Statements and other writings

Rector’s Annual Report, 2023

Click here to download the full Rector’s Annual Report for 2023 (in pdf format).

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2022 can be accessed via this page.

Rector’s Annual Report for 2023
Fr. David Curry
February 18th, 2024

“We go up to Jerusalem”

The word parish (παροικια from παροικεω) refers to where we dwell as sojourners in the land, and thus to the idea of the place of our abiding with God. The parish is where the concrete and corporate realities of our lives in faith are lived, via ad patriam. “For here we have no continuing city,” as Hebrews reminds us (Heb. 13.14), “for our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3. 20). The parish is the place of our abiding in that hope and desire for the “Jerusalem which is above”(Gal. 4.26). The distinction between the eternal and the temporal is essential against the tendency to collapse the one into the other.

We go up to Jerusalem. It is one of the great images of pilgrimage, of our journey in and through the wilderness to the paradise of God in his beauty and truth. It signals the true fulfillment of our longings and desires. We journey in the abiding love of God which shapes and moves our hearts and minds. It is embodied in our liturgy and in our prayers and praises, our service and sacrifice; they are the motions of God’s love in us.

We have persevered and endured faithfully and in good cheer through all of the ups and downs of the past year amidst the confusions and chaos of our time spiritually and experientially. It has been a year of faithfulness and commitment and for that I am most grateful to all of you. We are continuing to learn and find strength and comfort from God’s Word and Sacraments that help us to bear witness and to face the uncertainties of a divided and divisive world. It seems to me that as a parish we are gaining a deeper sense of penitential adoration and contemplation as what defines and guides our lives.

There have been of course the constant challenges of maintaining roofs and other building and operational concerns. This includes the re-shingling of the north side of the Hall roof and so too emergency repairs on the clerestory roof on the King Street side of the Church. Most significantly, the solar panels installed in the Fall of 2022 became operational in late January of 2023 and we have been pleased with how this has contributed to the reduction of our electrical costs. In the fall-out from the Covid years, it has been challenging to find workman and carpenters who are able to undertake some of the work which needs to be done. I want to thank Alex Jurgens and David Appleby for their diligence and perseverance in finding ways to get things done. We have been fortunate, it seems, to have found an excellent carpenter as a result of the pre-Christmas wind and rain storm which wreaked such havoc everywhere. We are hoping to be able to get a number of projects done in a responsible fashion. Bear in mind, that as a parish, we have long recognised that the buildings are part of the mission and life of the parish for which we have stewardship obligation.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, First Sunday in Lent

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

“He learned obedience through what he suffered”

The temptations of Christ in the wilderness on the First Sunday in Lent are a kind of commentary on Creation and the Fall and on the Ten Commandments and the Exodus. ?hey speak to the truth of our humanity as “co-workers with God” and the untruth of our humanity in its negation of God. They illuminate the struggle for us to take a hold of the grace given in Christ and as such they illustrate what Paul says in 2 Corinthians about our life in Christ. “We go up to Jerusalem” with Jesus as he told us last Sunday. We go up “as workers together”, having “receiv[ed] not the grace of God in vain.”

He uses three little words to describe the pilgrimage of our lives: two prepositions and a relative pronoun or conjunction: in, by, and as. They reveal the human condition. We struggle to work with God’s truth and mercy in the face of the disorders of our humanity, in the forms of suffering the various distresses of the world. We endeavour to do so by way of the qualities of God at work in us, the spiritual disciplines that allow us to face such things – “by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness,” etc. And we do as those who unite the seemingly contrary aspects and paradoxes that belong to our finite lives, ultimately “as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” He is talking about how we live in the wilderness of the world while being one in Christ; “as dying, and, behold, we live.”

