GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continuously dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-11
The Gospel: St Mark 16:14-20

Artwork: Giuseppe Cesari (Cavaliere d’Arpino), Ascension, 1599-1601. Fresco, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome. Photograph taken by admin, 29 April 2010.

The life of the resurrection is the life of the church. There is, however, the constant struggle to enter into its meaning; in short, to live it in our lives, especially in the face of hardships, sufferings and sorrows. At the very least, it means being called not only out of death as the defining reality of life, but also out of the ways of death which we know simply as sin, which is Paul’s point in this morning’s second lesson from Romans (6. 1-14).

The American spiritual writer, Annie Dillard, marvels at the complacency of Christians, especially in Church, and especially in the light of certain Scripture readings. Given the power of Biblical images, she advises that we should be wearing crash helmets and be given life-jackets and lashed to our pews! There is a kind of shock and awe quality to many a Scripture passage. We become anesthetized because of the calming beauty and order of the Liturgy and fail to be surprised by joy or shocked by fear. Some stories truly are amazing, even shocking, and yet they have so much to teach us. One such shocking and perplexing story, it seems to me, is there in our first lesson which is the story or, actually, the concluding part of a much longer story, known as the story of Balaam’s ass (Numbers 24).

Here is headline news: God makes dumb asses speak. In a way, that means me in the effort to speak God’s word clearly but also you, in terms of your lively participation in the service. The point is that God gives us words to say and think, words to live by and act upon in our lives. We need the shocking and difficult stories to awaken us to the grandeur of God’s engagement with our humanity without which we are dead in ourselves and therefore not alive to God. So what is the story?

Balak, the King of Moab, has seen what God has done through Israel to “Og the King of Bashan” and “Sihon, King of the Amorites”, those mighty kings whom he slew “because his mercy endureth for ever” as Psalm 136 so wonderfully yet disturbingly puts it. But in order to avoid a similar fate and be ousted from the land, Balak undertakes to hire the prophet Balaam to curse his enemies, namely Israel. In other words, Balak wants to employ God’s power for his own immediate political ends. And Balaam is to be his agent. Rent a prophet. Rent a priest. It is all the same. It runs completely counter to the fundamental insight that governs Judaism, Christianity and Islam; that is to say, it is a kind of idolatry which reflects a kind of atheism.

But the story of Balaam’s ass, confronts us with the principle of God as Absolute that defines the Judaic, Christian and Islam understanding in which both idolatry and atheism are strongly repudiated. The biblical story here is both complex and profound. It captures a certain moment, the problematic of making God subject to us rather than us subject to God.

In one way of reading the story, Balaam temporizes, at first, refusing to come to Balak and, then, agreeing to come, the implication being that he has succumbed to Balak’s repeated and forced demands. There are the strong temptations to conform to worldly expectations and demands; in short, to pervert the word of God to serve human ends and purposes, whether to curse what should not be cursed or to bless what should not be blessed; in short, to do what pleases people rather than what pleases God.

Balaam will indeed go to Balak but it will be after receiving a lesson from God about what he is to say, a lesson learned by way of his dumb ass who speaks to warn him about messing around with God’s word and way. “How can I curse whom God has not cursed,” says Balaam, “Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

Balaam has come out of the confusions and ambiguities of the prophetic ministry to learn the word and will of God which must condition his discourse. Our lesson is the oracle of Balaam, “the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, the oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down but having his eyes uncovered.” He has learned, we might say. He has become enlightened about the majesty and the truth and the power of God which cannot be manipulated, twisted and perverted to our imaginary goals and purposes. We deceive ourselves and we betray ourselves. God cannot be fooled. It is we who fool ourselves. The dumb ass is God’s agent that enlightens us about our folly. We are dumber than any dumb ass yet God can use the simplest things of creation to teach us about his grandeur, his wonder and his truth. He can even use me and you! But let us be clear. It is for our sake and for our good and for God’s glory.. In the long end of the day, only the truth can be known and loved; only truth and love triumph over human sin and presumption.

Today is known as Rogation Sunday. Rogation refers explicitly to prayer. Prayer is not about our groveling before God. Prayer is not about our whining. Prayer is not about our bargaining with God. Prayer is not about us simply. It is about our participation in the life of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Prayer, properly speaking, places us in the motion of the Son’s love for the Father in the Spirit. We take our part in prayer with the God who seeks our prayer. Prayer unites us to God.

