‘There was a landlord who planted a vineyard’ ... grapes ripening on the vine in Lichfield a few weeks ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)Patrick Comerford
This afternoon I presided at the Community Eucharist in the Chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. The preacher was my colleague, Dr Katie Heffelfinger, and we used the Collects and Readings of the 15th Sunday after Trinity.
These are the same readings I used last Sunday in Kenure Church, Rush, Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, and Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan. But instead of the appointed psalm we used an optional alternative reading, Isaiah 5: 1-7, as a responsorial reading.
Once again, we were looking at the covenantal relationship between us and God, represented by the Ten Commandments, and the “love-song” of the “vineyard,” and the relationship that the workers in the vineyard should have had with the owner and his son:
“Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.”
It was so appropriate then, at the preparation of the Altar and the taking of the bread and wine, that we used the response used regularly on Sundays in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin:
Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation:
through your goodness we have this bread to offer,
which earth has given and human hands have made (Ecclesiastes 3: 13-14).
It will become for us the bread of life (John 6: 35).
Blessed be God forever (Psalm 68: 36).
Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation:
through your goodness we have this wine to offer,
fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become our spiritual drink (Luke 22: 17-18).
Blessed be God forever (Psalm 68: 36).
And the responses in the Eucharistic Prayer included:
Lord Jesus, we bless you:
you are the bread of life.
Lord Jesus, we bless you:
you are the true vine.
Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
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