Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, June

Sunday, June 23rd, Fourth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 30th, Fifth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

July 2nd – July 5th
Atlantic Theological Conference
In Him was Life: The Mystery of the Incarnation
St. George’s, Halifax

Sunday, July 7th, Sixth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Fr. Curry is priest-in-charge for Avon Valley Parish and Hantsport June 30th, July 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th; Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge for Christ Church August 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th and Sept 1st.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Trinity

Domenico Feti, The Parable of the Mote and the BeamThe collect for today, the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 8:18-23
The Gospel: St Luke 6:36-42

Artwork: Domenico Feti, The Parable of the Mote and the Beam, c. 1619. Oil on panel, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

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Prayers and liturgy

Alban, Martyr

All Saints Margaret Street, St. AlbanThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Alban, First Martyr of Britain, d. c. 250 (source):

Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-16
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:34-42

Artwork: St. Alban, 1869, stained glass, All Saints Margaret Street, London. Photograph taken by admin, 25 September 2015.

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Events

Calendar of Services and Events, June through September 2024

The Calendar of Services and Events for the period June through September 2024 (tentative) can be downloaded here as a pdf document.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Third Sunday after Trinity

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

“Rejoice with me”

The parables in today’s Gospel illustrate wonderfully the teaching in the Epistle. Not only does “God resist the proud and gives grace to the humble,” but that grace conveys us unto glory for God “himself shall restore, stablish and strengthen you … after that ye have suffered a while.” God is “the God of all grace” and the parables illustrate the nature and the immensity of God’s grace.

The parables come as a response to an accusation. Christ is accused of receiving sinners and eating with them, thereby identifying himself with sinners, being made sin himself, as it were; condemned by association. But Christ’s response shows that he does this, not so as to be defined by sin, “he who knew no sin,” but for the sake of our redemption, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” He tells three parables, two of which comprise today’s gospel: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin. Beyond them, but as the completion of them, is the parable of the lost or prodigal son.

Sheep, coins, sons. There is a progression to these images. They belong together. I like to think of their interrelation artistically as forming a kind of triptych of divine grace in which the centre panel would be the parable of the prodigal son framed by the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. We only come to its central message through those two parables which stress the priority of divine grace in our restoration. What is emphasised is God’s reaching down to us in the gravity of our sins which separate us from God and from the community of divine love. There is, after all, a kind of passivity to sheep and coins, but this only serves to heighten the activity of God’s grace. Yet the effects of that grace are to be realised in us which is what we are given to see in the parable of the prodigal son. In him we see the motions of God’s grace in us that cause our restoration to grace, our establishment in grace, and our being strengthened by grace.

The parable of the prodigal son completes the illustration of the teaching about God’s redemptive grace. It signifies the strong and exultant note of God’s mercy towards us. What, after all, is the recurring theme here except the theme of rejoicing? More joy in heaven in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons.

God seeks the lost and God accepts the penitent who makes some motion of return to him for that motion is the motion of God’s grace in him. The first two parables make this point unmistakably clear. The sheep and the coins are utterly incapable of moving towards God. God’s grace literally picks them up and carries them, gathers them up to himself and to the community which his love alone creates. We are reminded that our joy is to be found in the free gift of God towards us in the giving of his Son.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, June

Sunday, June 16th, Third Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 23rd, Fourth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 30th, Fifth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Fr. Curry is priest-in-charge for Avon Valley Parish and Hantsport June 30th, July 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th; Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge for Christ Church August 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th and Sept 1st.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Trinity

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

Alfred Usher Soord, The Lost SheepO LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 5:5-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 15:1-10

Artwork: Alfred Usher Soord, The Lost Sheep, 1900. St. Barnabas Church, Homerton, London, England.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons, Sermons

Sermon for Encaenia 2024

“What is written? How readest thou?”

“The end of the matter?” Can it be? Is it really all over? Certainly, there is a kind of ending, the ending of your high school career certainly. This is the last Chapel service for you as students, to be sure. Tears of sorrow; tears of joy. Or both! We are both glad and sad to see you go and, perhaps, it is the same for you. In a short while, you will step up and step out of King’s-Edgehill, no longer students but alumni! You have made the grade, gradus, to being graduates. On this day, you are the pride and joy of the School, of your parents and grandparents, guardians and friends, family and neighbours, teachers and staff, and I hope, of one another. An end, indeed, it would seem.

Yet there is a different sense of ending signalled in this service and the events of this day. Encaenia is a Greek word that refers to renewal of purpose and dedication, to end as purpose and meaning, telos, we might say. Originally an annual dedication of sacred shrines and holy places, it has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D) and extends to those academic institutions which derive their origin and raison d’être from the mediaeval universities of Oxford and Cambridge throughout the English speaking world, including King’s-Edgehill. Thus “the end of the matter” recalls us to our beginnings, to the foundational principles and ideas that belong to education. At the very least, the word suggests the necessary connection between religion and education that is certainly an integral part of the history and life of the School.

Encaenia marks a redire ad principia, a return to a principle, a kind of circling back and around and into the ideas that belong to the educational project. In that sense, it is an ending that has no end. The mottoes of King’s and Edgehill remind us of an education that is about character and service: Deo Legi Regi Gregi – for God, for the Law, for the King, for the People – and fideliter – faithfulness in the life-long pursuit of learning.

We may wonder whether education is even possible in our technocratic culture. This is not new. There is no wisdom in techné, in the various skills and arts of human life, as Plato taught, and likewise so for technology. There is an abundance of knowing how to do but perhaps not so much of knowing what is. “Where is the life we have lost in living?” T.S. Eliot asked ninety years ago in his verse pageant “Choruses from the Rock.” He was not referring to Newfoundland. He notes the modern loss of the vital connection between living and wisdom. “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” Data or information is neither knowledge nor wisdom. This is an ancient commonplace.

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Prayers and liturgy

Basil the Great, Bishop and Doctor

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Basil the Great (c. 330-79), Bishop of Caesarea, Cappadocian Father, Doctor of the Church (source):

Oleg Supereco, San Basilio MagnoAlmighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Basil of Caesarea, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 2:6-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:21-24

Artwork: Oleg Supereco, San Basilio Magno, Oil on canvas, 21st century (source).

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