It requires the constant purifying of our hearts and minds. In the rich Eucharistic gospel for this day (BCP, p. 197), Jesus lays out in the most wonderful and powerful way possible who he is and what he is for us and what it means for prayer. “In the world,” he says, “ye have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” In a way it simply means that we are not to be defined by the world, the place of passing fads and fantasies, the place of limitation and incompleteness, the place of machinations and agendas, such as Balak’s,  not to mention the place of folly and wickedness. What is that overcoming of the world? It is the triumph of God’s grace restoring not destroying nature. It provides the meaning of prayer. Everything is gathered into the primary relationship of God with God in God signaled so perfectly in Christ’s words: “I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” Amazing words. Everything is gathered into that relationship, the divine relationship.

Prayer is about the intentional placing of ourselves and one another and our world with God. Rogation Sunday brings these elements before us with great clarity and wonder. “You never love the world aright,” the poet, Thomas Traherne, notes, “until you learn to love it in God.” And so with everything else.  We never love aright until we love in prayer, placing ourselves, our friends and our world with God in prayer. But prayer here reaches out into every aspect of our lives. To pray is to live what we pray, or at least to attempt to do so, hence confession remains an ever present and necessary presence, itself a form of prayer and praise.

Balaam learned from a dumb ass whom God made to speak. Balaam learned that blessing (and cursing) can only arise from the heart that is with God in prayer. That means honouring God in his truth and majesty rather than taking God captive to our little schemes, whims and follies. Rogation Sunday is about the prayer that places everything with God in the love of the Son for the Father in the power of the Spirit. God is God and not simply what we want him to be for ourselves.

In the secular culture of North America, this is Mother’s Day. Quite apart from being the busiest day of the year for the floral industry and the phone companies, it reminds us of some home truths, or so it seems to me. Home truths like the fact that everyone is born of woman; home truths like the fact that mothers constitute the critical matrix through which children are born and nurtured in life. It is for more reasons than mere sentiment that we celebrate mothers. We honour them. And that is to place them with God in thanksgiving. Through their sacrifice and dedication, we have life, a life that is to be lived to God. Prayer is about our lives as lived for God with one another. Humanly speaking, in some real sense it starts with our mothers. We place them today with the God who has come to draw us back to himself. Such is the joy of redemption and the joy of God’s engagement with us in the work of salvation.

“I came forth from the Father and am come into the world:
again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”

Fr. David Curry
Rogation Sunday, 2012

Tuesday, May 15th, Rogation Tuesday
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion

Wednesday, May 16th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks Mtg. – Parish Hall

Thursday, May 17th, Ascension Day
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30-7:30pm Brownies Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Saturday, May 19th
7:00-9:00pm Celebration of 30th Anniversary of Fr. David Curry’s Ordination – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 20th, The Sunday After Ascension Day
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, June 10th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Organ Recital by Garth McPhee. Admission: $10/$5 students. (Please note change of date.)

O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St James 1:22-27
The Gospel: St John 16:23-33

Artwork: Pieter Paul Rubens, The Last Supper, 1631. Oil on canvas, Brera, Milan.

Life-giving God, who alone hast power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of thy servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them thy Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46

Artwork: Sir John Robert Steell, Florence Nightingale, 1862. Bronze, Florence Nightingale Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London. Photograph taken by admin, 25 August 2004.

O Lord of all,
who gavest to thy servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavic people:
we pray that thy whole Church may be one as thou art one,
that all who confess thy name may honour one another,
and that from east and west all may acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and thee, the God and Father of all;
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: Ephesians 3:1-7
The Gospel: St Mark 16:15-20

Read more about Cyril and Methodius here.

Wine and cheese, and tea and coffee, will be provided.

Fr. David was ordained to the priesthood on May 23rd, 1982.

Almighty 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 Gregory of Nazianzus, 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 Lesson: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St John 8:25-32

Today is the Fourth Sunday after Easter. It coincides with another important commemoration in Canadian Culture. Today is also the Sunday which recalls the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic was a tremendous war effort in which Canadians played a most significant role. It was one of our defining moments. Against the darkness of storm and sea, against the threat of the unseen enemy – the German U-boats in their wolfpacks – there was the determination and the will to provide for our war-torn and embattled allies in Europe. The task was undertaken at a time when the outcome of the war was by no means certain.

In those dark and uncertain early years of the Second World War, the dangers that the convoys and their escorts faced in setting out from Halifax Harbour were very real; the prospects truly fearful. It was not only to face the wild and elemental sea – the North Atlantic in all its majestic fury and power – but also the terror of torpedoes, the sudden destruction and explosive power that sank ships and sailors, soldiers and supplies in far shorter order than the iceberg which sank the Titanic.

