystery of God’s name – “I am who I am” – is opened to view and explicated in terms of the spiritual relation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. God’s relation to us radically depends upon his self-relation, upon the communion of God with God in God, the communion of the Trinity.

This is the burden of our proclamation in which we are privileged to participate. For if we cannot proclaim with clarity the God of our salvation, then we cannot participate with charity in the divine life which has been opened to view through the sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Something of this underlies the strong scene in today’s Gospel with St. Luke’s account of Christ’s cleansing the temple. What is it about really, except a recalling of the true purpose of the Temple, a reminder to us of the true purpose of this holy place? This is to be the place where we attend to the high things of God, to the things which Jesus wants us to know. This is to be a place of teaching. This is to be a place of our abiding in the love of God revealed and proclaimed.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am service

“Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation”

“Concerning spiritual gifts, … I would not have you ignorant,” St. Paul tells us in this morning’s epistle. But we are ignorant of spiritual gifts and know not the time of God’s visitation upon us. The consequence is suffering and destruction, enemies that surround us and seek our hurt, the harm of families and home for “they shall not leave one stone upon another.” Wow.

It is not a pretty picture. And Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because of our ignorance of spiritual matters that, in one way or another, have always to do with the quality of our being with God, with the degree of our awareness about the presence of God in human lives and in the life of the world. When we forget or ignore that, then we leave ourselves open to suffering and destruction and death, he is suggesting.

Sometimes this gospel story is taken as a prophecy about the Fall of Jerusalem in 70AD at the hands of Titus who, subsequently, became Emperor. Sometimes, too, it is taken as an indication that the Gospel, in this case, The Gospel According to St. Luke, was written after the Roman occupation and destruction of the Temple. Perhaps. But such speculations are entirely secondary to the spiritual intention of the passage, I think. It is, after all, a recurring theme in the Old Testament. Time and time again, Israel is defeated and destroyed politically but the prophets keep on calling attention to the spiritual conditions of Israel herself rather than just to point at enemies “out there.” The problems are profoundly within. The problems are fundamentally spiritual.

Jesus weeps and accuses us of our ignorance. Then he enters the Temple, “casting out them that sold therein and them that bought”, pointing out, in strong and graphic language, that the holy place has been misused. It is exists as “a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” What is the point?

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Prayers and liturgy

The Tenth Sunday After Trinity

The collect for today, the 10th Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The Gospel: St Luke 19:41-47a

Tissot, Jesus WeptArtwork: James Tissot, Jesus Wept, 1886-96. Watercolour, Brooklyn Museum, New York.

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Prayers and liturgy

Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The collect for today, the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD Most High, who didst endue with wonderful virtue and grace the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord: Grant that we, who now call her blessed, may be made very members of the heavenly family of him who was pleased to be called the first-born among many brethren; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:12-14
The Gospel: St Luke 1:39-49

Andrea del Castagno, Death of the VirginArtwork: Andrea del Castagno, Death of the Virgin, 1442-43. Drawing, Basilica di San Marco, Venice.

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Prayers and liturgy

Charles Inglis, Bishop

The collect for a bishop or archbishop, in commemoration of The Right Rev. Charles Inglis (1734-1816), first Church of England bishop of Nova Scotia, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Charles Inglis to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St Luke 12:37-44

Born in Ireland, Charles Inglis became in 1787 the first Bishop of Nova Scotia—the first bishop consecrated for any English colony.

Inglis Window, Hensley Memorial ChapelCharles Inglis travelled to North America in 1759 as a Church of England missionary to Dover, Delaware. In 1765 he went to Trinity Church, New York, as assistant to the rector, and was chosen rector in 1777. His ministry proved extremely controversial when he emerged as an outspoken Loyalist during the American Revolution. His life was threatened because he refused to omit prayers for the King and the Royal Family from the liturgy.

In 1783, Rev. Inglis and his family left the newly independent nation and returned to England, where he was consecrated the first Bishop of the Diocese of Nova Scotia, which at that time included Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward’s Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda. He immediately sailed to Halifax and began his work of furthering the progress and unity of the Church of England in Canada.

Bishop Inglis undertook an ambitious programme of church construction across Atlantic Canada; in 1789, he himself laid the cornerstone for the original Christ Church in Windsor. He also played a leading role in the establishment in Windsor of King’s Collegiate School (1788, now King’s-Edgehill School) and King’s College (1789, now University of King’s College, Halifax).

He died in 1816 at his country estate in Aylesford, and is buried under the chancel of St Paul’s Church, Halifax.

Hensley Memorial Chapel at King’s-Edgehill School has a window in the Chancel (photo at right), installed in 2007, that depicts Bishop Inglis, the father-founder of the School and the University.

The window is based upon an actual portrait by Robert Field which also hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. Inglis is shown seated surrounded by books. On the desk or table before him stands a bowl of apples, recalling his interest in agriculture and his cultivation of the ‘Bishop Pippin’ or ‘Bellefleur’ apple, attributed to him (never mind that they are a yellow apple!). A kind of Renaissance, almost “universal man”, having a wide range of interests, Inglis was also an amateur architect. Behind him, through the window in the window, if you will, is a representation of one of his plans for the College and School. In some ways, it recalls the Arts and Administration Building at the University of King’s College, now located in Halifax.

The window also captures Inglis’ vision of education and public service. It contains the motto of the School and the University. “Deo, Legi, Regi, Gregi” conveys the idea of an education that leads us out of ourselves and into the service of God and the service of others in the objective forms of public and institutional life. An education and a life that is lived for God, for the Law, for the King, and for the People.

More biographical information on Bishop Charles Inglis is available online from:

Trinity Church, Wall Street, provides more details on his travails during the American Revolution. Click here to read his 1776 pamphlet, “The True Interest of America Impartially Stated”.  His 1780 sermon, “The Duty of Honouring the King”, delivered on the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles I, is posted here.

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