The temptations belong to the beginnings of Jesus’ public ministry, to the beginning of the willed way of the cross, to the beginning of the way of suffering freely embraced. Jesus wills to learn what we have failed to learn. He learns obedience through the suffering which belongs to our failure to accept the givenness of the created order and the transcendence of God; in short what God wants us to do and to be. To be tempted comes with the territory of our being rational creatures – it belongs to the truth and good of our being. The temptations are our temptations. They recall us to the meaning of the Fall in Genesis. In this sense they follow logically upon the dust and ashes of Ash Wednesday; in short, to Creation and the Fall, and to the Exodus journey of learning through suffering.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Month at a Glance, February – March

(Services in the Hall until Palm Sunday, March 24th)

Thursday, February 22nd
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme: Reading with the Fathers I

Sunday, February 25th, Second Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Thursday, February 29th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme: Reading with the Fathers II

Sunday, March 3rd, Third Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, March 10th, Fourth Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
1030am Holy Communion

Tuesday, March 12th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, March 14th
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme: Reading with the Fathers III

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Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday in Lent

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

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11

J. M. W. Turner, The Temptation of Christ on the MountainArtwork: J. M. W. Turner, The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, c. 1834. Watercolor and gouache with graphite on cream wove paper, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 16 February

They understood none of these things

It is a telling remark that belongs to the possibility, on the one hand, of Lent as the pilgrimage of love in the Christian understanding, and to the whole project of education, on the other hand. Learning can only happen in the awareness and the acknowledgement of our ignorance. The disciplines of the spiritual traditions focus especially on the importance of self-examination. “The unexamined life,” Socrates goes so far as to say, “is not worth living.” Why? Because we are all learners in one way or another. Education necessarily emphasizes the theme of self-criticism as the counter to self-importance and pride. The Lenten journey begins with dust and ashes; in short, with the spirit of humility.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” as the first Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount puts it. The poor in spirit are the humble, precisely those who seek the things of God and recognise their need for what transcends the boastful claims and assertions about ourselves. We are too much with ourselves only to find a kind of emptiness within. Loneliness, we are told, is the major problem which our culture faces. It is the paradox of the ‘connect to the disconnect.’ The forms of connectivity actually separate us from being able to connect face to face and to engage in meaningful conversation. We need more than social media with all of its distortions and distractions to find meaning and purpose in our lives.

“We go up to Jerusalem,” Jesus tells us in the Gospel story which launches us into “the journey of the mind to God,” to use Bonaventure’s great phrase for the pilgrimage of the soul (Itinerarium mentis ad Deum). Jerusalem is the summit and symbol of human aspiration for what is beyond ourselves. It is the biblical symbol for the heavenly city, the “Jerusalem which is above,” as Paul puts it in Galatians. Our human longings – our desires – are incomplete and partial, an endless and futile chasing after this thing and that. Mercy is the gift of divine love which redeems and seeks the perfection of our partial loves. Thus the story of Jesus going up to Jerusalem illustrates and is shaped by the divine love so extravagantly expressed in Paul’s great hymn to love which was read last week; the charity that never faileth, that suffereth long, that seeketh not her own.

Jesus tells the disciples precisely what it means to go up to Jerusalem. It means the spectacle of the disorders of our humanity made visible in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. He tells us that “all the things written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished” in Jerusalem. Such is the divine love which overcomes all and every form of sin and evil. It is made manifest in the crucified Christ.

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Sermons

Sermon for Ash Wednesday

“Remember O Man, that dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”

The Ash Wednesday words at the Imposition of Ashes echo God’s words to us in the Genesis story of the Fall. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” These words belong to our being called to account by God for our sin and disobedience, our separation from God and from one another. Lent begins in dust and ashes. We begin with the remembrance of the Fall but is that our end?

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” but only so as to be raised up. “We go up to Jerusalem,” Jesus says. It symbolizes our lives in faith with God. Such is the journey of Lent. The American version of the children’s rhyme, Ring around the Rosie, is probably an echo of the devastating effects of the plague in 1665 in England, transformed centuries later into a light-hearted children’s game. Yet it reminds us of serious things.

