Magic Statistics

In true undercover web-elf fashion, I’ve unearthed some Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) news that you will not read anywhere else—not Anglican Journal nor the ACC website.  Our primate, The Most Rev Andrew Hutchison, is on the move.  He’s traveling to Yukon next weekend.

Archbishop Hutchison will arrive in Whitehorse on the afternoon of Thursday, 14 September.  On Friday and Saturday, he will look around our fair city and meet with Archbishop of Yukon Terry Buckle and other diocesan clergy and their families.  On Saturday afternoon, he will unveil a new exhibit on the history of Anglicanism in Yukon.  I plan to be there and photo-blog the event—if my cover isn’t blown in the meantime.

On Sunday morning, 17 September, the primate will preach and preside at the Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral.  After lunch, he will drive to Carcross, Tagish, and Atlin.  The following day, he will visit Carmacks and Pelly Crossing.  Tuesday morning, he is scheduled to fly south.

That’s a lot of travelling in the last day and a half.  Will that qualify him as a peripatetic primate?

As I said, you will almost certainly find none of this information posted at official ACC news, or, as Binky calls them, “snooze”, services.  Abp Hutchison attended the Episcopal Church General Convention 2006 in Columbus, Ohio, last June, which Anglican Journal reported only because his perspective on the events was deemed newsworthy.  After GC2006, however, the primate went to England for several weeks, about which neither Anglican Journal nor the ACC “news” page breathed a word.  We only knew about it because Abp Hutchison’s reactions to GC2006 fallout were quoted in the British press a few times.  Oh, and an item entitled “Sermon at Southwark Cathedral, London UK, Diocese of Southwark” suddenly appeared on the ACC page of stuff written by the primate, with no mention of how or why he came to be in London at that time.  ACC communication at its best.

In the Church of England, on the other hand, it’s a different story.  The website of the Archbishop of Canterbury has a page of press releases that generally announce in advance all kinds of interesting stuff coming up in his calendar of activities, including trips outside the country.

Anyway, now that I’ve posted the news of the primate’s visit, I’ll have to follow up with on-the-spot coverage of his activities—although I don’t think I can manage to pull off a live-blog of his sermon.  I‘ll try not to say anything that prompts him to call for Canadian Anglicans to “fast” from reading blogs for 40 days.

Call me rigidly traditional, but I am instinctively suspicious of hymns written after the turn of the century.  (Don’t ask which century.)  But every so often, a recent hymn breaks through my prejudice and touches my soul.  This morning’s offertory hymn at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse, was one of those.  “O Christ, The Great Foundation” was written by Timothy T'ingfang Lew (1891-1947), but I don’t know who translated it into English.

O Christ, the great foundation on which your people stand
to preach your true salvation in every age and land:
Pour out your Holy Spirit to make us strong and pure,
to keep the faith unbroken as long as worlds endure.

Baptized in one confession, one church in all the earth,
we bear our Lord's impression, the sign of second birth:
One holy people gathered in love beyond our own,
by grace we were invited, by grace we make You known.

Where tyrants' hold is tightened, where strong devour the weak,
where innocents are frightened, the righteous fear to speak,
there let your church awaking attack the powers of sin
and, all their ramparts breaking, with you the victory win.

This is the moment glorious when he who once was dead
shall lead his church victorious, their champion and their head.
The Lord of all creation his heavenly kingdom brings,
the final consummation, the glory of all things.

The tune of this hymn is Aurelia, composed by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of Charles, in 1864.  Used for many hymns over the years, Aurelia is now best-known as the tune for “The Church’s One Foundation”.

The collect for today, the 13th Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 3:16-22
The Gospel: St Luke 10:23-37