The Battle of the Atlantic was an enterprise of real courage undertaken in the face of great fearfulness. We do well to remember it. What enables peoples to face such fearful prospects? Why embark upon such fearful and fateful voyages? Because of the conviction that there are things worth dying for, things without which we cannot live. They are our rational and political freedoms. They belong to the spiritual dignity of our humanity, to who we are in the sight of God, the very things that Christ is at pains to teach us in these Eastertide Sundays.

Christ himself is the great teacher of the Resurrection. The Resurrection is the great triumph of God’s grace over human sin and sorrow, the great triumph over death and destruction in all its forms, both in the wars of the world and the wars that rage within each of us. It is the grace that has to be taught by the Word proclaimed and celebrated, and continually taught. Having brought us to birth in this new life, the Risen Christ would also nurture us in this new life.

He teaches us about that radical new life of the Spirit which he has inaugurated and established through his death and resurrection. We can only be nurtured in what we have received; in what has been given to us. We can only give sacrificially and selflessly through what God has given us. “Receive with meekness the implanted word,” St. James says. For what we have received from God has to be nurtured in us by God. If we have learned anything from Holy Week, it is that all the forms of human love fall short of the completeness of God’s love for us. It takes a certain quality of humility, of meekness, really, which is simply about our openness and willingness to learn. There is a challenge for our age. Our loves find their perfection and their fullness only in the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus.

Christ nurtures us in this new life through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son. He is God’s Spirit given to be the life of the Church, the soul of the body. Here we are nurtured and sustained through the all-sufficient sacrifice of the Word and Son of the Father. We can only enter into this love through the forms in which it has been made known to us; that is to say, through the Revelation of God in the witness of the Scriptures to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can only act upon what we receive.

We need to understand again the truth and the power of these images that are being revealed to us in these Eastertide Sundays, both for what they teach about the mystery of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and for what they teach us about ourselves. Christ places us in his love for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the mother where that divine life has its beginning in us and where we are nurtured in its understanding. God creates the womb out of which we are born anew and enter into this understanding.

It belongs to the magical, mystical quality of the Easter season to set our lives upon a new and ever-renewing foundation of grace. “Grace is the foundation”, says one of the great nursing fathers of the spiritual tradition, “which alone can rule our unruly wills and illuminate our darkened minds” (Bonaventure, freely translated). Sin is that spirit of unruliness in us, our lawlessness, and sin is that spirit of darkness, too, our blindness to the things which Christ would have us know. God “alone,” as the Collect so wonderfully puts it, meaning only God, can “order [our] unruly wills and affections.”

In the great Gospel which orders all our thoughts on this day, Jesus teaches us about the radical meaning of his death and resurrection in his going from us. He teaches us about the coming of the Holy Spirit to keep us in the love of God. “Now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?” In his presence, we take his presence for granted. The question about where he is going really belongs to the question about who he is. He is going to the Father. That is the meaning of the life of the Son. His whole life is towards the Father. He places us in that motion of his love for the Father in the Holy Spirit. But it means the constant renewing of our understanding, the constant correcting or “reproving” of our minds.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is dynamic. There is nothing static about God.

We are placed upon a whole new foundation of understanding. The Holy Spirit convicts us of the atheisms of our sinfulness. The Holy Spirit reproves our consciences by recalling us to who we are in the truth of God. The Holy Spirit corrects our understanding about righteousness; it is found in God through Jesus Christ “because I go to the Father.” Everything is drawn into that primary relationship. Our unruly wills are set aright in Christ, in our being where he is. He is always towards and with the Father. The Holy Spirit convicts, corrects and confirms us in the understanding of the victory of Christ’s resurrection; he has overcome all that stands between us and God and so between one another.

We have only to live it. We live it in the Church, our mother, who gives us birth into the life of God and nurtures us in the understanding of the divine love which creates the womb and which creates the Church. Here we are constantly renewed, reproved and restored into the divine fellowship of the blessed Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Here we learn to receive anew “the implanted word [of God] with meekness.”

“Receive with meekness the implanted word”

Fr. David Curry,
Easter 4, 2012

Wednesday, May 9th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Thursday, May 10th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
3:00pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Saturday, May 12th
4:30-6:30pm 7th Annual Lobster Supper

Sunday, May 13th, Fifth Sunday After Easter / Rogation Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion – KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, June 10th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Organ Recital by Garth McPhee. Admission: $10/$5 students. (Please note change of date.)