Author: Admin_Mike

O HEAVENLY Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ did take our nature upon him, and was baptized for our sakes in the river Jordan: Mercifully grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may also be partakers of thy Holy Spirit; through him whom thou didst send to be our Saviour and Redeemer, even the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Acts 8:14-17; Psalm 29; Luke 3:15-22

The First Sunday of Epiphany: Jesus Baptism

Beginning here we glimpse the Three-in-one;
The river runs, the clouds are torn apart,
The Father speaks, the Spirit and the Son
Reveal to us the single loving heart
That beats behind the being of all things
And calls and keeps and kindles us to light.
The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings
‘You are belovèd, you are my delight!’
In that quick light and life, as water spills
And streams around the Man like quickening rain,
The voice that made the universe reveals
The God in Man who makes it new again.
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise and live and love forever.
- Malcolm Guite

O LORD, raise up (we pray thee) thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of thy Son our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end.  Amen.

Philippians 4:4-7; Psalm 145:18-22; John 1:19-30

This week’s sermon

ADVENT is a coming, not our coming to God, but his to us.
We cannot come to God, he is beyond our reach; but he can come to us, for we are not beneath his mercy.
Even in another life, as St John sees it in his vision, we do not rise to God, but he descends to us, and dwells humanly among human creatures, in the glorious man, Jesus Christ.
And that will be his last coming; so we shall be his people, and he everlastingly our God, our God-with-us, our Emmanuel.
He will so come, but he is come already, he comes always: in our fellow-Christian (even in a child, says Christ), in his word, invisibly in our souls, more visibly in this sacrament.  Opening ourselves to him, we call him in: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; O come, Emmanuel.
( Austin Farrer)

O LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare the 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.

1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Psalm 80:1-3; Matthew 11:2-10

The week’s sermon Advent 3

Midsummer night, and bonfires on the hill
Burn for the man who makes way for the Light:
‘He must increase and I diminish still,
Until his sun illuminates my night.’
So John the Baptist pioneers our path,
Unfolds the essence of the life of prayer,
Unlatches the last doorway into faith,
And makes one inner space an everywhere.
Least of the new and greatest of the old,
Orpheus on the threshold with his lyre,
He sets himself aside, and cries “Behold
The One who stands amongst you comes with fire!”
So keep his fires burning through this night,
Beacons and gateways for the child of light.

St. John’s Eve by Malcolm Guite

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Romans 15:4-13; Psalm 50:1-6; Luke 21:25-33

This week’s sermon

Some rise on eagles’ wings, this one is plain,
Plain English workmanship in solid oak.
Age gracefully it says, go with the grain.
You walk towards an always open book,
Open as every life to every light,
Open to shade and shadow, day and night,
The changeless witness of your changing pain.
Be still the Lectern says, stand here and read.
Here are your mysteries, your love and fear,
And, running through them all, the slender thread
Of God’s strange grace, red as these ribbons, red
As your own blood when reading reads you here
And pierces joint and marrow… So you stand,
The lectern still beneath your trembling hand.

The Lectern- (Malcolm Guite)

The investigation and true knowledge of the Scriptures requires a good life and pure soul and the virtue that is consonant with Christ, so that the mind, in following this path, may be enabled to reach and comprehend what it desires, as far as it is accessible to human nature to learn about the Word of God…The one who wishes to comprehend the mind of those who speak of God needs to begin by living the kind of life that washes and cleanses the soul and then go to the saints themselves, approaching them by imitation of their deeds, so that becoming aligned with them through a common way of life, he may come to understand the things that have been revealed to them by God.

( Athanasius of Alexandria)

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever.  Amen

Psalm 85:4-7; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 21:1-13

STIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Psalm 85; Jeremiah 23:5-8; John 1:35-45