Today, in a wonderful paradox of Providence, is both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. “It’s all about love” (Bruce Cockburn), the divine love which seeks the redemption and perfection of our humanity. We begin the pilgrimage of love with the ritual of the Imposition of Ashes upon our foreheads with the sign of the Cross and with the words, “Remember, O man, that dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” We are recalled to our origins in creation as the dust into which God has breathed his spirit but as well of the consequences of our falling away through our sin and disobedience; the awareness of separation, of sin, suffering, and death. Hence the significance of the ashes. They are a biblical symbol for repentance, our recognition of having turned away from God’s Word and Will yet desiring to be turned back to God. Lent is about taking our lives as spiritual beings seriously through “self-examination, and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditation upon God’s holy Word.”

Such disciplines belong to the pilgrimage of love. It is a question about what really matters, about where our hearts are. It is a question about our spiritual priorities: will it be with the passing things of the world or will it be with the eternal things of God? Lent is a call to maturity and seriousness about our “words, thoughts and deeds;” in short our lives spiritually which inform all that we do. The pilgrimage of love is about attending to the motions of God’s love made visible on the Cross and the idea of our participation in Christ’s sacrificial love. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” God seeks our hearts in his all-sufficient love seen through the breaking open of the heart of God in Christ’s Passion. “The sacrifices of God,” as the Psalmist tells us, “are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” In every way, God calls us home to himself in his eternal love. It is his love we seek, the love that raises us up.

“Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” as John Donne puts it in an extravagant and moving poem, “for, you/As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;/ That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend/ Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.” God has to break us to make us, it seems, and all by moving our hearts and minds; only so may we rise and stand. “Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend,” are gentle images that stand in stark contrast to the strong (and violent) verbs and images of “batter, break, blow, burn.” Such is the challenge of Lent. A time for serious thought and discipline about the radical meaning of our being embraced in the love of God accomplished in the sacrifice of Christ.

“Remember O man, that dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return”

Fr. David Curry
Ash Wednesday 2024

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Prayers and liturgy

Ash Wednesday

The collect for today, The First Day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St James 4:6-11a
The Gospel: St Matthew 6:16-21

François-Marius Granet, Ash Wednesday in a Church in RomeArtwork: François-Marius Granet, Ash Wednesday in a Church in Rome, 1844. Drawing with watercolour, Louvre.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Quinquagesima Sunday

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

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Sermons

Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday

“Charity never faileth”

“Push come to shove/ It’s all about love. Or so it would seem in the great to and fro” of experience and life, as one of Bruce Cockburn’s songs in his latest album, O sun O moon, puts it. Well push has come to shove as we stand on the brink of Lent for which this Sunday wonderfully prepares us. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and in a kind of Providential paradox it is also Valentine’s day! It’s all about love! But what do we mean by love? This Sunday teaches us about the divine love which redeems and perfects our human loves.

Lent concentrates the whole Christian pilgrimage to God into the span of forty days. It is a journey into light and understanding about the radical meaning of God’s love accomplished for us in Christ’s sacrifice. “We go up to Jerusalem,” Jesus tells the disciples and us in today’s gospel. Jerusalem is the summit and symbol of human aspiration and desire for an absolute good or end. It is “Jerusalem which is above,” our heavenly end in God.

We know, at least in part, I suppose, what that going to Jerusalem means: the overcoming of all sin and evil in the Passion of Christ; in short, the free gift of Christ for us and for our wounded and broken humanity. It is altogether about the accomplishment of “all things written by the prophets concerning the Son of man,” as Jesus himself says. The challenge for us is to take a hold of that radical love of God revealed to us in the Passion of Christ. It is nothing less than learning and living the love of God in our lives. Jesus speaks about his Passion, death and resurrection but, as Luke puts it, “they understood none of these things,” for as yet they have not happened. We know about them after the fact but are here being given the interpretative means to understand exactly what they mean.

Paul’s great hymn to love complements and shapes the understanding of the journey to Jerusalem. It celebrates the eternal love of God made visible in Christ’s Passion. The love he is talking about is the divine love, the love which never faileth. Charity means love in its strongest sense. Caritas in the Latin carries over into English as charity and charity is more, though not less, than our compassion and outreach to those in need, the acts of charitable giving, as it were. Yet those acts are grounded in the deep love of God. The Greek word here is agape and belongs to the theology of amor, for the pilgrimage of the soul by love, with love, and to love, the love of God which is the true end and meaning of all our loves.

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